That’s not fair, it’s not even close to that bad. Harry Potter is a story about a rich nepobaby jock with special good boy genes who lives in a nightmarish hellworld the author fundamentally thinks is right and good, who just sort of coasted along on pure vibes reacting to shit that happened from my very distant memory of all the books that were out when I was still a literal child which was only like the first half of the series at the most, who wins on his own with a special good boy technicality and grows up to be a cop.
BNHA is a story about a working class kid who lost the magic gene lottery but gets the super power equivalent of a scholarship for being selflessly altruistic and self-sacrificing, who suffers considerably in the course of working towards his dream of inspiring and helping others, in a nightmarish hellworld the author clearly recognizes is bad and can make some cogent criticisms of even if there’s no offered solution, and the ultimate conflict is resolved through the combined efforts of the entire cast in a stand up fight, although the protagonist does still grow up to be a sort of cop-without-the-license-to-kill/first responder hybrid.
It’s a flawed and incoherent work, but is fundamentally the work of a well-meaning lib who just doesn’t have the necessary framework to do better, as opposed to HP which is reactionary slop from a noxious status-quo neolib who is completely amoral and monstrous.
The only difference between Harry and Deku is that Harry has a horrible upbringing and Deku has a nice mom. Otherwise their stories are basically the same, totally normal kid gets magical/super powers and gets thrust into a world they couldn’t have been in otherwise where they live out a school life as The Chosen One before ultimately facing a pre-ordained nemesis evil to change literally nothing about the world.
And they both become cops.
Harry Potter is also a working class kid who is given everything he could ever want upon becoming The Chosen One. Just the same as Deku. You can’t pretend his upbringing with the Dursleys wasn’t real just because he gets given everything he could ever need when he discovers he’s magical. Deku similarly is given everything he could ever need upon becoming The Chosen One.
The only difference between Harry and Deku is that Harry has a horrible upbringing and Deku has a nice mom.
There’s such a massive categorical difference in themes and tone between the “classic” British story of a seemingly poor boy victimized by the dirty vulgar poors who learns he’s actually a pure blooded aristocrat fancy lad and gets whisked away on a shopping trip to eat tasty treats and buy fun consumer goods with the family fortune, before coasting through everything as a special meathead rich boy who does sportsball good, then wins on a technicality because he is literally the magic chosen one who doesn’t even have to get his hands dirty he just wins for being a good little fancy lad with the right genes, versus a kind of lib story about a kid with the diegetic equivalent of a learning disability overcoming it with hard work and a scholarship, who has to fight tooth and nail to keep up, and who ultimately plays second fiddle to his rival as part of a collective group effort.
Like the “normal kid -> somehow powers? -> weird school time -> involved in some kind of conflict in some fashion” is such a generic plot progression that if you tried hard enough you could probably map it to hundreds of series across a ton of genres, not to mention how “normal kid goes to magic school and is actually super awesome and the hero and stuff” is like an entire genre in and of itself, like half of them isekais too lmao. Little Witch Academia does it and is meaningfully better than either story, Witch Hat Atelier does at least some of it and is better still from the volumes I’ve read. Fucking I’m in Love With the Villainess does it and is both an isekai and even more lib than BNHA although it gets a whole lot of bonus points for not just being queer but openly talking about LGBT issues and doing the only “this is explicitly a trans allegory” story that I’ve ever seen done well, although it loses a whole bunch again because Rae Taylor is the actual worst.
While we’re on lgbt issues, MHA introduces a trans character as a villain and then kills them, they are the first named character in the show to die.
It’s been so long since I watched the early seasons that I’d completely memory holed that part.
Tbh I really can’t believe I’m defending BNHA, because I do not like it and it’s such a flawed story with incoherent themes and bad pacing (I mean like half the story is drawn out shonen tournament arc bullshit which has always been bad in every series to ever do it, most of which is even lower stakes and is just the class doing war game exercises) or bad worldbuilding ideas (like the “no quirk use without a hero license” thing that IIRC the author later regretted and sort of retconned in the notes that accompany the volumes) and other series do its whole thing better, but it is absolutely not as bad as Harry Potter either thematically or in terms of actual quality.
That’s not fair, it’s not even close to that bad. Harry Potter is a story about a rich nepobaby jock with special good boy genes who lives in a nightmarish hellworld the author fundamentally thinks is right and good, who just sort of coasted along on pure vibes reacting to shit that happened from my very distant memory of all the books that were out when I was still a literal child which was only like the first half of the series at the most, who wins on his own with a special good boy technicality and grows up to be a cop.
BNHA is a story about a working class kid who lost the magic gene lottery but gets the super power equivalent of a scholarship for being selflessly altruistic and self-sacrificing, who suffers considerably in the course of working towards his dream of inspiring and helping others, in a nightmarish hellworld the author clearly recognizes is bad and can make some cogent criticisms of even if there’s no offered solution, and the ultimate conflict is resolved through the combined efforts of the entire cast in a stand up fight, although the protagonist does still grow up to be a sort of cop-without-the-license-to-kill/first responder hybrid.
It’s a flawed and incoherent work, but is fundamentally the work of a well-meaning lib who just doesn’t have the necessary framework to do better, as opposed to HP which is reactionary slop from a noxious status-quo neolib who is completely amoral and monstrous.
The only difference between Harry and Deku is that Harry has a horrible upbringing and Deku has a nice mom. Otherwise their stories are basically the same, totally normal kid gets magical/super powers and gets thrust into a world they couldn’t have been in otherwise where they live out a school life as The Chosen One before ultimately facing a pre-ordained nemesis evil to change literally nothing about the world.
And they both become cops.
Harry Potter is also a working class kid who is given everything he could ever want upon becoming The Chosen One. Just the same as Deku. You can’t pretend his upbringing with the Dursleys wasn’t real just because he gets given everything he could ever need when he discovers he’s magical. Deku similarly is given everything he could ever need upon becoming The Chosen One.
There’s such a massive categorical difference in themes and tone between the “classic” British story of a seemingly poor boy victimized by the dirty vulgar poors who learns he’s actually a pure blooded aristocrat fancy lad and gets whisked away on a shopping trip to eat tasty treats and buy fun consumer goods with the family fortune, before coasting through everything as a special meathead rich boy who does sportsball good, then wins on a technicality because he is literally the magic chosen one who doesn’t even have to get his hands dirty he just wins for being a good little fancy lad with the right genes, versus a kind of lib story about a kid with the diegetic equivalent of a learning disability overcoming it with hard work and a scholarship, who has to fight tooth and nail to keep up, and who ultimately plays second fiddle to his rival as part of a collective group effort.
Like the “normal kid -> somehow powers? -> weird school time -> involved in some kind of conflict in some fashion” is such a generic plot progression that if you tried hard enough you could probably map it to hundreds of series across a ton of genres, not to mention how “normal kid goes to magic school and is actually super awesome and the hero and stuff” is like an entire genre in and of itself, like half of them isekais too lmao. Little Witch Academia does it and is meaningfully better than either story, Witch Hat Atelier does at least some of it and is better still from the volumes I’ve read. Fucking I’m in Love With the Villainess does it and is both an isekai and even more lib than BNHA although it gets a whole lot of bonus points for not just being queer but openly talking about LGBT issues and doing the only “this is explicitly a trans allegory” story that I’ve ever seen done well, although it loses a whole bunch again because Rae Taylor is the actual worst.
this conversation inspired me https://hexbear.net/post/6593791?scrollToComments=false
While we’re on lgbt issues, MHA introduces a trans character as a villain and then kills them, they are the first named character in the show to die.
It’s been so long since I watched the early seasons that I’d completely memory holed that part.
Tbh I really can’t believe I’m defending BNHA, because I do not like it and it’s such a flawed story with incoherent themes and bad pacing (I mean like half the story is drawn out shonen tournament arc bullshit which has always been bad in every series to ever do it, most of which is even lower stakes and is just the class doing war game exercises) or bad worldbuilding ideas (like the “no quirk use without a hero license” thing that IIRC the author later regretted and sort of retconned in the notes that accompany the volumes) and other series do its whole thing better, but it is absolutely not as bad as Harry Potter either thematically or in terms of actual quality.