Being Aware Of The Impact Of Things We Can Often Not Think About (like Straws) Is Important If We’re

every time I do a web search, right at the top I have AI info dumping on me

just give me the top result please

It’s relatively popular so you might have already, but in case you haven’t: 

If you like BNHA / Boku No Hero Academia / My Hero Academia then you should definitely watch Tiger and Bunny

It’s the spiritual 2011 precursor to BNHA in that it is a modern, self-aware, intelligent play on the superhero genre with a cast of unique and likeable characters and interesting world building. 

It’s basically the world of BNHA but in reverse. When I first watched BNH I said “this is literally Tiger and Bunny but with school children and more powers”. Tiger and Bunny is like BNHA but with a cast of adults instead of teens. 

People with powers are called NEXT, they make up a small percentage of the population, were seen as anomalies and hated until a man decided to make them into reality TV show stars and profit off broadcasting their heroism. Now superheroes are superstars, and the anime was funded specifically by ad revenue for REAL companies that they have on their suits, but with an in-universe explanation. Clever. 

The main character is Izuku Midoriya if Midoriya were a hot dad. 

Not kidding. 

The main character is Kotetsu AKA Wild Tiger, who’s the only hero who seems to truly believe in real heroism instead of the capitalism it feeds. Though people at first think he’s outdated and idealistic and a little stupid, everyone in the cast is basically in love with him by the end of season 1, and he’s inspired all of his fellow heroes, ESPECIALLY his partner, the prettyboy Batman Iron Man pastiche, Barnaby (who Kotetsu nicknamed Bunny), with whom Kotetsu shares a superpower.

There are lots of other great cast members too, INCLUDING A SUCCESSFUL AND WELL-LOVED QUEER CHARACTER WHO HAS AN EMOTIONAL CHARACTER ARC IN ONE OF THE FILMS

The plot of Tiger and Bunny follows Tiger being paired up with Barnaby after his own agency goes bankrupt. Barnaby, meanwhile, is the only superhero without a secret identity, who’s actively looking for the man who murdered his parents. A man who’s literally The Joker. He even has a Harley Quinn. 

THEY EVEN HAVE A KILLER WHO BELIEVES HEROES ARE HYPOCRITES AND NO TRUE HEROISM EXISTS ANYMORE EXCEPT IN ONE PERSON AND ALL FALSE HEROES NEED TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON. SOUND FAMILIAR?

Yeah his name is Lunatic and he’s literally Stain the Hero Killer if Stain weren’t a human ninja turtle

You may also have noticed the ridiculous number of BL / Yaoi doujin dedicated to this anime and its two main characters. Which is actually how I got to watching the anime in the first place. Because they’re all really ridiculously beautiful. 

Which is unsurprising considering their relationship, which half the creators have stated can be read as romantic. 

But it sadly isn’t shown to be onscreen. Yet. Maybe one day.

It’s two seasons long plus a couple of movies (the movies have a different art style but are still mostly worth watching), and there have been teases of films and a third season recently with the still ongoing success of superhero shows, including BNHA. 

IN SUMMARY: WATCH THIS SHOW. IT’S VERY GOOD. THE DUB IS ALSO EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST. 

EDIT: It’s on Netflix but the Netflix version erased their suit ads so it just looks weird and removes a large part of the world building. That said, I think you can also watch it on the VizMedia site with the ads? Either way, just remember that, if you watch it on Netflix, they’re supposed to have advertising on their suits :))

Edit 2: The subs apparently have more nuance than the dubs! Especially when it comes to the smaller LGBTQ+ aspects of the story. So the subs are more recommendable. I enjoy the dubs simply because I prefer dubs when they’re good and the dubs here are excellent, but it’s worth watching in either form. 

“Hawks/Dabi did everything right.”

[Or: Dabi and Hawks are ideological masterpieces and picking a side explains your kind of moral-justice.]

Let’s take off our fandom-glasses for a moment and look at the gorgeous canon conflict between Dabi and Hawks and “the injustice of morality”.

Now, the goal is to destroy an ‘unjust’ society. Which will inevitably kill many innocent people. Though: Some of the leagues members are genuinely good people (Twice) or just got abused by the system (Dabi) and see no other choice. Dabi sees his action as “justice”, since he longs for revenge against the man/system who did him wrong. [- But this brings him in conflict with his understanding of moral-pain, as he knows the people he kills have family. - To the point where he cried blood.]

His moral ideology is the extreme opposite of Hawks’.

When Hawks joined the league, he acknowledged the problem of “injustice”. He saw the flaws of the system and felt genuine sympathy for Twice. But he is unwilling to risk a single civilian life for changing it.

The bloody fun starts when Hawks is gets confronted with the “Trolley-Problem”.

This is a version of an ethical dilemma from 1967, surrounding the question: Do I stick to the “moral code” by not hurting a criminal or do I choose the “best” outcome, by causing a criminal’s death?

In a survey around 90% of the respondents said: “It’s okay to let one person die, to save the larger number of people.” This is the natural human ideology of “Utilitarism” and also occurs in social animal-species behavior.

BUT If you make it more “personal”, let’s say: You like the person and you have to kill them yourself – And Hawks liked Twice. - Even if it still saves a thousand lives, the reaction is completely different now: Only 10% of the respondents would still do it. Because now it “feels” wrong.

Even if “not killing this person, because you don’t want to feel wrong” would lead to “letting thousand people die, but feeling right”.

Well, Hawks does not feel “heroic” - Even before he killed Twice, he had huge doubts about his own dignity.

[He jokes he doesn’t want to be No. 2. He thinks his back isn’t broad enough. He jokes he isn’t “Top-hero”-material. (ref: ch. 188; ch.185)]

Hawks is one of the most intelligent characters within the MHA Universe, and his way of approaching problems is not influenced by “situational factors” but by “logical weight.”

Hawks took the harder choice and forced himself to suppress his own moral instincts for this. [Remember, he saved Twice’s life risking his own out of pure reflex. Hawks is a selfless hero, to a point where Dabi relied on it:]

[In fact, Hawks is so selfless, that he sacrifices his own “wish to feel like a good person” so save the larger number of people. ]

“Ah. Cool motive, still murder.” Does the end really justify the means?

Let’s say (solely hypothetical) Hawks killed Twice – but Toga copies Twice’ quirk, and over hundred million civilians of Japan die nonetheless. Hawks has now killed a good man, without direct logical weight behind it.

Someone could (or will, because I’m fucking going to) conclude that the righteousness of Hawks action might solely depend on its success. ( – At least till we include numbers in Hawk’s imaginary litigation. Because Twices quirk included “exponential growth of fighting power”, the heroes’ chances of winning would run asymptotic to zero, which would result in the death of over a hundred-million people. Not taking the “risk” of beeing injustice would therefore have been illogical from Hawks’ perspective.)

So was Hawks ‘injustice’?

From Dabis point of view: “Well- Yes of fucking course.”

Because Dabi’s character personifies the exact opposite ideology: “deontological theory”, which focuses not on the product of his acts, but the intrinsic value of the act in and of itself. Dabi approaches problems complete and utterly “selfish”.  - No, this does not mean that he can’t do things for others out of sympathy- It means that he acts bird-free after his own instinctive moral-code and makes his decisions because he feels like they are the right thing to do. - Like a normal human - just a little more extreme. 

[See, Dabi recruited Hawks into the inner circle of the League, without trusting him - because he doesn’t trust the League either. (He said this and acted like this several times.) Just like Hawks, Dabi is a lonely and paranoid man. But other than Hawks, he is driven by the injustice he experienced. He uses on his own pain as fuel to fight for the things he right now sees as “good”.)

- Dabi got exploited and abused by the hero-system? -> He will destroy said hero-system as revenge, to create momentary “justice” for himself.

- Dabi gets the chance to benefit from a hero? -> He will recruit him without much caring for long-term consequences.

- Dabi loses a valuable ally/partner trough a hero? -> He will kill/torture said hero as revenge.  

Dabi is more “justice“ fixated than Hawks.

Dabi would never kill a man he likes for the “greater good”. (He also does not care about the “liberation”-ideology, or anything regarding the “freedom” of regular civilians. Which is shown in his fight against Geten and again in his monologue in chapter 267.) He only cares about the ‘injustice’ of the hero-system. Dabi clings to his “humanity” more than Hawks does and he reacts to his own pain with highly emotion-driven actions. He clearly does not care about the long-term effects his actions have on him- or everyone else. 

[Neither Hawks nor Dabi expect a long life, but both deal with it very differently.]

From Dabi’s point of view, Hawks is injustice, because he killed a good man, right here and now and the consequences – good or bad – do not matter. (“The action in itself was amoral.”)

[It is very interesting to see the reactions within the fandom, paralleling Dabi’s exact ideology to the point where some wanted Dabi to punish Hawks in the name of justice. Dabi’s moral-code is to lesser extents portrayed in many shonen-protagonists (e.g. Gon from HxH) – and sometimes criticized as immature.]

Actually, both sides can be reduced to:

Dabi’s: “Think for yourself and do whatever the hell you recognize as righteous right now.” and Hawks’: “Think for the others and do whatever the hell is necessary to bring the maximum good to society.”

…And I also think thats pretty fucking cool.

To all the fanfiction writers out there!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK!!!

I can complain, whine, bitch and moan but in the end you are-

MAGNIFICENT! YOU ARE A LIFE SAVER!!

their canon relationship is wildly amusing to me 

niraikanai

This Pride don’t forget your brothers and sisters fighting for their rights all over the world. 

Fictional characters might not be real, but our relationships with them are. 

Studies show it’s difficult for our brains to distinguish between our familiarity with characters on TV and our personal relationships with real people. The effect is so strong that just thinking about watching your favorite TV show can make you feel less lonely. 

(Source, Source 2, Source 3)

Ah yes! D.Gray-Man, the manga where the main villain is aggressively trying to adopt the main character.

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