The tragic fall of the House of Todoroki
Last time on My Hero Academia,
we learned a bit about Hawks. The number 2 hero of Japan was born Keigo Takami,
the son of a small time criminal and a mentally ill woman that harbored him.
His father was abusive and his mother neglectful, and his only real treasure
was an Endeavor toy his mother bought him once to get him to stop crying.
Eventually his father was arrested, by Endeavor, and then Keigo impressed some
agents for the Public Safety Commission when he used his quirk to save a bunch
of people after a massive car accident. He was taken in by the PSC and trained
to use his quirk from about the age of seven or eight to turn him into an
extremely efficient hero. In the present, a recovering Hawks and Best Jeanist
go to his mother’s house to confirm that she was the one that gave Dabi his
real name and family history. She skipped town but left him a note apologizing for
it and telling him she’s proud. We see more fallout from the shaken confidence
in the system, with random civilians using support items to try to defend themselves
from villains running rampant… and causing metric tons of collateral damage.
Some heroes are flat out quitting and disappearing in disgrace. And finally
there’s Endeavor, who is dealing with a ton of emotions he’s not equipped to
handle, like the return of a son he thought long dead. His sobbing at the situation
is interrupted by the arrival of his other children, and most shockingly of all
his wife Rei. She tells him that they need to discuss Toya. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open in a Japanese villa twenty
something years ago when Enji Todoroki first met Rei Himura at a marriage
meeting. It’s like a job interview but you’re interviewing for a spouse. Rei’s
father tells Enji that he’s very pleased such an up-and-coming hero is interested
in marrying his daughter. The Himura family is one of those old families that feel
like they need to pontificate about how old and awesome they are. As Mr. Himura
talks about the family, Enji zones out a little and thinks about Rei. He
describes her as cold as ice itself. He says from the outside looking in, there’s
would seem like a run of the mill arranged marriage, but he admits to himself
that he’s going after this daughter of the Himura family for her ice powers. He’s
sure that combining his flames and her ice would make a child more powerful
than All Might. It’s weird to think that Enji decided on this course of action
at like 22. Dude had barely been a hero for four years but already decided ‘nah,
All Might’s unbeatable, I’ll just make the next Number 1 hero.” Weird. He adds
to us that while the Himura’s were prestigious, the family hit on hard times.
He’s sure Mr. Himura only agreed to Enji’s offer due to wanting the prestige of
being associated with a Hero. And his money. He admits that she had the option
to refuse but didn’t. As they left her family home, they stopped and Rei stared
at these blue flowers, he asks if she likes them and she nods. These are the
same flowers that he sent to her hospital room for going on 15 years. He said
that there was a strength to her even then, but a brittleness too.
In the present, Enji greets his
wife and asks in shock if she’s okay. She asks him how she could possibly be
okay. She says that she’s also suffering because Enji isn’t the only one that
overlooked their son.
We cut to the mansion that the League
of Villains is currently hiding out. Dabi marvels at the new burns he received fighting
his family, saying that he can’t even feel them. He’s sure his father is still
alive, and he’s looking forward to his father trying to spin the situation. He
believes his father is going to break spectacularly when he does. He lists off
his family, Enji, Rei, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto, and says that when they get
to hell, they should wave at him. He starts crying blood as he says it, though,
so I’m not sure if his heart is totally into it.
We flashback to the Todoroki household
probably 20 years ago, where a young Toya Todoroki is yelling at his dad for
going back on his promise to do quirk training with him. Toya at the time had
mostly red hair with small streaks of white in it. Enji yells at his son that
he told him that this time off was for Toya’s own good and that he has
to go. Turns out it was to go a meeting with their doctor. Enji and Rei are
told their son inherited a more powerful version of Enji’s flame quirk, but his
body took after the Himura side of the family. So he can create huge
fireblasts, but his body can’t handle it as it’s designed to handle subzero. The
doctor sort of chides them for their attempt at a ‘designer’ baby and that they
should encourage Toya to not use his quirk at all for fear of burns. Enji
barely hears this as he’s infuriated that his son couldn’t follow his dreams.
We return to the house where Toya and
Fuyumi are watching TV together. It’s some time after the doctor visit, as Toya’s
hair has shifted to be more like his younger brother Shoto’s, being half white,
half red. They’re watching a report about All Might being awesome and Toya asks
Fuyumi what she thinks about their dad saying he can’t train his quirk anymore.
He says that he knows his body better than anyone and that he can handle the
burns. Fuyumi tells him that she agrees with their dad, and she’s worried he’ll
hurt himself. Toya says that he should have known a girl wouldn’t get it and storms
off, with Fuyumi saying that’s not true, she’s just worried. As Toya stomps off
he swears he’ll be better than All Might and blames his father for putting this
fire in him.
Rei and Enji have an argument. This
next segment is more implied than spelled out, but I’ll remove the nuance. Enji
thinks the only way he can save Dabi from himself is to drill it into the boy’s
head that he isn’t the one to surpass All Might. And to do that… he’ll need to
see his replacement. Rei thinks that going so far as to have another child just
to get Toya to stop is too cruel, that they’ll take away his hope, but Enji can’t
think of any way else to do it. Toya is stubborn like him, so they need to make
it clear that Toya isn’t the “one.” So Natsuo is born, and Toya looks horrified.
But a few years later, when it’s clear Natsuo doesn’t have the right powers for
Enji either… he looks at Rei with a ferocity that is quite frankly disturbing,
and she looks resigned. Then Shoto is born. Enji looks like all his dreams will
finally be fulfilled by this child. Rei looks like she’s hopeful the worst part
is over, and Toya, whose hair is now fully white except for a crown of red
around it, looks horrified.
We cut to Toya training in the
woods by himself. He’s still certain that he’ll be the one to beat All Might.
He’s growing stronger every time he goes out to train. With tears in his eyes he
begs his father to just keep his eyes on Toya. We return to the house and Enji
is furious at Toya for coming home burnt again. He begs his son to figure out
something else, to find a new dream, play with his younger siblings or kids at
school, he just needs to do anything else. Toya then says that the kids all want
to be pro heroes. He says that they don’t understand him like Enji does, that
he’s the only one that gets that being the best is what is important. I think
this is the first moment we see Dabi, in his little boy that is burning himself
just to get his dad’s attention. Rei, who is watching this with little Fuyumi,
Natsuo and holding Shoto, uses her powers to try to put him out before he hurts
himself. Toya begs his father to keep his eyes on him as he ignites his right arm
and lunges at his mother, clearly going for baby Shoto. We don’t see what
happened, but given we get a close up of Enji’s burnt arm, we can assume he got
in the way in time. He tells Rei that Shoto isn’t allowed near the other
children anymore. He says that he can’t watch their children all the time as he
has work, but that’s why they have help. He orders Rei to never let Toya out of
her sight. She tells him that Toya just wants his attention. Enji says that he
only knows the world of heroes and that there’s nothing there for Toya. Rei
accuses him of running away, and Enji glares at his wife in a way that spells trouble.
Jump forward a few more years, and
Fuyumi (12) and Natsuo (8) encourage their big brother to play with them. We
see at 13 that Toya is on the shrimpy side. His hair Is wholly white now. The three
older kids play with a ball in their yard while a nanny watches over them. Four-year-old
Shoto watches his siblings play and desperately wants to be with them, but Enji
drags him away, saying that they aren’t part of the world that he’s preparing
the boy for. Toya somehow hears this and glares up at them. That night, Toya tries
to keep Natsuo up with his theory that they really should blame their dad for
all this. This is correct, but Toya is fixating on this to a degree that is
unhealthy. Natsuo, who is half asleep already, says that Toya has told him this
a million times already and asks why he doesn’t bother Fuyumi with this stuff.
This makes Toya extremely distraught, as he takes “I’m bored with this conversation
we keep having” as “I don’t like you and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
He also says that the women of their family are useless, so I guess Enji
somehow taught his oldest some misogyny at some point.
Later, Rei tries to stop Toya from
going to the mountain to train again, encouraging him to go do something with
his classmates or something, but Toya won’t stand for it. He says he’s special
and that he has to focus. Rei asks if he really wants to be a hero, because
from where she standing it looks like what he really wants is to please Enji.
She begs him to try to find something else that he’s passionate about, to do
anything else that doesn’t hurt him… but Toya clearly tuned her out. He asks if
this is from one of her self-help books or something. He says that he knows his
grandparents sold her and that she didn’t get a say in how her life turned out,
but he refuses to accept a life like that. He’s going to decide what he does. This
verbal slap to the face clearly horrifies Rei. He also adds that he knows she
didn’t have a choice, but she still gave birth to him, so his problem is her
fault too.
Dabi narrates that, while he was
still small for his age, when he hit puberty, his power grew more intense and
that’s when his red fire shifted to blue. At the time, Toya was excited by
this, as he figured out that his emotions make his flames more intense. He’s
sure his dad will be so surprised when he sees this. He angrily tells himself
to stop crying when he gets excited. Later he tells Enji that he has to go to
the mountain on his next day off so he can show Enji something cool. Enji is
horrified by this, lifts his shirt and sees his burns on his chest and realizes
that Toya had been hiding the burns under his clothes. Toya doesn’t see that his
father is furious, starts pulling on his white hair and saying that when Enji
sees what he can do he’ll have to accept that he isn’t a failure. Enji,
enraged, goes to Rei and slaps her, screaming at her for not doing the one
thing he told her to do. A scared Shoto tells Enji not to hurt his mommy, but
Enji screams at the boy that this doesn’t concern him, and Fuyumi and Natsuo
cower. Rei admits that she didn’t have a choice, really, in their marriage but
she thought if she just put a smile on her face things would work out. She
looks up at her husband with huge tears in her eyes and says she tried her best
but he wouldn’t listen. Enji screams that Toya is her problem, not his. Rei is terrified
by the furious blue gaze he looks at her with, asking herself what he sees when
he looks at her with those eyes. She also associates that rage with the look in
Toya’s eyes, and in Shoto’s one blue eye. We jump to when, one night, when
Shoto came to ask his mommy what was wrong while brewing tea… she burned his
face to try to destroy his eye.
Future Rei says that she was
already in the mental hospital when she heard about Toya’s death. The loss of
her oldest broke what little remained of her mind, and she remained in that state
for years. We see Toya sitting alone on the mountain, crying to himself and telling
himself not to cry. In the hospital, Rei says that Enji didn’t go to the peak
like Toya asked him. Enji says he didn’t, as he was worried if he did Toya would
start a fire that they couldn’t put out. That’s what he told himself anyway,
current Enji is able to admit that he didn’t know what to say to Toya or how to
be his father at that time, so he tried to run from the responsibility. Rei
says that they both failed him in that sense. We see that it was his sorrow
that ignited the flame that cause the inferno that supposedly killed Toya. The
fire grew too rapidly for him to control and the flames engulfed him. Dabi
marvels at the memory of that first wildfire, asking his father what he
expected, as all Enji taught him was how to burn everything. We see that the wildfire
grew big, fast, and consumed the mountain, and a distraught Endeavor tried to
rush to his son.
Future Enji truly wishes that he
could have just let everything go that day, as he stood in the burnt forest, thinking
that he killed his son. But all he knew was hero work, so Toya’s death ultimately
fueled the obsession to make Shoto the perfect successor. Rei admits that the
more domineering that Enji became the harder it was to look at him, as she just
kept seeing his hate in her children’s eyes. Fuyumi adds, that while she knew
that her family wasn’t doing well, she kept just putting on a brave face and
tried to stick it out even though it wasn’t healthy for them. Natsuo blames his
father for doing this to them but admits that if he’d been able to knock some
sense into Toya, he wouldn’t have become Dabi. And he might have had a
relationship with Shoto. Rei says that his heart might be broken, but they’ll help
him hold it together so he can face Toya. She says that Shoto is the one that
suffered most of the people here, but he’s grown, he’s made friends, and that
he’s the real hero here. Shoto is able to speak for a few moments, saying that before
coming in there, he was sure that Endeavor was broken and that he would have to
face him alone. But now he thinks they can face Dabi together, once his dad
stops crying.
Hawks and Best Jeanist come in and ask
if they could help. Rei bows to the two and apologizes for her son’s actions.
Hawks says that’s not necessary and Jeanist helps her to her feet, saying that
they didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He thinks if they can pool their knowledge about
Toya and Dabi, they might be able to formulate a plan to stop him. Hawks says that
while he watched a lot of videos of Endeavor, he had no idea that he’d screwed
up this badly with his kids. He asks if Endeavor caused the burn on Shoto’s
face as well, but Rei owns that mistake. Hawks says to himself that he never
faced his parents, he abandoned them, but Shoto stood his ground. He compliments
the boy for that. Hawks tells Endeavor that the world is falling apart, that Tomura
Shigarki, Dabi, Himeko Toga, Spinner, Skeptic, 132 PLF members and 7 near-High
End Nomu are still out there and need to be stopped. That’s on top of the seven
prison breaks, the PSC is without a leader, and heroes are resigning left and
right. Things are looking bad. Hawks says that the Japanese government has reached
out to other nations in the hopes they’ll send emergency rescue teams to help,
but it’s a slow process. Hawks agrees with Rei that Endeavor has to keep
fighting. He also says that he and Jeanist have his back. They agree to a team
up of the Top 3 heroes of Japan, and Endeavor agrees. Natsuo says that the family
will help too, just until Toya is stopped.
Hawks begins with saying that
Endeavor needs to hold a press conference to try to get a handle on the things
Dabi told the public. But before that, he asks what he knows about One-For-All
and All-For-One. Fuyumi chimes in to say some reporters asked them about that
when they came in. Endeavor remembers that Izuku Midoriya said that he was sure
that Shigaraki was after him during the raid.
Outside, Sato and Mineta, with an
assist from Tsu, grab Bakugo and force him back to his room. The whole way back
he’s screaming at Deku to wake up because how DARE he makes Bakugo worry like
this. Uraraka and Iida, Izuku’s normal friends, watch in shock. Jiro joins them
and says that the others were cleared to go home. She asks about Izuku, and
Uraraka says that he’s recovering but still out, so she’s very worried. As
Bakugo is being forced away, he passes Jeanist and Hawks, the former asking if
his former Work Study Student is alright. He also uses his full hero name:
Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite.” Hawks says that he wants a word with
Izuku Midoriay, and Iida says that All Might said to give them privacy. Hawks
now realizes that whatever One-For-All is, All Might is connected to it. In
Izuku’s room, All Might says that he can feel his vestige of One-For-All in
Izuku’s mind. He thinks that Izuku is speaking with the other wielders in his
mind. And that’s where we end. Damn.
I’ve been thinking about how I wanted
to word this for a bit, let’s see if I landed on it right. I appreciate that
Horikoshi, My Hero Academia’s author, chose to write the Todoroki family
as more complicated than it first seemed. I believe I said something like this
at the start of Endeavor’s character arc, that it would have been easy to keep
him as a hate sink and leave it at that. He also could have chosen to lay the
blame for Dabi’s creation solely at Endeavor’s feet, but he chose the more
nuanced story. Don’t get me wrong, Endeavor was an abusive POS and 90% of what
happened falls on his shoulders, but I appreciate that Rei is the sort of
character that’s willing to say, “I screwed up too.” It’s at worst like a 95%
Enji’s fault, 3% Rei’s fault for being too scared of her own son to try to get
him to stop, and 2% the siblings’ fault for not realizing how much Toya was
hurting up to that point. Fault is probably the wrong word. The Todoroki family
is willing to admit that they contributed to losing Toya might be better phrasing.
And I’ll say I like how the POV of Enji and Rei inform the family in a way that
Shoto couldn’t, given how young he was for most of it. We see a family that
probably wasn’t ever the most affectionate, but was still functional in the
early years, slowly crumble as ambition and obsession ate away at the
foundations. A man that had a professional relationship with his wife, from
what we can see, and at least one child that adored him devolve into a monster.
How a monster started out as just a little boy that wanted his father to treat
him like he did when his dad thought he was perfect. And how that hatred must
have festered for years. It was a very true to life sort of fall for the house
of Todoroki. Not to say there aren’t people like the Tamaki’s broken from the
start, but I feel like a family slowly breaking down as their relationship withers
is a situation more of us can understand is what I’m saying. I like that the
family is resolved to support each other at least until they’ve stopped Dabi.
And finally, I like the tease about what Izuku’s been doing while he’s been
out. We’re going to see the previous OFA users at the end of the year, what
fun. Have a good night!
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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