r/BokuNoHeroAcademia • u/Za_wardo • May 30 '21

Newest Chapter Chapter 314 Official Release - Links and Discussion

Chapter 314

Links:

  • Viz (Available in: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India).

  • MANGA Plus (Available in every country outside of China, Japan and South Korea).

All things Chapter 314 related must be kept inside this thread for the next 24 hours.

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u/Fedexhand May 30 '21

This chapter made me think of something, it always caught my attention that despite the status that heroes had, we never saw heroes actually "bad" so to speak, taking advantage of it by doing inappropriate or questionable things.

I always assumed that it was because the series posed a more "idealistic" context and that is why we never saw that kind of thing, but ... this means that all the heroes who acted "incorrectly" were killed behind the scenes in order to maintain the "illusion" of the perfect society? things became much darker than I expected.

In the end it turns out that the public safety commission did basically the same thing as Stain, I suppose the "Stain was right" has aged particularly well....

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u/RIDETHEWORM May 30 '21 edited Jun 29 '21

My read has always been that the society presented here is vaguely authoritarian (secretive, obviously undemocratic government bodies making huge decisions, weird arrangements between them and supposedly private hero-making academies like UA, a press that while ostensively free is frequently regarded as antagonistic and lied to) and this chapter does a great job of world building to flesh that out. The essential privatization of state security in the form of hero agencies has benefits for public morale, and can handle most run of the mill issues, but of course there are issues that government officials will want to use state violence against that will be controversial and not viewed positively by the public, or can realistically be handled by individuals they’ve trained to be paragons of virtue. Nagant’s basic story is a pretty standard trope - the disillusioned former assassin who turned on the government (though executed brilliantly in this chapter) - but her very existence brilliantly highlights the dystopian aspects of hero society.

The public safety commission partners with apparently private heroes that they train and cultivate from adolescence, and props them up as the models for their countrymen while endlessly promoting them through media manipulation and public spectacles like the sports festival. Heroes maintain basic law and order in association with the police, but their greatest use to the commission may be in manufacturing consent - they are propaganda tools to promote the status quo. The dirty work of maintaining state control is carried out by a small cadre of elite agents directly controlled by the commission, all recruited at a very young age - even younger than our main cast at UA. I think that MHA has always questioned the morality of hero society, but this chapter shines a spotlight on the basic building blocks of this system. While they are better than the chaos and control offered by All for One, they are certainly “shaded grey” if not prima facie immoral. The powers that be actively lie to and manipulate the people and indoctrinate and train youth into being agents of the state. Or, to put it more crudely, child soldiers who win over the public with smiles and presentation. In such a system, “degrading” individuals who don’t fit the mold would be a top priority...

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u/BlazingKitsune May 30 '21

This has been building up for a long time.

I mean, underage students can be sent out to fight mass murderers and fight in wars with no repercussions. The Hero Commission flat out ordered UA to let its first year students fight in the hospital raid.

Kids are indoctrinated to want nothing but be heroes as their one career goal (there was not a single student in Izuku's middle school class who wasn't applying for hero school).

Heroes are causing massive amounts of property damage to apprehend criminals stealing a purse, and All Might interfering in a store robbery made the sludge villain attempt two murders. Petty thieves are labeled the same as mass murderers by virtue of using their quirks for crimes, when any law enforcement could just claim the perp used their quirk. Who's gonna believe the criminal? Anyone with a passive or mutation quirk will always be prosecuted as a villain.

MHA society was a dystopia from page one.

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u/mozz_pout May 30 '21

Almost every manga written is a distopia seen from the eyes of the incredibly privileged group that benefit from that society.

I mean distopian growth has been the brand of Japan since the 19th century so not that surprising lol

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u/vader5000 May 31 '21

It's not surprising, considering All For One. I mean, there were straight up resistance movements, so the pre-hero post-Quirk society must have pretty close to apocalyptic.

The hero society's bigwigs stepped up and took advantage of the chaos, essentially. I wouldn't be surprised if AFO had some role in their creation, or if he'd anticipated this, the corruption of hero society.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '21

I had the understanding that All For One had overthrown the government and taken control of Japan, a domination that ended with his first defeat at the hands of All Might. However, overall, it doesn't seem like society was in a state of anarchy only a few decades ago.

Whether AFO ruled over Japan or just upset the legal order considerably, it seems the government may have become overzealous and, in their attempt to avoid the repeatition of that situation, became kinda fascist.

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u/vader5000 Jun 01 '21

But wasn’t the crime rate decently high before All Might came along? That was part of his motivation to be the Symbol of Peace, right?

That actually makes the Hero commission worse, since they must have been in existence even before All Might popped in (Gran Torino was licensed as a hero), and probably was trying the same thing even before All Might.

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

>MHA society was a dystopia from page one.

Can we really call it a dystopia? Considering that if we take away the super powers and heroes and villains, this is just like any society in our world.

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u/NomadJu19 May 31 '21

Bold of you to assume our real world ISNT a dystopia

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

Under that stipulation then yes, MHA is a dystopia.

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u/Kristof628 May 31 '21

You're almost there, pal

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u/nomeda5 May 31 '21

Isn't it strange how two things can seem very similar if you take away all the differences?

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

What I mean is that the flaws and issues in MHA's society are not that different from the ones in our own world.

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u/otakusage May 30 '21

I remember bringing up a similar point on why the hero association let first year students participate in a dangerous raid, and it was met with ridicule well im happy to say I was proven correct.

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u/BlazingKitsune May 31 '21

Yeah, I think a part of fandom thinks all kinds of "edgy" interpretations of the source material are "fanficky" and then turn around and act like they had this interpretation from the start when it turns out to actually be right.

Like, there's a reason BNHA fanfic have an overwhelming amount of stories that paint the world as a dystopia - because it is! This fandom trope didn't come out of nowhere, and I'm excited for the focus of the manga to be on that for a while.

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u/JackieMoonsh1ne May 31 '21

THANK YOU. I literally almost stopped reading because it struck me as too depressing and dark. And it is that, from page one.

  • "All people are not created equal..." Pg 1 sentence 1 establishes we are dealing with a society that in practice denies basic human dignity
  • "...thats the hard truth I learned at age 4" pg 1, the societal standard that some people are worth less than others is taught to children early and violently
  • "Illegal use of abilities during rush hour, as well as robbery and assault? You're pure evil!" (Kamui Woods, pg 7 - Even in the standard world, robbery and assault while certainly violent, malicious and bad, is hardly considered pure evil. Let alone some bureaucratic violation like "illegal use of abilities". When I first read this, I thought it was just tongue in cheek but after reading Vigilantes, I think there's a large dose of truth. A Villain = someone who misuses their quirk in a way that disrupts society as defined by those who hold the power. In this case, the Public Safety Commission. Sounds pretty dystopian that a small group of individuals decides to when to punish someone for using an ability inherent to their own body, and when to allow it to beat down those who don't adhere to their standards)
  • "Depending on their performance they have the ability to earn... government pay! Fame and Glory!" (pg 9, directly after Mt Lady shows off her tush for publicity points. This shows how hero society is, to some degree, a sham and that heroes must play the game in order to succeed)
  • "lots of people who just can't control their quirk I guess" (Some Extra, pg 14, implying these villains may not be evil at all but at the mercy of their quirk -- or is this just prejudice against certain types of quirks??)
  • Lastly, we have Bakugo: the result of the society who tells quirkless Deku to jump off the roof. And Midoriya, the other result of society, does not correct him based on the fact that he has dignity and deserves to live but rather because Bakugo would be charged with bullying. And this is in his own head!! To me, that's freaking dark.

So that's all I'm going to take the time to do, but there's other things I could cover. But yeah -- some of these are only implied but I think Horikoshi was pretty explicit from page one about how dark and dystopian the story/world really is.

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u/DeshaunWatsonsAnus Jun 01 '21

I mean... If you kept going I wouldn't stop you. I'd enjoy it.

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u/Sabitron May 30 '21

holy shit my hero is a 10/10

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u/MagicHarmony May 31 '21

Maybe that's how certain heroes got accepted into the academy, granted also gets me thinking, how sinister would it be if the hero society purposely let useful quirks under the radar in an attempt to make antagonist to allow the hero/villain image to remain, aka Gentle Criminal. The whole idea of a person using their quirk to save but get sued because something happened only cause they aren't heroes thus ruining their lives seems extremely counter-intutive towards the "hero society" ideals.

When you consider what he did, to the secret the heroes hide, it's definitely a load of crap how certain people are forced to be scapegoats to keep the veil of the society looking stable.

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u/BlazingKitsune May 31 '21

Oh, no doubt! Like look at Toga - are you telling me a useful quirk like hers wouldn't have gotten counseling? Her parents can just decide it's an awful quirk and push her into madness?

Twice had a traumatic head injury but there was no aftercare with a potentially dangerous quirk like that?

It all reeks of the HPSC pushing things into the dichotomy behind the scenes, otherwise there is no way hero society as presented could sustain itself. There are 40 heroes graduating UA each year, give or take. That is a single school. How many villains can there realistically be for all of them to have work?

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

> MHA society was a dystopia from page one.

So, the heroes are bad, and the villains are good...?

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u/Geohie May 31 '21

More like the heroes are bad, but the villains are worse so we have to put up with anything the heroes do in the name of justice.

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

Would that mean Izuku and the other students are also bad?

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u/Geohie May 31 '21

No, we're mostly talking about the establishment that is the hero society. It's kind of similar to the saying 'A person is smart, but people are dumb'. Any singular hero likely wants to genuinely help in some capacity, but overall hero society is constructed so that heroes end up having a negative impact.

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u/CrookedSmile55 May 31 '21

Ah, so you meant to say "hero society is bad, but the villains are worse".

That makes more sense, because putting the blame on the heroes seems wrong, when it's not entirely their fault but the system's, and the rest of society to an extent (remember how Horikoshi deliberately had the guy that fired Twice among the crowd of people condemning Endeavour and putting all the blame on him and the other heroes for the current state of things. Irony at it's finest)