Nothing with a series as massive as Boku no Hero Academia happens in a vacuum. Especially a Jump series, and especially at the end. The events on screen are important. They’re the main reason we’re here, why I’m writing and you’re reading. They’re the climactic moment of 167 episodes of buildup. But they kind of are what they are. You’ll have views on them and so we’ll I, and I’ll share mine. But the story of how all this is received is an important one, and it too demands a certain amount of exploration.

Before I sat down to write this (well, I was already sitting down) I explored the fan response to this episode pretty extensively. And the picture is painted pretty clearly – anime viewers mostly loved it. TV ratings are through the roof (it beat One Piece last week), and the tone of commentary is overwhelmingly positive. Manga readers mostly hated it. The tone of their response when these chapters hit was overwhelmingly negative. That’s the essence of this, and the most interesting question to ponder. Why is that? Are anime audiences – this one at least – just that different from manga audiences? Or is there something else at play here?

I guess my answer to that would be “yes, and probably but I’m not sure what”. Anime reach more people than manga do – and different people. Even here. I think it’s safe to say more people with no other connection to HeroAca watch the anime than read the manga. But for whatever reason, the BnHA manga readership seems to be one of the most relentlessly negative around, even in the context that WSJ kaijuu usually have overwhelmingly critical audiences that love to complain. A lot of times with Bleach and Naruto and the like that negativity manifested itself in criticizing “their” series’ rivals. With HeroAca, for reasons I don’t really understand, it seems to manifest in criticizing the series itself.

Not that I would say Horikoshi is above criticism, mind you. Or this ending (what we’ve gotten and what’s still to come). Some of it I can’t get into yet for obvious reasons, but in terms of the fight itself, that I can comment on. I have to praise Horikoshi-sensei for allowing time for a coda, something all long action series should do but often don’t. After 400+ chapters it would have been a crime to effectively end on the battlefield, because what happens to all this people after the battles are over is crucial to the way we emotionally part with the series. That said, though, he certainly didn’t leave room for four episodes worth of coda – which begs the interesting question of just what Bones intends to do with all that time.

In the end it was All For One who was the last man standing after all. In his game of musical identities with Shigaraki it was AFO who slid his butt into the final chair. But his grasp of what was really happening was weak. He wasn’t alone in there, thanks to Deku’s last gasp strategy. And the removal of his brother – and most of his stated goals – from consideration seemed to leave All For One uncharacteristically untethered mentally. Izuku was in a terrible state, ever after his rewind. But thanks to Kurogiri – who in the end seemed to be acting on behalf of both his old and new friends – he didn’t have to face AFO alone. Not remotely.

Some felt that having all of Deku’s old allies rally to his side was hokey. So be it – I feel like I get the point of it. The mechanics of how it happened made sense in the context of the plot. And as importantly, it made sense for Izuku himself. He is who he always was – a boy too nice for his own good, someone who relied on other people. All For One recongizes this in Midoriya – sees the way this “weakness” All Might never had could also be a strength. The kind of loyalty he inspires came about honestly, through his hard work and the nature of his character.

Equally, Izuku’s compassionate take on Shigaraki and All For One at the end is perfectly consistent with who he is and always was. It – especially with AFO – seems to really piss of a huge chunk of manga readers. I don’t quite get that to be honest. Did you expect Deku to change after 420 chapters? Or were you just not paying attention to who he was? He sees the humanity in his enemy, no matter the enemy. And in a way it was his ability to see both Shigaraki and All For One that way even when they didn’t themselves that allowed Deku to finally bring them down.

The matter of the cost of all this we’ll deal with next week and beyond. It’s no spoiler to say it will be substantial – Izuku suffered terribly and gave up a lot in order to land that final Deku Smash, and he certainly wasn’t the only one. There are still a lot of unanswered questions here. above and beyond the aftermath of the battle itself. But we can say with certainty that Deku isn’t the sort of guy who would have made any other choices – no matter what his stated goals and dreams from the beginning have been.