What Happened Few Minutes Prior To This:

[Failure]

>>BNHA / MHA Spoilers!<<

Drew this in reaction to Chapter 350! If Touya heard Enji call him an almost perfect creation, I get that he wasn‘t ecstatic about returning.

fun fact, the font used for this is called „I know a ghost“

Why do you think Endeavor's solution to every problem that raises is to remove himself entirely? Like aside from his obvious inferiority complex (do u think he has an inferiority complex? 🤔)

Well...

let's start in reverse.

Enji himself admitted he had a 'weakness' within, that he'll believe he'll never be a true superhuman (like All Might), that he felt envy for him and had an inferiority complex and tried to hide his weakness by putting up a front.

So it's canon he has an inferiority complex and most of his behaviour stems from his attempts at hiding it by putting up a mask, a front, acting the opposite of how he felt.

So yeah, he has an inferiority complex toward All Might.

Now... is Endeavor's solution to every problem that he raises to remove himself entirely?

I think the question needs some clarifications.

For start, if we're talking of Endeavor as the HERO, Endeavor, no, he generally doesn't remove himself, he tackles problems personally the harder he can.

The only moment in which he felt tempted to remove himself from a problem was when Dabi turned out to be Touya and, in the end, he decided to tackle it, showed up to the press conference, took upon himself the entire responsibility, went to help Deku refusing Shouto's help, accepted to take part to the war, told Shouto he wanted to be the one to face Touya, accepted for the grand plan it was better if he were to face All for One and did face him, even though he didn't feel up fighting Touya he lead him away so that his son at least wouldn't hurt the other Heroes and this despite how worn out and wounded he was.

But I think you are talking about Endeavor the Hero but about Enji the man, the father and husband.

And here canon confirms he tried escaping facing responsibilities by pushing them on others (he told Rei he wouldn't look at Touya so she had to do it, he let Fuyumi face the responsibility of keeping together the family, he tried to push first on Touya and then on Shouto the duty to surpass All might for him, he removed himself completely from Natsuo's life).

That's why he is trying to atone now, because he realized his negligence caused his family's destruction.

He never really explained WHY he decided to act in such a way.

We can just speculate so my answer is as good as the one of anyone else.

Of course we can connect some things to his envy for All Might and to his inferiority complex toward him.

There's a bit in one of the "School Briefs" I find rather interesting. The story is about Parents' Day, a day in which the parents of the students are invited to go to school.

Shouto says nothing about it to Enji (as he doesn't want his father to go there) but Enji finds the invitation (too late) and rushes at U.A. as he really wishes to take part to it but... once Recovery Girl opens the gates up for him he can't bring himself to admit he's there for parents' day because he doesn't want to be exchanged for a doting father as, according to him, a Hero as to project strength and nothing more, absolutely not the image of a sensitive family man. He must look ambitious and prideful, nothing else.

So, if we take "School Briefs" as canon, part of why Enji avoids his family is also due to this, he believes he has an image to project and protect, an image that's tied to his inferiority complex with All Might because it's tied to how he wants to be perceived AS A HERO.

Shouto is in a Hero school and, in the story, Enji ultimately convinces himself him watching Shouto performing in a Hero school wouldn't make him look soft... but think at his other kids.

They aren't in a Hero school, which means Enji might very likely have avoided going to school on parents' day meaning, after Rei's hospitalization, they had no one who would go to school for them.

But there's more to consider.

First of all, remove yourself from a situation, isn't necessarily a wrong strategy. Sometimes we must know when to back off and leave people more competent than us handle the problem... or just give up on seeing it being solved because it can't be solved otherwise we'll only do further harm. Knowing when one has to back off or when one has to continue tackling the problem is supposed to be one of the things that mark the passage to adulthood.

As an adult you're expected to know when something is worth trying being fixed or not and since it's generally not so simple and clean cut people still make plenty of mistakes despite being adults...

For example, while Rei was recovering it was important for her psychological health not to meet Enji. Enji staying away from her instead than, for example, pressure the hospital to let him meet her, was a good thing.

In Japan divorce isn't as smooth as in other countries (it carries a social stigma for both parties as well as for the kids involved) so if it'd gone for a divorce it wouldn't have been equally good... but it could have been a good solution in other countries.

Why this is relevant?

Because Enji has to judge each time if the option of removing himself from something is a good idea or not, it's not a given it's always wrong.

When he decides, for example, that he'll build another house for Fuyumi and Natsuo so they can welcome Rei there, he persuades himself it's a good idea FOR THEM.

Rei can't meet him, Natsuo feels bad when he sees him, Shouto told him not to put up a father's act in front of his friends, making him feel rejected as a father... so if they don't see him everyone's happy, right? Wrong because it doesn't take into consideration his family's wishes.

But the fact it seems right it's part of why Enji feels it's okay to choose such an option.

I particularly like how the anime represents this choice.

Neither Natsuo nor Fuyumi are happy with Enji's choice and the visual seems to imply he's leaving them, abandoning them...

...with Enji who instead continues to think "What I can do for my family after all this time...? I think about this every time I go to sleep."

The fact he dreams his family being happy while he's not with them, to him comes to seem the answer to the question.

He thinks that's what he has to do if he really cares about them.

But there's also, of course a dark side to all this.

Removing himself from his family... is the easy choice. Forcing Rei to look after Touya, leaving on Fuyumi the responsibility of the house, pushing first on Touya and then on Shouto the duty to surpass All Might, not caring about Natsuo... are also all easier choices than actually getting involved.

Let's pick this scene because it's easier.

Enji doesn't know what to say to Touya. Saying the wrong thing has the potential, of course, to make matter worse and Enji excuses his inaction also by telling to himsef 'if I go there I'll end up encouraging him'... so he chooses to do nothing... which requires him zero efforts... and ultimately leads to terrible consequences.

Touya needed him to step up to his duty as a father, to risk doing mistakes but putting up all his efforts into reaching his son, into keeping him safe.

Because although all this seems to steem from how Touya wants to become a Hero, the real core of the problem is he doesn't feel himself being seen by his father.

It's not so much about Enji telling him something, is about Enji making him feel seen. Enji doesn't, he kind of understands Touya needs to be seen but pushes that duty on Rei. He runs away hiding behind his Hero role. He has job to do, he can only show him the world of Heroes.

He runs away. He pushes forward excuses and runs away.

He did it with Touya but it's basically what he had done with the rest of his family, the story simply digs it more on how he did it with Touya because the consequences were terrible and came to bite him back.

And yes, we can blame for it his weakness, his inferiority complex, he wants to look like a strong Hero and he can't even help his child. He's afraid to fail because trying would be hard and failing wouldn't fit the image of a Hero and so he doesn't.

He's insecure, not in battle, not on duty but with how he presents himself.

Which might be tied to how he lost his father.

We don't really know the answer (and, of course, even if we were to know, this wouldn't make right what Enji did to his family), and throwing in his loss makes things really complex because Horikoshi developed extremely little that part.

Basically for 355 chapters he let us think that Enji's sole weakness was he was self centered, selfish, then with basically zero build up, threw in that he had lost a parent same way as Kotarou and this gave him trauma but... well, Kotarou's loss and reaction were better developed.

I really wish Horikoshi were to go back at that because that needed more space and... got nothing. But I doubt there will be time for it.

So hum... I fear I've ended up rambling a bit. Sorry if I can't offer you some definitive answer on why Enji does what he does, just my guesses about it and thank you for your ask!

I do love to talk about the Todoroki family!

Endeavor: Physical Strength vs Emotional Strength

Or The Total Mess that is the Todoroki House.

*Note:  The following is not a defense of Endeavor nor is it excusing his actions.  It is a deep-dive analysis into the complexities and nuances of his behavior and how it affected his life and everyone else in that family based on observations I’ve made throughout the series. There are also comparisons with other objectively violent characters from other series.

Trigger Warning for domestic and child abuse.

...

We're gonna start out by looking at what happened to his character over the available time frame. Endeavor did not start out as a violent person to his family. We can see that in the flashbacks of the family's early days.

Starting here, note that he’s not cold toward Rei in this scene.  The way they’re walking around out here in the garden gives the impression that negotiations between him and Rei’s family are going well so far, but they’re out walking and talking in private just to make sure this arrangement is going to work and making sure further negotiation isn’t going to be a waste of everyone’s time.  I say this because if he was dead set on ice powers for this Quirk marriage, Rei probably wasn’t the only option.

It's also important to remember Rei did choose this. She chose for her family rather than herself, but it wasn't her parents' end all be all decision. (And maybe there was familial pressure on her side, but it's not explicitly stated in canon so exactly how much free will Rei actually had is up for interpretation.)

However what I think shows here is they weren’t really talking all that much. Specifically, he is not ‘talking down to her.’  He is not treating her with any particular disrespect or putting her down as inferior.   He doesn’t have the arrogance he later exhibits. This also isn’t him being aloof and ignoring her either.  Look at his face, specifically his eyes.  That is the same blank, deer in the headlights, “I have one brain cell dinging around in my head that is struggling to find a way to interact with people,” stare he shares with Shouto.

He has no idea what to say to her. 

So finally, Rei turns off to the side to admire the garden, and he asks, “Do you like the flowers?”  It’s a small thing, but it does show that in some capacity, he did show some interest in Rei and making her happy.  He’s just stupidly awkward about it at this point. (Even if his ultimate goal was…well, we’ll get into that.)

But this trait of never knowing what to say is a massive defining part of Endeavor’s character that has manifested in a myriad of disastrous ways throughout his entire arc.

Now I don’t think there’s enough shown about Endeavor and Rei’s relationship that we can conclusively say they ever loved each other at any point, but I do think they were, at the very least, cordial in the beginning.  They got along, they loved their children, and that in their minds was good enough for them. If you look at the scenes that are Touya and Fuyumi's early childhood, the family seems content. There's no sign of the abuse we see later.

The other big indicator that Endeavor was not originally a violent person to his family is the two very different ways he approaches training with Touya and Shouto. His motive for training them hasn't changed, but compared to the warmth and pride extended toward Touya we see in the above picture, Shouto’s experience with training in the second screenshot is harrowing and traumatic.

So why the difference?

A big reason is it has to do with age.  When Rei defends Shouto, telling her husband that, “He’s only five!” and Endeavor is still pushing their son to achieve the standards of an older child, yes, this does show his impatience. However, the other unspoken sentiment here is he himself is not getting any younger.  When Touya was born, Endeavor was twenty-two and had his whole life, career, and all his hopes with it ahead of him.  His kid has a greater Quirk than his, his legacy is secure, nothing to worry about.  But then they learn about the genetic issue with Touya’s Quirk.  He can’t use his fire safely, he’ll never be able to use it safely, and he will never be a hero in the way Endeavor can.

Touya:  Failure

Fuyumi:  Failure

Natsuo:  Failure

Shouto was probably viewed as his last chance.  Endeavor was getting older and running out of time.  If Shouto didn’t work out, then this legacy was dead in the water. At least, I hope Shouto was the last chance, otherwise he might've tried getting another kid out of Rei, divorced Rei and married someone else for the same reason, or attempted securing his successor through a grandchild.

Which is some freaky medieval way of thinking.

Anyone else getting Henry VIII vibes here?

Remember what I said about him never knowing what to say? The most obvious example of this is his complete and total inability to control the situation with Touya.

The tragedy of both Touya and Fuyumi's characters is they are the only two kids in the house who remember the happier childhood, and they both cling to that in their own way. It's why Fuyumi is so determined to 'fix things.' She's trying to regain the family they lost. For Natsuo and Shouto, things have always been bad in the house, hence why Natsuo bailed as soon as he could.

Then we have Touya. His flashbacks start with him at a toddler age. It is very common and normal for a child that young to prefer one parent over the other, but usually it's the parent they're most familiar with: The one that stays home with and takes care of them. Remember, to a toddler, everything is new and potentially scary, and that can also include a parent that is not always present: The parent that's working. In the Todoroki house, Endeavor has his career as a hero, so we have the indication that Rei was the parent who stayed home. In that situation, the probability of Rei being the 'familiar parent' was more likely, so for Touya to prefer his father over his mother shows just how close he was to Endeavor. Or because Fuyumi was the new baby and needed more attention, he could have gravitated away from Rei and gone to his father instead. He didn't see his father's ambitions for him. He didn't see that he was a successor as opposed to a son.

What he, through a child's innocence, saw and understood was that his father loved him and wanted to spend time with him.

Cue the genetic disparity of his Quirk: Where Endeavor failed as a parent was him never talking to Touya about what had happened. He didn't sit down with him and explain it wasn't safe for him to use his Quirk.

The My Hero world has a social problem of Quirks defining one's worth. It's not just the PLF's philosophy. Having no Quirk is viewed with pity and having a Quirk that can't be used could be viewed as a disability by this society, regardless of the fact it's completely possible to live a healthy life without having a Quirk. So Touya's 'issue' required compassion and understanding, especially from a parent. What Endeavor needed to say and what Touya needed to hear was, "This is a path that is blocked to you, it isn't your fault this happened, and I will love you regardless."

Instead, he just dropped him completely. (Given his character, I doubt he's even the one who broke the news to him.) In Touya's eyes, he didn't have the adult nuance to understand why he was being ignored; he just had the child innocence of, "I don't want to hang out with Mom and Fuyumi, I want to be with Dad. Why is he ignoring me? Why won't he train me anymore?"

What Touya learned from this is he only has value in his father's eyes as a hero. So he began training himself to be a hero because he was desperate to get that love and affection back. When Endeavor discovers the fact he's been training and burning himself, Touya never apologizes for disobeying him. He just repeatedly says variations of, "I can do this, then maybe you'll finally be proud of me."

Fuck, dude, just tell the poor kid you're already proud of him. That's all he needed to hear.

And Rei does call Touya out on this. She asks him, "Do you want to be a hero because you want to be a hero or are you doing this because it's what your father wants?"

In order words: "Are you doing this because you think it will make your father love you?"

And we come full circle to the 'death' of Touya where he realized, "I was never a son. I was a product."

...

Endeavor never addresses the problem going on under his roof. He handed the problem off to Rei. He didn't know what to say, he didn't know (and still doesn't) how to be a parent, and instead of confronting that lapse in his character, he instead made a coward's retreat back into the safe and familiar territory of being a hero.

This was the catalyst for his violence to his family.

Being a hero means fighting villains.

Fighting villains is often solving problems with violence.

Because he never knows what to say, he didn't know how to properly navigate a complex emotional situation, so he resorted to the only method he knew that worked:

Beat it into submission.

And since we have the previously mentioned signs they were once a happy, normal family, I have a feeling the violence began very suddenly and without warning.

...

To back this up, I'm gonna give a little personal insight here. I used to work in an orthopedic clinic and a lot of injuries that came through were hand injuries due to someone punching a wall out of anger/frustration.  You may think this is fine since they didn’t hit another person and only hurt themselves, but the issue with taking your aggression out on even an inanimate object is you are unwittingly training your brain to associate anger with violence and make it all the more likely for you to lash out violently against another person.

Throughout his career, Endeavor has conditioned himself into this same mindset of repeatedly forging and reinforcing the physical connection of violence with the mental/emotional connection of anger.

Look at this scene from Arcane.

If you haven't seen this series yet, 1.) Get on that. You're missing out. (Don't worry, there's not too many spoilers below.) and 2.) This is Vi and this screenshot is from a scene where she, in a moment of anger and grief, strikes her little sister hard enough in the face to knock her to the ground.

Look at the horror in her eyes when she realizes what she’s done.

Now before and after this moment, we see Vi undoubtedly loves her sister and would die for her. (Season 2 pending...) The first thing she does when they're reunited is hug her and tell her how sorry she is. But Vi has also been a fighter all her life. The sisters grew up in the rough part of town, they had to fight to survive, and they've experienced a violent atmosphere from a young age. We also see that when Vi gets frustrated or angry, she punches/slaps inanimate objects, so she too subconsciously associated violence with intense emotions, and in a moment of blind rage/grief, she failed to dissociate and she hurt her sister.

It wasn't a conscious decision, but it happened nonetheless.

What follows is she walks away from Powder. She doesn't go far, she just puts some distance between herself and her sister to calm down and process what's happened and hopefully find a way to move forward. Only, for unrelated reasons that don't pertain to this topic, she is apprehended by authorities and spends the next 6-7 years in prison, obsessing over her regrets and finding her way back to Powder.

She is never going to forgive herself for this.

I bring this scene up because as far as fiction is concerned, we as the audience do often excuse a character losing their temper and hitting a loved one once. What Vi did was not okay, but because it only happened that one time, nobody is labeling Vi as 'abusive.'

...

So consider the first time Endeavor hit Rei. We don't see it in canon, but with all the indicators of a relatively happy home, I believe that first act of violence was the culmination of these factors:

Endeavor's ongoing inferiority complex with All Might and the frustration in his inability to surpass him, and then projecting that frustration onto his family.

The career of solving problems with violence.

The subconscious association of anger with violence resulting from that career.

I'm also going to throw out the possibility of multiple head injuries incurred from his career playing a role. Traumatic brain injuries can and often do lead to behavioral changes where an individual has trouble managing emotional responses, experiences anxiety, has a shorter temper, etc.

Obviously, none of the above should be treated as excuses (not even the TBI possibility because there's therapy options for that), but they are potential contributors to the pivotal moment of frustration and impatience where Endeavor, like Vi, failed to dissociate and did something he couldn't take back.

Striking Rei is his tea kettle incident. Think back to the awkward moron who didn't have a clue what to say to her when they first met. That young man never thought he would do something like this. That first moment when he hit Rei, I really don't think it was a conscious decision and it may have taken him off guard as much as it did Rei. Like Vi, he probably acted out of blind anger and may have been just as horrified by what he'd done, and I can imagine Endeavor walking away from that to calm down and process that he crossed a line he thought he would never cross.

Unlike Vi, who was going to return to Powder after calming down so she could apologize, beg forgiveness, and move forward, Endeavor is an emotional coward who never knows what to say or how to confront a complex emotional hurtle. So he did the same thing he did with Touya: He retreated from the problem and pretended it didn't exist, and because it was never addressed and he was never held accountable, it only got worse. The lid was off and there was no getting it back on.

I'm not saying there was a definite chance he could have come back from that (that ball was in Rei's court as much as it was Powder's) but Endeavor had a choice:

He could have addressed what he'd done and made amends by submitting to whatever consequence Rei set down for him.

Or he could have rationalized his own twisted justifications for what he did.

He chose wrong.

For another comparison of the violence aspect, I’m also going to bring up Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!!, a character who I think flies off the handle far more frequently than Endeavor does.

If you haven't seen Durarara!!, same as above with Arcane.

The nuance of Shizuo is the intense rage he experiences, the violence that follows, and his own inner turmoil. He associates violence with anger, but these are traits that he fully recognizes as detrimental to himself and his personal relationships with other people. He has a temper, he gets violent, he lashes out with abnormal strength and has seriously injured many people.

But the people he's attacked are usually people who provoked him, whether it's thugs who opted to harass him on the street or he heard that a friend was in trouble and rushed off to help them. Not that violence is the answer, but they were people who arguably deserved a beating. More importantly, though, is the way Shizuo treats his relationships with caution. He's a loner by choice. He does want to connect with other people, but he keeps his distance because he legitimately fears harming someone he cares about. Because of his caution and self-awareness, he is a complicated and likable character that I think anyone with a short temper who has said or done things they regret can relate to.

If he didn’t have that level of control on himself and was violent with everyone regardless of who they were to him, he would be despised by the fandom as much as Endeavor is.

This is how Durarara!! can get away with presenting a violent character in a comedic fashion. Shizuo, despite his temper, is an absurdly strong guy, a little bit of an idiot, and fiercely loyal to his friends. All three of those are endearing qualities.

And in the right framing, Endeavor's violence is also presented as comedic.

This scene is funny, but grabbing Hawks like that and lifting him off the ground is technically assault and it is intimidation. Replace Hawks with Rei and this scene changes drastically from funny to very unsettling. Replace him with Touya and it's a fight.

...

Where Endeavor really differentiates from Vi and Shizuo is marked by two important factors:

Shizuo, for all his claims at being unable to control his anger, has it very much under control around the people he cares about. He really only lets loose against a perceived threat.

Vi mostly has that same control even though she lost it for a moment, but she was also separated from her sister in an indirect punishment for her actions.

Endeavor does not have Shizuo's restraint nor did he face any immediate consequences like Vi.

Which brings us to Rei.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to Rei, and the absolute harshest opinion I have of her is that she is pathetic and she failed her children. And I know that's a very black and white, cold-hearted view, but hear me out because it's a lot more complicated than that.

Endeavor is ultimately responsible for his own actions, but Rei also had the option to deal with the problem when it started. When he started hitting her, she could and should and have taken the kids and run as fast as she was able and not looked back. No amount of financial security, family appearance, or whatever justification one finds in this scenario is worth it. She should not have tolerated that abuse against herself and she definitely should not have subjected her children to that. While there's nothing conclusive to say Endeavor was physically harming any of the kids aside from Shouto, not fighting for her autonomy/safety was inadvertently teaching all four of them this is how men treat their wives, women are supposed to tolerate this treatment, and a marriage like this is 'normal.'

And in the end, she straight up abandoned her children. We see from Shouto's point of view right before she attacked him with the tea kettle. She's talking to her mother on the phone, saying she 'can't take it anymore' and she just wants to 'run away from this life.' Well...considering she goes on to spend the next ten years in a psych ward and left her children to her abusive husband...she did get what she wanted. Ten years and she really didn't put any more effort in trying to get back to them? She knew Endeavor was hurting her youngest. Going home and protecting her babies should have been her priority. For a long time, I legitimately thought she was in Fujiya because she was considered unsafe to rejoin society whether she was a danger to herself or to others. When she shows up in Endeavor's hospital room, I stared at the screen and thought, "The fuck? She could discharge herself at any point?"

All right, now that I've gone over my hard-line point of view, let me dial back the judgment and consider what else is going on here:

Rei is a refrigerated character.

She has very little characterization beyond her abuse and being the victimized mother in Shouto's story, so we don't know all that much about her. In all fairness, her oldest son suddenly dying while she was hospitalized certainly would have contributed to her downward spiral and account for her prolonged hospitalization.

She tolerated her abuse longer than she should have, but it is possible:

She learned that from her own parents. Tolerating abuse is often a byproduct of generational trauma. Maybe her father treated her mother the same way and she grew up thinking this was normal.

Maybe the first time Endeavor hit her, she rationalized it into a point of acceptance where she told herself that everything was fine and that it was only the 'one time' and it wouldn't happen again, a sentiment she kept repeating every time it happened.

Maybe she was raised to believe ‘the man of the house is always right,’ and that is a mindset that is hard to break if instilled from childhood.

Her parents certainly didn’t seem all that supportive with what was going on, but we also don’t know how much she told them. We don't even know if that one phone call she had with her mom was the first time she reached out for help after years of pretending everything was fine or if this was was something she was repeatedly updating her parents about and those parents chose to be aloof to it.

Maybe she really did grow up in a loving home and just didn't know what to do when confronted with the violent relationship she found herself in.

Maybe she was gaslit into believing it wasn't abuse.

Maybe she really did report the abuse and the godforsaken, root-of-all-evil Safety Commission told her, "Your husband's a hero. Stay quiet and don't ruin that public image." Basically told her to suck it up. That is also a possibility, and one I think could be the most likely, but the series doesn't really go into just how corrupt the Commission was, so we're in headcanon territory.

Maybe she did try to take the kids and run but failed to get away. (Unlikely since it’s never mentioned in canon.)

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an upbringing that instills the belief, 'if your partner hurts you, they are dead to you' and not everyone has the good fortune of a reliable support network that can help them recognize a bad situation and get them out of it.

Given how well-known Endeavor is to the public, maybe Rei was afraid no one would believe her about the abuse. "A hero would never do such a thing. She's making it up for attention. Her family was poor, so she must be a gold-digger trying to screw over her hero husband in the divorce proceedings."

There is also the important fact that Japan has a social stigma against divorce. Persevering for the sake of family stability and maintaining an ideal appearance is a deeply ingrained cultural norm, which does introduce a troubling power imbalance between a husband who works and a housewife who doesn't have her own independent income. We also have to remember that Rei and her family were financially dependent on Endeavor, so she may have feared the monetary fallout at the prospect of leaving him. Also, with the popularity of the hero ranking system, the No. 2 Hero's wife divorcing him would have been very public and potentially humiliating for all involved.

And we can’t ignore the fact that Endeavor systematically broke her down into a shell of a person who couldn't see a way out of her situation and was tormented to the point she had a psychotic episode and attacked Shouto, the very child she tried to protect. And this too could have contributed to her prolonged hospitalization if this was the final straw and she viewed herself as a failure of a mother.

Maybe it was a combination of two or several of the above factors.

At the end of the day, abuse is a multi-faceted beast, and just as the abuse comes in many forms, the victim can have any number of reasons for staying in their situation.

So even though I have my harsh opinion of Rei and I think she should have done more to protect her children, I do 100% sympathize with her. She is a victim and she in no way deserved what she went through.

But while her inaction wasn't the cause of the crisis in her family, it was definitely a contributor to how badly it got out of hand because whatever the reason Rei didn't expose Endeavor or try to take the children and leave him, that lack of accountability opened up the opportunity for him to rationalize his own twisted justifications for his actions.  “It’s fine. She deserved it because ______. She was 'acting out.' She was overreacting. She doesn't know what she's talking about.”  Whatever he needed to tell himself to believe he didn’t do anything wrong even though he knew he wasn’t fooling himself or anyone.

She didn't stand up to him. Their children couldn't stand up to him.

So he continued the physical abuse unchecked.

...

Moving on into the redemption arc.

After the Kamino Incident, Endeavor finally, finally, finally got that vaunted No 1. Hero spot he'd been chasing for two decades. But he didn't earn it the way he wanted to by proving he's the best of the best. All Might retired, so he won by default.

And then he finds it's just one spot further up on a ranking system that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. So he looks back at what's really important and he sees the charred skeleton frame of a house he burned down.

One institutionalized wife

One dead son

One daughter who clings to the memories of a happier home

One estranged son

One son who only has a use for him as a teacher and not a parent and will probably drop him the second he no longer needs him

In spite of everything, I do genuinely think the man deserves some credit for at least being willing to make an attempt at reconciliation. Not a lot since he dug that hole himself, but let's face it, a lot of lesser people would have looked at that mess and thought, "Fuck it, no going back now," and continued business as usual. So the question becomes:

Is Endeavor trying to redeem himself out of a need to make himself feel better about everything he's done or is he truly doing it for the benefit of the people he's hurt?

I tentatively think/hope could be a mix of both--I believe there is a part of him that cares about his children--but it definitely skews more toward making himself feel better because there's never a moment before the redemption arc begins where he's isolated, thinking back on everything, and just has the appropriate, "What have I done?" revelation. If his remorse was genuinely all about his family, we would have had that 'crying in the hospital scene' a whole lot sooner.

I think if Horikoshi wanted to portray Endeavor's redemption as genuine remorse for what he did to his family, I think he would have put more of a focus on Endeavor actually seeing the impact of what he'd done and feeling the inner turmoil and regret. Not just Natsuo's anger but also seeing firsthand Shouto's isolation and complete lack of social skills as a result of his training or having a conversation with Fuyumi where she admits she never wants to marry or have children because she doesn't 'want to risk ending up like Mom.' Seeing the effects of his behavior, realizing it's his fault.

So no. While there may be a part of Endeavor that loves his children (or he tells himself that he does), his wanting to atone is inspired mainly by his self-worth. He realized the ends did not justify the means and he tries to fix it.

But either way, how does he go about it?

The biggest change he makes toward earning forgiveness is to his hero career, which tracks with his character. That's familiar territory, so it's easier for him to navigate. He takes a significantly gentler method of teaching/mentorship with Shouto and he tries a kinder approach with his fans. That's progress, but it's still avoidance of the main issue that is the rift he caused with the other members of the family.

His relationship with Fuyumi doesn't have much friction. Fuyumi clings to their family's happier memories. With Touya gone, she was the only child who could remember a childhood without fighting parents, abuse, and suffering siblings. In a twisted way, this is something she and Touya have in common. So it makes sense that she would be the one who's the most receptive to Endeavor's attempts to be a better father. She sees this change as their best chance at being a normal family again. Like Touya, she wanted her father back.

Natsuo is different. He was 3-4 years old when the toxicity in their household really began to spike and when the violence started. Incidentally, this is also when memory cells in the brain start to fully develop and form concrete memories. Compared to his older siblings, the abuse is all he knows and that is why he's the child who left and went low-contact. The only thing Natsuo's really done wrong is start family drama when there's company over for dinner. I mean, c'mon. That's just rude. Don't do that in front of guests.

While Endeavor makes attempts to better his training methods/fan interaction, what he doesn't do is call a family meeting to discuss things, not that this would have resolved anything by a long shot, but it would have established a baseline of where everyone in the family was at and whether or not forgiveness was even on the table at all. It is an extremely arrogant thought for Endeavor to think forgiveness for something of this magnitude is possible, and if he wanted to seek forgiveness (or to atone, whatever the hell that means) for the lifelong mistreatment of family, he should have been more prepared for the most abject, humble groveling to the people he wronged that he could manage.

He should have admitted to his mistakes and faults, laid out everything he'd done wrong, apologize for that as best he could, then express he wanted to repair their relationship and be a family again while also acknowledging that he understands if that is not possible. Lay down that groundwork, maybe be open to family therapy so that a professional third party can act as a mediator and provide impartial guidance, figure out where the boundaries are, acknowledge he can't give them back their ruined childhoods but he can *insert anything Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto ask as recompense, even if it's just leaving their lives forever*, and listen for once to what his family is saying.

Instead, he tries to have normal conversations with his children as if nothing bad ever happened. He offers to come watch Shouto's remedial training like that's a totally ordinary thing for him to do. He tells Natsuo during the family dinner that he would like to try his cooking some time. That is a good olive branch! There is nothing wrong with saying that, but without that prior baseline conversation, it comes off as contrived and that's how Natsuo interpreted it. He sends flowers to Rei, also a good signal to send, but he should have done the the uncomfortable thing and contacted her through her physician to see if she's open to meeting with him for a conversation or sending her a letter she could choose to open at any time (or send back unopened.) That would have established that same baseline and helped move forward towards the atonement he wanted.

But he does the same thing he always does: He pretends the real issue just doesn't exist and he tries to control the situation to suit him.

Why?

Say it with me: He never knows what to say! He can't navigate complex emotions!

He doesn't try to find out if his family is even willing to forgive him, frankly because he's an emotional coward who doesn't want to hear the answer.

However, we cannot say he has no character development at all.

There is one thing worth noting around this point in the plot that I think is important to recognize. If Endeavor ever had any character development that was in favor of his redemption, it was when Natsuo was kidnapped and nearly killed, and it's not because he ran and hugged him in the street.

In this scene, he admits to Natsuo that his actions might as well have killed Touya.

This is a small thing, but it's also huge because you have to consider that up until this time, Endeavor has been gaslighting himself into believing it was Touya's fault for getting himself killed or Rei's fault for not doing as she was told and watching him. He could even have been irrationally blaming All Might for just being a barrier to his goals. Any warped excuse and justification he could think of to escape the blame.

It's not a lot, but he did finally give voice to the guilt that he is the reason he failed and his child died. He finally acknowledged that the blame lies squarely with him and no one else, and acknowledging he drove Touya to his own death means way more than just talking about his intentions to atone.

He took accountability here, at least within the family.

That is one point he's earned. We as the audience can begrudgingly concede that one.

But this progress is again stalled when Endeavor makes the decision that it would be best for his family if he distances himself from them. He chooses to build another house for them where they can all live together with their mother and away from his shadow.

The initial reaction I had to this decision was, "Okay, your solution is kicking them out of the only home they've ever known?" But then I considered that having those kids leave a house where they lived through a traumatic and stressful childhood was a good call. Natsuo already bailed, after all. And then there's Fuyumi... Yeah, you know what, maybe a conversation would have been appropriate here. Instead of finding out what they want, he goes and decides it for them like he always does.

Touya has a genetic disparity that prevents him from using his Quirk safely? Endeavor decides he shouldn't be a hero, disregarding any possibility of finding a potential workaround.

Shouto finally uses his fire at the Sports Festival? Endeavor has his whole speech that pretty much shows he has Shouto's entire life planned out after graduation.

He wants to do what's best for his family? He decides what's best for them.

And we're back to the big dumbass never knowing what to say and still running away from the main issue by making assumptions and decisions without actually considering the thoughts/opinions of the people around him and controlling the situation to his benefit.

He may have his intention to do better, but he has no idea what he's doing. He doesn't know how to relinquish his authority role.

And then we have Touya with his, "Bitch, you thought!" grenade. Or is it a nuke?

It's important to note is that failure to articulate emotion in a healthy way is a trait that is shared by all of the Todoroki family members.

Endeavor - the emotional coward who resorts to violence when confronted with an uncomfortable situation

Rei - the passive mother

Fuyumi - the peacekeeper and people-pleaser

Shouto - the child who was systematically deprogramed into an angry husk imitating his father that he has only recently started to recover from

Touya and Natsuo are the only two who actually have some pushback against the bullshit in their family. Touya's a whole kettle of insane fish who's warped psyche deserves a character analysis of its own, but the point is, even as a kid, he doesn't creep around his father or try to make peace with him. Natsuo also has no problem calling out Endeavor for everything that went wrong in his childhood, plus he moved out and went to college as soon as he could.

Touya - the unstable sociopath who shares his father's tendency to violently lash out while stuck with the mental fragility of his mother

Natsuo - the traumatized avoidant

Neither of them have a functional way of dealing with their issues. (In fact, Touya is so unhinged about it that the door has peaced out and is halfway down the street.)

Endeavor wanted to atone for what he did...by burying and not actually taking any real accountability until the unavoidable moment Touya is screaming down to him, "Is it because you became No. 1 that you finally paid attention to your family?"

Touya has a warped view of the world brought on by years of trauma, but he hit the nail on the head.

Endeavor's main motivation for atonement is for the self-satisfaction.

So we have the symbolism of Endeavor, who has always used his physical strength to solve his problems by beating them into submission and used his intimidating height to glare down at everyone beneath him, and then we have Touya standing on top of a mountain, shouting down. Endeavor's in a position where he's looking up at his dead child, who is arguably the broken bough, elephant in the room, core unavoidable reason a full atonement was never going to be possible, bringing about a twenty-year overdue reckoning.

And he once again doesn't know what to say.

As the story ends, this is where we leave him: Crippled, looking up at his dying child, and confronted by one of the lives he ruined. By choice, he's going to sit here and face what he did. These talks are not going to be pleasant. I doubt Touya is so burned out and exhausted that he doesn’t have the heart to spit out more of the lifetime of vitriol he’s built up.

I know a lot of fans were disappointed Horikoshi didn’t kill Endeavor off in the end, but I personally prefer to look at it this way:

Some characters deserve death.

But some deserve to live in despair.

...

To revisit Arcane, I think this quote neatly sums up Endeavor.

Varying representations of responder PTSD symptoms in MHA characters:

MHA does a really good job at realistically showing how people who work in response fields might manifest PTSD. It shows a variety of ways this can occur and hits on a lot of the less palatable symptoms or more nuanced symptoms that aren’t really shown in media often.

Enji:

Ok, I know he’s a controversial character but I’m starting with Enji/Endeavor bc I love this character and his arc. His character is shown having some of the less palatable symptoms of PTSD and it really reminded me of my experiences with it. I think it’s really cool to see that representation.

Intense Anger

Functions perfectly at work, but cannot function outside of work (if my brain cannot find the threat, it will make one- I.e. hypervigilance)

Lashing out at loved ones

Feelings of guilt and shame over the anger

Intense mistrust of others

Reliving negative experiences and ruminating on them constantly

Inability to rely on others

Inability to verbalize or identify negative feelings

Fear that you are a burden on loved ones

Fear that your loved ones will get hurt or die

Fear that loved ones will betray you or are lying to you

Obsession with having control over negative outcomes

Unreasonable standards/expectations for self and others

Fear that you cannot save everyone/are not good enough

Self-isolation

Deliberately sabotaging your relationships

The ‘death of self’

All Might:

Overwork

Lack of a personal life

Inability to rest

Working through injury

Inability to rely on others

Keeping experiences and feelings a secret because you believe them to be too burdensome to share

Unsupported belief that you will die young

Flippant about own safety and mortality

Deku:

Working through injury

Putting self in dangerous situations

Obsessiveness about work and replaying situations over and over

Flippancy about own safety and mortality

Inability to rest

Self-isolation

Keeping experiences and feelings a secret because you believe them to be too burdensome to share

Existential horror/dread about the state of humanity

Apathy

Losing parts of your personality/losing joy/losing idealism

Nightmares

Hawks:

I also really love this character and how Horikoshi explores him. I relate to a lot of his symptoms as well even though they are much more subtle.

Using sarcasm and dark humor to eschew real negative feelings

Refusing to process negative emotions or intellectualizing your trauma

Loss of affect

Belief that your sole value is in your usefulness to others/belief that you have no inherent value

Overwork

Fear that you cannot save everyone/are not good enough

Moral injury

Unrealistic expectations of self

Flippant about your own safety/mortality

Unfounded belief that you are secretly a bad person

Splitting: i.e. views on good and bad becoming overly simplistic

Anger and resentment about systemic failures/leadership failures

Feeling that your were not adequately trained or equipped to do your job

Mistrust of others

Trauma bonding to coworkers

Belief that other people cannot understand your experiences

Emotional distancing

Wanting to escape your present reality/focus on a ‘future’ where things are different and inability to be in the present moment.

Dissociative traits- I.e. disconnecting from the self to complete difficult tasks & acting out ‘performative’ emotions for the benefit of others

Dancing with Todoroki

it actually have a bit of plot on it with some dancing pose, but well it just like a story telling forward to chapter292. It still need more but my wrist is hurt like hell now. so I stop with Dabi have tango dance with hawks.

and dabi asking you for dance<3 LOL

first tumblr post in my life…

in my mind todoroki family is happy and loves eachother 💗😄 (in denial)

C&A !!

Toya discovers the sensation of mustache

Pls go like my Tiktok my account is barren and I worked hard on this

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTF6gsPSn/

Todoroki Enji's atonement arc: observations, ramblings and speculations (Part 2)

Welcome to part 2 of my “Todoroki Enji’s atonement arc: observations, ramblings and speculations” meta. Part 2 will make more sense if you read part 1 first, so I recommend you to do so.

In case you really don't feel like going through part 1, I'll tell you in it I went through what are assumed to be the steps of Todoroki Enji’s redemption arc, and noted why they don’t seem to work so well.

Now we’re going to dig into…

IN THE END WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT?

Most of the story so far didn’t look as if it has been set up to shows us Enji walking a redemption path in regard to his family, as originally his goal was merely to become a better hero, fitting of the title of number 1.

So I might be wrong but my guess is that what the story aimed to show us so far wasn’t his redemption path, but how Enji came to the realization he has to atone to his family not because this means he’ll be a better Hero, but because he has wronged them and he truly regrets doing so.

Long story short, STEP 2 IS THE GOAL of Enji’s arc, not the beginning.

As Shōto said:

‘Chottoshita kikkake ga hito o kaeru koto mo arutte’ 「ちょっとした切っ掛けが人を変えることもあるって」 “Sometimes a small reason can change a person.” [Chap 192]

‘Kikatte’ (切っ掛け) can mean “motive”, “Impetus” but also “chance”, “occasion”, “start”, “cue”, “excuse”.

It’s one of the themes of the story, we saw it with Twice, that became a Villain due to a small incident that caused him to spiral always lower, but, in Enji’s case, we’re meant to see him slowly rising into a better person.

And the small thing that’s meant to trigger his change, his starting line, is his wish to become a better Hero so as to be fitting of his role as Number 1.

This is what will push him to ponder on what he did, so that he’ll later, much later, will come to the realization he did something horrible to his family, something that had devastating repercussions on them and can’t be just shrugged off, and that he has to redeem himself not in order to be a better Hero… but because he regrets he has hurt his family and wants to make them better.

That small thing is meant to lead him to point 2, which is still very, very far.

ENJI’S ‘TRAVEL’ TO REALIZE HOW MUCH HE WRONGED HIS FAMILY

So, let’s watch again what happen when Enji comes to the decision he’ll become a better Hero and tries to ‘atone’ because a Hero should protect people’s future, not cut people’s future short.

When, for the first time, he tries to reach out for Shōto gently, Shōto moves away, refusing contact. This drives home it’s not enough to change the way he interact with Shōto, to get Shōto to shrug everything off and start anew with him.

He can’t do something as simple as meet Rei, meeting Rei would be bad for her, while she could meet Shōto just fine, which drives home he’s actually the problem with Rei, not Shōto, even though it was Shōto who got hurt by her.

When he’s injured, his injury makes him take true notice of Shōto’s scar. He blamed Rei for it but Shōto blamed him for it and now he might start feeling guilty for causing his son such scar.

When he tries to connect with Natsuo, Natsuo calls out on his behavior. Enji just expects them to leave the past behind and start moving forward together but Natsuo is plagued by the past and can’t leave it behind. The past comes to his mind each time he does something as simple as seeing Enji’s face. Shōto also remarks how he is a great Hero but he still can’t forgive him for what he did to his mother. This forces Enji to face with the feelings of his victims. They can’t just… start again because he wants them to.

When things fail with Natsuo and Fuyumi is so very hurt by this, he’s forced to acknowledge how his daughter worked hard to give him the chance to have a family dinner and he wasted it saying the wrong words to Natsuo so he apologizes to her.

‘Fuyumi imamade sumanakatta’ 「冬美今まですまなかった」 “Fuyumi, I’m sorry (for what happened) until now”

‘Natsuo ni kakeru kotoba o machigaeta’ 「夏雄に掛ける言葉を間違えた」 “I said the wrong words to Natsuo.” [Chap 192]

I’ll stop a moment on this apology as it’s the first apology Enji makes in the story.

Japanese people have 2.000 ways to apologize depending on what they’re apologizing for, how casual or formal is the speech, who they’re talking with, the context… you name it.

And of course, Enji uses always different ways to say ‘I’m sorry’ and the various differences between a sorry and another aren’t that easy to translate in English so almost all goes translated with an ‘I’m sorry’.

Said all this… how Enji is apologizing to Fuyumi here?

For start let’s go with the premise he usually uses casual speech to talk with his family members, which makes sense.

The word he picks now to apologize is ‘sumanakatta’ (すまなかった).

‘Sumanakatta’ is the past tense form of ‘suman’ (すまん), which is the informal/contracted version of ‘sumimasen’ (すみません) which comes from the verb ‘sumu’ (済む) “to feel unease or guilt for troubling someone”.

This is the apology you use when you do anything that might make someone else uncomfortable and, even if Enji is using the casual form, it’s generally considered a formal apology, kind of like an “Excuse me”.

It doesn’t necessarily mean what you did was small, in fact it’s also what you’ll use to apologize to your boss for a mistake because, in polite language, this is the way to apologize you’ve to use.

An interesting thing though is that you can also use it with the meaning of “thank you” when someone does something for you, so you are apologizing for the inconvenience with the purpose of thanking that person. It’s however less strong than ‘arigatō’ (ありがとう).

In this case it can have both meaning, Enji might have been apologizing Fuyumi for troubling her up until then, or thanking her for all she did even though it troubled her up until then.

The following sentence seems to imply it’s more an ‘I’m sorry’ as he mentions messing up with Natsuo, which ruined Fuyumi’s efforts for them to have a family dinner.

Is he using polite language and therefore making a formal, serious apology to Fuyumi or it’s just casual speech?

The visual helps us figuring this out.

In fact, while it’s nice Enji apologizes, the apology feels hollow, a mere formality, just an act because Fuyumi went through a lot of effort and Enji was about to leave without saying nothing. He apologizes solely when she protests he’s about to leave and the visual doesn’t even show him watching her as he does so, no, he’s looking ahead, likely focusing on his atonement plan, which is ironic as he’s thinking at atoning and yet he isn’t even watching one of the people he should atone to.

So let’s go back to Enji.

When Enji decides Shōto should let him teach him Flashfire Fist because ‘now he’ll do like a father should’, Shōto for a while ignores his calls. This leads him to experience the feeling of being ignored, his feelings dismissed after he has done it for so long with the ones of his family.

This also tells us more on how he continues doing things one sided in his ‘atonement’, he basically wants to still do what he wants (teach Shōto Flashfire Fist) but in a different, ‘better’ way. He thinks Shōto should just open up to him because he’s going to be better, because he’ll became the man he wants to be (a man worth of the position of Number 1). He’s not addressing what he did to Shōto in the past, how it impacted Shōto’s life, nor he’s asking Shōto what he could do to make up and he’s again not really caring for his feelings since he is the one who decided Shōto should learn it, this is not Shōto’s idea.

So how this becomes another lesson?

When Shōto accepts to have his Work Study in Endeavor agency Enji takes it as a win, he doesn’t even ask Shōto what he wants to learn, he has already decided for him, SAME AS BEFORE, and what’s Shōto’s response?

Shōto, who had previously told him he believes he’s a great Hero but wants to see what he can do as a father, remarks he came to his agency SOLELY BECAUSE HE’S THE NUMBER 1 HERO and doesn’t view him as a father… because Enji did nothing to show him he can be a father. Wanting him in his agency, wanting to teach him Flashfire is still because Enji is a Hero and Shōto answers in kind, accepting him as a the Number 1 Hero but rejecting him as a father. And Enji has to face and swallow this, that now that he’s trying to be a father, his son views him solely as a Hero. Enji wanted to live in the Hero world with Shōto? Now he’s doing it, but he doesn’t have his son anymore.

And we continue with the lessons.

When Fuyumi invites them to dinner and Natsuo says he also used to cook for the family but Endeavor might not have let Shōto eat it because it was rich… Enji says he didn’t know Natsuo did this but hey, why not to try again, which is Enji’s version of attempting to connect with Natsuo now.

In reply Natsuo gets upset because Enji has again acknowledged he hadn’t paid attention to Natsuo in the past but he’s not apologizing, he’s not addressing the past, he’s just saying, try again, this time I’ll see you… and so Natsuo leaves, hurt, because his past pain was dismissed and he was fundamentally asked to move on, which leaves Enji to face the fact it’s not enough TO DO BETTER NOW, to try to pay attention to his kids now.

And all those lessons lead Enji to think harder at his family, at the situation, at what he’s supposed to do.

Later, for example, he’ll thanks Fuyumi.

Remember when I said ‘sumanakatta’ could work as “Thank you” but it’s less strong than ‘arigatō’?

‘Fuyumi. Arigatō’ 「冬美ありがとう」 “Fuyumi. Thank you.” [Chap 250]

Well, to thanks Fuyumi, Enji uses ‘arigatō’ now. He still seems not able to look at her in the eyes, but this time it’s not because he’s looking ahead at his future plans, his gaze is downcast so he’s probably ashamed of himself.

Enji had been trying ‘atoning’ by a while with little to no result and yet Fuyumi had always acted supportive. Now he’s likely more aware of how this isn’t necessarily a given, he has learnt to appreciate more his daughter’s efforts, this time he doesn’t try to leave without saying anything, he stops to thank her. And, from Fuyumi’s expression, we can see this matters to her, this makes her happy.

But back to Enji.

Enji claims each night he asks himself what he can do for his family. And his subconscious in a way answers him, as he says he dreams each night his family at dinner table, they’re all happy but he’s not there. Enji first interprets this as a manifestation of how he feels now, he’s cut out of his family, they’re now ignoring him, they’re happy but he can’t partake at their happiness… even though now he’s trying to be better and wants to be there.

But there’s another way to see the dream, as his subconscious pointing out at his mistakes.

He’s the one who was never with his family, he’s the one who decided on not sitting with them and enjoying that simple happiness, he rejected it because he wanted to live in the Hero world and surpass All Might, and so he cut them out, neglected them when he didn’t outright abuse them to force them to serve his needs. He had no time for them he wouldn’t see them. Now that they’re also cutting him out, he’s merely reaping what he had sown.

The fact he had cut his family out of his Hero World, that he is focusing only on his Hero persona is always the root of his problems.

His family has told him what they wanted him to do, Shōto wants to see what he can do as a dad, Fuyumi has made clear she wants her family back, Natsuo might feel more obscure in what he wants, but in the end he too asked Enji something, for Enji to do something, to make that atonement happen so that Natsuo will stop being plagued by the past and will manage to grant his sister’s dream for them to live together. Enji hears Midoriya saying Shōto is waiting, waiting to see Enji do something as a father, but he doesn’t know what to do because Enji is still too busy on being a Hero.

It’ll turn out his plan to do something for his family was AGAIN letting his family go. He’ll give them a new house and remain in the old one. Even though Shōto and Fuyumi made clear they wanted him to step up on the role of father, he’s not trying to be a father, he’s not trying to fix the hurt he caused, he’s just pulling out. AGAIN.

To be a Hero.

And here comes again an important lesson. In regard to his family he can’t even be a Hero.

In fact we see that when Natsuo is captured by Ending DUE TO HIM as Ending is targeting ENJI or better ENDEAVOR,  even though didn’t want Natsuo to get hurt, in that moment in which his son was in danger he was so worried with his own feelings he froze. He couldn’t even be a Hero and Shōto, Bakugo and Midoriya had to step up and save the day.

We aren’t talking about him needing to be the Number 1 Hero, the strongest Hero, Ending is nowhere near a Nomu in terms of strength, we’re talking about being just as good as a Hero in training so that he can save his son. And he fails. And this for him might be the harshest lesson, that, for his family, he can’t even be a Hero, the only things that matters for him.

And this time, faced with his complete and utter failure as a Hero and the fact he was about to lose another child of his like he had lost Tōya, he apologizes to Natsuo.

He hugs his child, admits he failed where Bakugo and the others succeeded (a clearly humbling moment) and, when Natsuo forcefully breaks out of his hug, he apologizes to Natsuo, admitting he was in the wrong.

‘Warukatta…!’ 「悪かった…!」 “It was my bad…!”

‘Isshun kangaete shimatta ore ga tasuketara konosaki omae wa ore ni nani mo ienaku natte shimau node wanai ka to’ 「一瞬考えてしまった俺が助けたらこの先おまえは俺に何も言えなくなってしまうのではないかと」 “I thought for a moment that if I helped you, you might not be able to say anything to me from now on.”

‘Natsuo shinjinakute mo ī!’ 「夏雄信じなくてもいい…！」 “Natsuo, you don't have to believe me…!”

Ore wa omae-tachi o utonde ita wake janai 「俺はおまえたちを疎んでいたわけじゃない」 “It’s not like I was distancing myself from you guys”

‘Daga sekinin o nasuritsuke nigeta’ 「だが責任をなすりつけ逃げた」 “but I lay the blame/responsibility on others and ran away.”

‘Tōya mo… Ore ga koroshita mo dōzenda…!’ 「燈矢も…俺が殺したも同然だ…!」 “Tōya too…it's the same as if I killed him too…!” [Chap 252]

And here Enji apologizes again but this time the word he chooses is ‘Warukatta’ (悪かった).

‘Warukatta’ is the past tense form of ‘warui’ (悪い), which comes from the noun ‘waru’ (悪) “bad thing” (or, if you read it as ‘aku’, “evil thing”).

Technically, it isn't an actual apology but an admission of fault. Of course, if you admit you’re at fault, which is a big deal in Japan, this should imply you're sorry for what you did.

And okay, I already said Enji uses casual speech with his family but… this is a… very casual way to say ‘sorry’. Even if it imply you did something bad… it’s not something you should use, not even with your friends, for a serious matter, in fact it’s kind of like “My bad” and, what’s more, what Enji says after it, is still very much focused on defending himself and explaining himself but he’s FINALLY acknowledging some of his wrongdoing and taking responsibility for them instead than avoid the whole topic. He’s not escaping from the blame by pushing it on others anymore… even if, despite how serious they are, it seems he’s still underplaying them. There’s to say though that his head is lowered in apology so maybe he’s being super casual just because he’s Natsuo’s father and therefore socially above Natsuo, which makes him bowing his head to Natsuo matter a lot more.

However yes, he’s not really addressing Natsuo’s feelings… at least not in a way that matters. He’s not soothing the hurt he caused to Natsuo. He thinks he’s doing it when he says Natsuo doesn’t have to forgive him, but this is missing the point of what forgiving is and why it’s done.

‘Ore o yurusanakute ī’ 「俺を許さなくていい」 “You don't have to forgive me”

‘Yurushite hoshī n janai’ 「許してほしいんじゃない」 “I don't want you to forgive me”

‘Tsugunaitainda’ 「償いたいんだ」 “I want to make amends” [Chap 252]

The importance of forgiving, which often gets lost in redemption arcs as they tend to focus on the abuser and everything seems to get fixed for him when he’s forgiven, is that ‘forgiving’ isn’t done for the abuser, but for the victim.

The abuser can (and often should) continue to feel bad for what a disgusting thing he did even if he get forgiven but, at least, the victim will feel better because forgiving means to let go of all the painful/angry feelings the victim feels. That’s why, in a redemption arc, striving for being forgiven is important and is the milestone that signal the end to the arc, because finally the abuser is no more causing pain to the victim. He had paid the victim back. Which is the point of redemption. To pay the victim back, to make up to the victim.

In a roundabout way, this is what Natsuo is asking Enji to do, to soothe his hurt. It’s hinted Natsuo too wants to forgive Enji… but he doesn’t want to be the one who does the work.

Natsuo will in fact point out that when he sees Enji memories come rushing in. Those memories are painful so they clearly make him feel pain and he reacts to it with anger… so even though his sister would be happy to have them all, his father included, live together, he can’t do it. He feels like Enji is asking HIM to do the effort to let go of the past, but he wants Enji instead to make him let go of the past, to soothe the hurt he had caused.

Enji can’t atone if he doesn’t get forgiven because as long as Natsuo can’t forgive him, he’ll always feel pain seeing Enji, meaning Enji will always hurt him even when he tries not to.

‘Nande kotchi ga nōdōteki ni kawaranakya ikerunda yo!’ 「何でこっちが能動的に変わらなきゃいけるんだよ!」 “Why do I have to actively change!?”

‘Tsugunautte anta ni nani ga dekirunda yo’ 「償うってあんたに何ができるんだよ」 “What can you do to make amends?” [Chap 252]

And what is Enji going to do?

He’s again removing himself from Natsuo’s life. Yeah, if you want to face palm that’s the moment.

He will gift Natsuo and Fuyumi with a new, more comfortable house in which they can go live with their mother. Because Rei can’t see him without feeling fear, because Natsuo can’t see him without feeling pain and rage, he thinks the solution is for them to not see him, to avoid him, the way he has done with them.

He doesn’t try to fix the problem, he wants them to avoid it.

Mind you, he’s not doing this to be a jerk. Now he wants to be part of his family, he was thinking he could start again, so giving up on it feels painful to him… and avoiding him seems on the surface what Rei and Natsuo wanted, what they needed (Natsuo was trying to avoid him and Rei’s doctor said she’s not supposed to meet Enji). But this goes against what Fuyumi wants, for him too to be also part of the family, and shift the blame for this not happening on them.

Because they can’t stand to the sight of him, he has to pull back and Fuyumi won’t get her wish to live together and Shōto won’t get to see him acting like a father. And Natsuo made clear he wanted to fulfill his sister’s wish, he just didn’t know how to do it and wanted Enji to do something in that regard and Enji… didn’t.

Enji chose the easy way out of the problem, like he admitted he always did.

While the consequence he has to face is that he has ‘lost’ his family, turning into reality the dream he kept having, the family now that he’s no more plagued by his envy he has discovered he wanted to be with… building a new house for his family is no big deal for him as he has the money to do so and he can still hope things will eventually get fixed and that they’ll move over.

If this didn’t happen… well, he’ll remain without his family but, since he kept away from it though most of his life prioritizing his Hero career… to us readers it doesn’t really seem a big deal. After all it’s not like he wants to stop being a Hero, and he’s Number 1 and so we reach the Paranormal Liberation War with Enji still having been forced to face unpleasant consequences for what he did but, fundamentally, nothing earth shattering, nothing that pushed him to fight with all he had to make up to his family.

He still needs a push.

Enters Dabi, who’s more than willing to give him a giant size shove.

TŌYA OR WHEN GENTLY NUDGING YOU DOESN’T WORK, LET’S TRY WITH KICKING YOU

Redemption and revenge aim at the same thing, refunding the victim of an abuse. The difference is that in redemption the abuser decides on the refunding on his own, in revenge it’s the victim that take matters in his hands and extract refunding from the abuser, often believing they’re done in an ‘oculum pro oculo’ manner… but actually going way too overboard because they often want revenge for something that’s intangible and long lasting, the pain they suffered and keep suffering.

But back with Enji.

Up to this point Enji has interacted with his victims… but they were all what you call ‘good victims’ victims who wouldn’t try to return back the wrongdoing they have received. Even in Shōto and Natsuo’s case, despite them being angry with him, the most they do is tell him why they’re angry and avoid him or reject him as a father, they don’t really try to make Enji’s life as miserable as he made their own.

In fact, while Rei and Fuyumi are of the ‘forgive and forget’ type, Natsuo and Shōto are more of the ‘forgive but NOT forget’ kind (and, to be honest, they aren’t even fully done with the forgiving part) as they’re slowly letting go of their anger but they aren’t willing to shrug off what Enji did.

However Tōya, at the moment, is fully of the ‘NOT forgive and NOT forget’ type. His father ruined his life and he CAN’T get over this. What he suffered destroyed him psychologically, he’s suicidal and he chose anger as a way to cope with pain which leads him to pursue revenge as a way to get even with his father. If Enji made him miserable, he’ll make him miserable in return. If he destroyed him, he’ll destroy him back. If he’s in hell due to his father, he’ll drag Enji in hell as well.

‘Jigōjitoku da ze’ 「自業自得だぜ」 “You reap what you sow!”

‘Saa issho ni ochiyou Todoroki Enji!!’ 「さァ一緒に堕ちよう轟炎司！！」 “Well, let’s fall together, Todoroki Enji”

‘Jigoku (read: kotchi) de musuko (read: ore) to odorou ze!!!’ 「地獄(こっち)で息子(おれ)と踊ろうぜ！！！」 “Dance with your son (read: me) in hell (read: here)!!!” [Chap 290]

Tōya wants revenge which makes him aggressive as hell and causes him to do plenty of wrong things, but this doesn’t change the fact he’s also Enji’s victim, he’s also a family member Enji horribly wronged and Enji should atone to him too.

Now, a note on Tōya.

Differently from the rest of his family, who just blames Enji for the pain they suffered, Tōya is not just blaming Enji for what he went through, he’s blaming his family, who didn’t help him, and society, which enabled Enji.

So he doesn’t want to be paid back SOLELY by Enji, but by the rest of his family and society as well, and part of his actions aren’t aimed merely at hurting Enji but also all the others he views responsible, even if he thinks the biggest part of the blame rests on his father’s shoulders and extracting revenge from him is his main goal.

It’s what the other Todorokis, who set the blame solely on Enji, don’t quite get, but it’s also why Tōya has no problems hurting people who aren’t Enji. Because he sees them as co-responsible. To him it’s not ALL ABOUT ENJI, though Enji is the BIGGEST REASON of why all this happened and his main focus.

“Boku no Hero Academia” is a story that criticize/analyzes/promotes change in society as well so of course it has to be also about society… but this is about Enji and his redemption arc, so I won’t focus much on society and its problems and Tōya’s attempt to get revenge out of society as well. That’s for another post.

But, back on Enji.

Tōya’s role in this part of Enji’s arc is to FORCE HIM to come face to face with all that he is still trying to not see, the consequences of his actions and how they can’t just be erased, how not everyone will content himself with just moving out of his life and go on living because some can’t. Their future is a barren land, it doesn’t exist, they’re in hell and their only way out is dying.

Tōya’s whole speech is about forcing him to see.

Tōya doesn’t need to be prompted to speak his mind like Natsuo, he immediately makes clear his father ignored him, hurt him, stripped him of what gave his existence a meaning, made him miserable, he made clear the pain Enji put him through, and why he did so, which were the extremely selfish and egotistical reasons which moved Enji… and now he wants payback, or better he wants to return everything he received. He won’t set aside the past. Not only the past made him what he is now, keeps hurting him like an open wound, but it’s basically all he has, as he believed he has been stripped of his future.

‘Kako wa kienai za!!’ 「過去は消えないザ!!」 “The past doesn’t disappear!” [Chap 290]

Tōya also nails what had been Enji’s thoughts, Enji really thought ‘As long as I face the future, I can be better’, now that he was Number 1 he really tried to stare to his kids in the eyes longing to feel the warmness of his family.

‘Mirai ni me o mukete ireba tadashiku areru to omottadarou! ! ? 「未来に目を向けていれば正しくあれると思っただろう！！？」 “You should have thought if you turn your attention to the future, you’ll be able to follow the right path!!?”

‘Shira nē yōdakara oshiete yaru yo! !’ 「知らねエようだから教えてやるよ！！！」 “Since you don’t seem to know it, I’ll tell you!!” [Chap 290]

It didn’t went as easy as Tōya seems to think it went, as the others weren’t as accommodating and forgiving as he seems to believe they were, but those were Enji’s thoughts, he believed by walking toward the future he could leave the past behind.

And Tōya is there to remind him he can’t, that the past would never die. He dehumanizes himself so that he can present himself as the embodiment of such past, of Enji’s mistakes. He’s no more a person, he’s the result, the consequence of all of them.

Not only Tōya won’t forget what Enji did, he won’t forgive him and he’ll extract revenge from him.

Tōya won’t stay quiet in a mental hospital or go on with his life away from him, no, Tōya will expose everything Enji did, as well as the fact he’s his son and that his villainous actions are a direct consequence of Enji’s actions, an answer to them. He destroys Enji’s reputation as a Hero and as a man… and destroys the faith in Heroes the Hero society in which they lived thrives upon.

It was ‘easy’ for Enji to leave the past behind because he wasn’t the one who got hurt by his own actions, he wasn’t the one who had to face the consequences, who has to live with the psychological scarring.

Tōya forced him to see the past wouldn’t die, that the past actions have consequences that live on, that who’s hurt can’t just move on as easily as who had hurt people. He forces him to see this by hurting him, by giving him pain and psychological scars he won’t be able to shrug off and leave behind.

His father fails at empathy, he won’t get into someone else’s shoes willingly so Tōya forces him to do so in order to lead him to understand how much harm he did to him.

Tōya rips to shreds his father’s Hero persona, which was his father’s reason of existence, Enji now might stay Number 1 but he’s clearly no more a HERO in people’s eyes, no Hero is a HERO in their eyes. Because since Tōya was banned from entering in the Hero world by his father, he did his best to destroy such world in which his father thrived and which society enabled, refusing to see the wrong things Heroes were making.

What’s more, Enji, with Natsuo and Rei, thought he could fix things with them simply by pulling himself out of the equation. They won’t see him, and therefore won’t get hurt by seeing him, he won’t see them, and therefore won’t get hurt by seeing the consequences of his actions.

They all will not look at each other so that nobody will get hurt, or so he tells himself.

Tōya doesn’t let him do the same with him. Tōya wants Enji to look at him, to look at him and see all the harm he had done to him, he wants Enji to face consequences, to realize how he destroyed him for his beloved Hero world, for his selfish dream, for his ego.

Tōya is in pain and wants his father to see such pain and feel it on himself because Tōya is unable to move on, he can’t stop seeing Enji, he’s at a stage where he always feels pain inside himself. He doesn’t expect to be healed from his pain by his father, he’s more in a ‘commune naufragium, omnibus solarium’ mindset.

And Tōya does a pretty good job at making Enji face consequences, in fact, when Enji wakes up in the hospital he cries, saying Endeavor is dead. Tōya has succeeded in making him feel as miserable as he felt, he has ripped from him the reason why he existed, his Endeavor persona and Enji crumbles under the pain. He can’t just shrug it off like he expected his family to do.

He apologizes to his kids, this time using ‘suman’ (すまん).

‘Suman… hontō ni… sumanai. Suman…tsu.’ 「すまん…本当に…すまないすまん…つ」 “I’m sorry… I’m really… sorry. Sorry…”

‘Oso sugitanda… kōkai ga… zaiaku-kan ga… ima ni natte…! Kokoro ga mō’ 「遅すぎたんだ…後悔が…罪悪感が…今になって…!心がもう」 “It's too late… I feel regret… I feel guilty… now…! My heart is already…” [Chap 300]

Previously Enji has used ‘sumanakatta’, which was the past tense form of ‘suman’ (すまん).

So back at this are we? Is he just offering a formal apology because he “feel unease or guilt for troubling someone” in this specific case his family?

The visual helps us figuring this out.

This time the apology is more heartfelt. Enji is crying rather badly, his head lowered in shame, and he doesn’t say just ‘suman’ but also ‘hontō ni sumanai’ (本当にすまない).

‘Sumanai’ in this case should be the negative form of ‘suman’. The implication should be “he’ll never stop feeling unease or guilt for troubling someone”, so it’s a bit stronger than ‘suman’ even if still just casual (in fact some dictionary translate it as “I did something inexcusable”) and, to it, he adds ‘hontō ni’ (本当に), “really”, so he means “he really never stop feeling unease or guilt for troubling someone”.

This time the apology is clearly more serious, more heartfelt than with Fuyumi. It drives better home this time he’s more aware he didn’t just ‘troubled’ his family.

Now Enji is better grasping why he should be sorry about it, he’s crying, although he’s still very much focused on himself. His concerns are for his heart, which is broken (and possibly for how ‘Endeavor is dead’), not for how his family is feeling. He calls them there likely because he also wants them to comfort him, to make him feel better, not because he wants to make them feel better.

And this time it’s Rei to give him a wake up call, pointing out they had it much worse than him. And when he asks her if she’s okay, she points out she’s not.

Rei is another result of the past not dying, even though she’s moving on, now she’s capable to look straight at him… but it’s not like all the hurt went away.

Then Enji is forced to look back at the past and at his past actions as they, as a family, go through them.

Enji refused to look at Tōya, escaping responsibility, caused him to keep burning himself in an attempt to regain his affection and had two more kids with the excuse this would make Tōya stop burning himself but, in truth, because he was the one who couldn’t get over the fact he couldn’t surpass All Might. He drove Tōya so desperate that, in order to have him look at him, he attacked Shōto, because negative attention is better than no attention.

In response Enji isolated Shōto from his siblings, continued to refuse to look at Tōya even when it was made clear to him that this was what Tōya wanted, what Tōya needed, and not a sibling that could surpass All Might as Enji claimed Tōya needed… but that, in truth, was what Enji wanted.

Then Enji drove Rei to insanity and, even though he saw Tōya’s desperation and how his supposed idea to stop him from training by having Shōto didn’t work, continued to refuse to look at him to the point he knew Tōya would go to Sekoto Peak and would get burned if he were to use his Quirk but didn’t go to face him… and Tōya ended up with more than just new fresh burns, he burned down the whole place and himself as well.

As if this wasn’t bad enough Enji continued to put Shōto through hellish training, excusing his actions and insisting in his impressive sunk cost fallacy.

His family makes clear he can’t escape responsibility anymore and has to face Tōya.

Now, there is a problem in this if we look at the story as Enji’s redemption arc toward his WHOLE family (and therefore include Tōya too in it).

From now on, Enji will be pressured into focusing not on atoning to Tōya (or the rest of his family), but on focusing on doing his duty as Endeavor to protect and atone to society (which is tied to his responsibility toward society as Tōya’s father) which requires him to fight/stop Tōya/Dabi.

Yes, Tōya absolutely needs to be stopped, stopping him is the most logical thing to do but, if Enji is focusing on this and not on his atonement, stopping Tōya becomes a side quest that distracts him from his real quest… and stops him from seeing which is the fire he should truly stop, not the one his son creates with his Quirk, but the one burning inside Tōya, a fire he had light with his mistakes.

It’s a repeat of his past mistakes, where the family has focused on the fire of Tōya’s Quirk which burned him, and not on the one burning inside Tōya which made him miserable.

So, even though all the family is now taking responsibility for the situation, at the end of the day what they tell Enji to do is go face Tōya not as his father who needs to atone to him, but as the one who needs to stop him, likely wanting to encourage him to take up the mantle of Endeavor again, in fact Rei says ‘he has to fight Dabi’, using her son’s Villain name.

‘Sekinin wa anata dake no mono janai’ 「責任はあなただけのものじゃない」 “The responsibility is not just yours.”

‘Konkai no koto wa watashitachi zen'in no sekinin’ 「今回のことは私たち全員の責任」 “We are all responsible for this time.”

‘Kokoro ga kudakete mo watashitachi ga tata semasu’ 「心が砕けても私たちが立たせます」 “Even if your heart is broken, we will make you stand up”

‘Anata wa Dabi to tatakau shika nai no’ 「あなたは荼毘と戦うしかないの」 “You have no choice but to fight Dabi” [Chap 302]

Shōto also will remark they have to stop Tōya and then Hawks and Best Jeanist will insist on this as well. It’s irony at his finest, when Enji was finally willing to declare Endeavor dead, everyone wanted him to be Endeavor.

We could make another meta talking of his family and why they want this and why they don’t ask this because they don’t care about Tōya (they all love him), but that’s a Meta for another time.

Let’s stick to Enji.

The conclusion of all this is that he has to remain Endeavor and prioritize apologizing to society, atoning to it so he has to take part to a press conference and apologize.

‘Owabi no mōshiageyō mo gosaimasen’ 「お詫びの申し上げようもごさいません」 “There is no way for me to apologize enough/I have no excuses.” [Chap 306]

This is what he says to the press and this time the apology is as formal as you can get. It’s a sentence used to apologize to customers or superiors about really big mistakes. It’s fitting the context since he’s apologizing to the press and to society itself.

It makes sense he’s being formal here, he even shaved for the occasion.

It’s also worth to mention openly admitting his wrongdoing is a big deal in Japan. While he won’t face penal consequences for his sins, socially speaking he’s destroyed (as well as his family).

Hawks also will go with a formal apology.

‘Shazai mōshiagemasu’ 「謝罪申し上げます」 “I would like to apologize” [Chap 306]

It’s worth to mention that, while society thinks very poorly of Enji now… the way the manga presents it seems to imply society didn’t give a damn he abused of his family, their problem is such abuse resulted in them being ‘troubled’ and while not caring about Tōya can be in response to what Tōya did… what about poor Shōto? Tōya made clear he also was abused.

Enji’s arc likely is meant to parallel society’s arc. Because society was selfish, set in motion the chain of events that lead people like Tenko, Himiko, Jin and Tōya became Villains and now society is also paying the price and trying to deflect the blame solely on the Heroes. But again, that’s something for another meta.

Again to Enji we go and to how he gets here comes another wake up call.

A journalist also makes a point of how the past never dies.

She tells them than saying sorry doesn’t change the situation they’re in and that they can’t just stand there and pretend like it’s all over, that while Villains are to blame, they too share a responsibility.

‘“Subete jijitsudejita sumimasen” ja torikaeshinotsukanai jitaina ndesu yo’ 「『全て事実でじたすみません』じゃ取り返しのつかないじたいなんですよ」 “You just saying ‘It’s all true, sorry’ isn’t going to make it undone” [Chap 306]

Yes, she downgraded his formal apology to a mere ‘sumimasen’ to better drive home how little heartfelt it felt to her, how it just felt like a formality.

Enji asks her if, were they to show their pain, exhaustion and tears, this would fix things, which only enrage the journalist because of course it wouldn’t be enough.

Remember the whole atonement path?

Step 2 is realizing you did something wrong, step 3 is to regret it but then there’s a step 4. Step 4 is to start working on fixing things.

The journalist was accusing Enji to be at step 2, he’s aware he has done something bad and had wronged ‘society’ (as said before society don’t give a damn about how Enji has wronged his family), if he had also shown regret he would have been at step 3 but, according to her, he’s not, which meant he won’t move to step 4, which is the one in which he fixes things. Only with step 4 he can atone, just feeling sorry is mandatory but nowhere near enough.

And here however comes a problem, Horikoshi subtly remarks how this is bringing Enji away from atoning to his family.

The journalist starts to point out what he should do to atone to the people, only to pause in mid sentence as she realizes that, by asking him to take down every Villain, she’s asking him to take down his son.

‘Teki (read: Villain) o zenbu katadzukeru sore ga…’ 「敵 (ヴィラン)を全部片付けるそれが…」 “Get rid of all the enemies (read: Villains), that’s how…” [Chap 306]

‘Katadzukeru’ (片付ける) can imply that, in order to get rid of the Villains, Enji has to kill all the Villains. Note that in the past it was said that Heroes shouldn’t kill, and Hawks had to apologize for killing Twice… but now the public rage feels they’re entitled to be above such rules. They were wronged and they want blood… same as the Villains.

It was the point that Shigaraki made when he fought against Endeavor. Because he was rejected, he rejects. Because he was hurt, he hurts. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s what Tōya is doing. It’s what society wants to do. Again, on this too, we could write meta.

For now let’s only remark that, if Enji were to take down his son, he wouldn’t get to atone to him.

So the narrative calls Enji to a choice… but he doesn’t even realize it.

In fact, here he should decide if he wants to atone to Tōya, whom he had wronged, or society, whom he also had wronged.

Enji chose to be Endeavor and atone to society… but it’s not really a choice because he hadn’t truly grasped yet Tōya is HIS VICTIM and he has to atone to him too.

In fact later, fighting All for One, Enji will say his mistakes took form of Tōya… but Tōya isn’t a personification for his mistakes, he’s a real person he hurts and who’s now trying to retaliate.

His wish to look at Tōya after the war has ended, isn’t related to finally give his son the attention he emotionally always needed and asked, but to look after him to stop him from making mistakes/causing harm to the people. He’s planning to look after Tōya, not at Tōya.

Doing so is still part of his atoning to society, to make sure his son won’t cause further harm to it. And he’ll do this later, because he still first prioritize his Hero work… because his regret is very much focused on what his actions had caused to befall on society on how his son is a mass murderer now, which causes harm to society.

Let’s make clear Enji doesn’t want to kill Tōya, he has made clear he can’t when he woke up in the hospital, Tōya, to him, is not like Shigaraki whom he wanted to kill (despite how Heroes shouldn’t kill) and for whom he had no sympathy whatsoever. Tōya is still his son.

But he’s still not at the point in which he has realized he has to apologize to Tōya because he has hurt him, for now he’s just thinking he mismanaged the situation and seeing Tōya as an extension of himself same way as he saw Shōto. To him, they’re both his creations, Shōto exists to defeat All Might, Tōya exists as personification of his mistakes.

Ironically the chapters in which the Todoroki family past was told were called “The wrong way to put out a fire” in English, but in Japanese they are ‘Hi no fushimatsu’ (火の不始末) which can be more literally translated as “mismanagement/careless handling of fire” (it generally implied in ‘putting it out’) with ‘fushimatsu’ meaning “omission”, “failure”, “incompleteness”, “irregularity”, “mismanagement”. “misconduct”, “malpractice”, “carelessness”, “wastefulness”.

And this is what Enji felt he did, he messed up, he handled things badly. He’s not quite thinking at the hurt he caused to his son, he’ll still need some time to figure that out.

Due to all this, Enji’s redemption to society take priority, in Enji’s eyes, to his redemption to his family. Enji has to put society at ease, he has to redeem himself in society’s eyes by saving society… society needs to be saved for them to live… and everyone, his family, the other Heroes, are pressuring him to do just that… and so, in a way, his redemption arc to his family stagnate. He returns to prioritizing his Hero job… and doesn’t even realize that his redemption arc toward his family is being postponed. He isn’t yet at step 2 of his redemption to his family yet. Even Tōya realizes it (and it's interesting how we aren't shown his eyes as he speaks).

‘…Ijime tarinakatta ka a kuku…’ 「…虐め足りなかったかあクク…」 “…the bullying/tormenting wasn’t enough? Heh heh…” [Chap 306]

No, it wasn’t enough to make him empathize with the pain Tōya (or his family) went through.

Enji is sorry. For himself. Really, really sorry. But he’s not yet sorry for his son, for his family… possibly not even for society. He knows he messed up. But he’s still doing this because it’s his duty.

But we’re getting close because now he’s left experiencing what it feels like to be miserable, to be rejected, to be cut out from society, to have failed completely and utterly.

“Boku no hero academia” doesn’t explore it much, possibly because for Japanese people this is a given or because this is an optimistic story aimed at young audience, or because the editor just didn’t want to show one of the Heroes having it too bad, but I can recommend you a good SEINEN manga (remember, seinen manga are targeted at male audiences aged 18 to 40, if you’re younger they’re not for you!) “Theseus no fune” (テセウスの船 ‘Theseus’ ship’) which will show you how ‘kind’ Japanese society is with the family of a man who’s accused of having poisoned 20 people.

His family, his children included, is forced to live in shame, they can’t show happiness or pain in public, they’ve to live hiding their identity, if people find out who they are, they’re bashed, hated, avoided, bullied, they’ve to move away from their house and workplace/school, constantly apologizing. One of the man’s child, who wasn’t even born yet when the crime was committed, managed to get married but his wife’s family refuses to see him. He can’t become a teacher, he has to wear a mask to hide his face at work and avoid people the best he can so they won’t discover his identity and he learns from his mother that when she had to give birth to him hospitals didn’t want to take her in because she was the wife of a murderer.

So yeah, Enji and his family supposedly aren’t really having a nice time, which is hinted also when Tōya asked Shōto how was he when he was being holed up in U.A. after the truth about Endeavor was revealed. Tōya expected people to reject him as he were Endeavor’s son and Dabi’s brother.

However supposedly people in the shelter at U.A. and Shōto’s classmates are all nice with him and no one apparently harassed Rei, Fuyumi and Natsuo… or if they did it was never shown.

We see Enji has it a little worse as, while he’s on work, the people he just protected rejects him but again, the manga doesn’t focus much on this and he has his family’s support as well as the one of all the other Heroes so… he’s not having it as bad as one would expect, at least not visually.

Logically he should have it really bad… but the story prefers to focus on how nice people at U.A. and Heroes are which is… a choice.

Anyway, back to Enji, that’s why he comes to the battlefield completely unprepared to face his son, why he hadn’t thought of anything to say to him. Because he still hadn’t grasped Tōya is also a victim to whom he should atone… nor he has really grasped his family’s feelings.

In fact we saw how, although Shōto has agreed to work with him to stop Tōya, prior to the start of the war, Enji cuts communications with him and goes with Midoriya and Hawks on a Team Up mission.

When confronted by Shōto, he claims that Shōto wanting to help him to stop Tōya meant a lot TO HIM and that FOR HIM is enough, and Shōto is forced to point out Enji is again cutting him from the equation and focusing to himself. To Shōto the whole thing means nothing if Enji doesn’t act on it, if Enji ignores him. Enji has again not considered his feelings, has again ignored his family.

Shōto has to remind him again they’ve to stop Tōya TOGETHER.

And then the Heroes are ready for the war to start… and it’s decided Endeavor will be put against All for One while Shōto will have to face his brother... which isn’t exactly how many expected them to stop Tōya TOGETHER, even if yes, putting an end to All for One can be seen as a way to stop Tōya too as he could end up being affected by the consequences of All for One’s fall… but well… it’s a huge stretch.

More than them stopping Tōya together it’s just they happen to be together in the war.

Credits when it’s due, Enji will phone to Shōto suggesting they should switch, that he should be the one to face Tōya but Shōto refuses and encourages him again to act as the Hero Endeavor and stop All for One, not as Todoroki Enji, while he’ll act as the Hero Shōto and stop Dabi.

Now no, I’m not saying this to blame Shōto.

Shōto’s situation is very different from Enji’s, he did nothing wrong, he’s a victim and he’s trying to do his best and help people as well as doing his duty as Hero. He doesn’t have to atone to his brother.

Sending his father to face his brother would have been psychologically much easier for Shōto, because it pains him a lot to face his brother. All for One calls this cruel against Shōto and abuse against Tōya.

'Soreni mottomo zankoku na saihaida to omou ze?' 「それに…最も残酷な采配だと思うぜ？」 "In addition… Don’t you think this is the most cruel arrangement?"

'Tsurai tachiba no masshi ni shirinugui o oshitsuke' 「辛い立場の末子に尻拭いを押し付け」 "You forced your youngest son, who was in a difficult situation, to wipe your butt."

'Kare (read: chōnan) e no gyakutai o tsudzukeru to wa!' 「彼（長男）への虐待を続けるとは！」 "And continued to abuse that person (read: your eldest son)!" [Chap 345]

‘Zankoku’ (残酷) which means “cruel” should be a well known word due to the famous song theme “Zankoku na tenshi no these” (残酷な天使のテーゼ)

‘Shirinugui’ (尻拭い) litterally means “to wipe your butt” but yes, it can be used to mean “clean up for someone else’s mistakes”.

‘Gyakutai’ (虐待) can mean “Abuse”, “mistreatment”, “Cruelty”. “Child abuse” in Japanese is ‘Jidō gyakutai’ (児童虐待), just to give you an idea of how serious the accuse is.

Long story short, what Tōya is doing is the result of Enji’s actions so Enji should have been the one to deal with it, not again push the work on Shōto.

But from a Hero’s point of view, this is the best plan, they pin the strongest Hero against the strongest Villain. Putting Endeavor against Dabi, after seeing how he froze the last time and how he declares he wants to atone to his family, risks for that battle to get lost, Hawks can see this, can see there’s the risk Enji will figure out he should atone to his son too and therefore wouldn’t be able to fight him.

Shōto, on the other side, in addition to being strong and having a move that supposedly can counter Dabi’s fire, has no debts toward him. The way the Heroes see it, Shōto did nothing wrong against Dabi because he basically didn’t even interact with him and also, due to this, his family ties with Dabi feel weak. He can fight him without freezing up, especially since, from Shōto and the Heroes’ perspective, it’s Dabi who’s wronging him, making Shōto Dabi’s victim and therefore giving Shōto an incentive to fight back.

It’s a good battle strategy but it grabs Enji’s atonement arc and throws it into the recycle bin for the sake of winning the battle.

It asks Enji to prioritize being a Hero in the Hero world and neglect both his children. Shōto accepts it as his duty as Hero but this doesn’t make the matter less unfair to him as a son. Tōya of course, has no duty to accept it, it only makes him more enraged.

And so, instead than focusing on his atonement arc toward his family, Enji focuses on his atonement arc toward the people as Endeavor and fights All for One.

It’s not all lost though, there’s conflict in him, sadly it’s not Luke Skywalker who tells him “Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate,” but All for One and let’s make it clear, All for One isn’t interested in helping Enji to atone… All for One is the palptine, the Emperor of the story, he’s interested in leading Enji to step 2, for the mere fact that this would shift Enji’s attention on the pain and regret for what he did and make easier for him to defeat Enji.

So All for One continues on hammering on it, on how Enji hurt his children, and reveals another of Enji’s failures, because Enji didn’t go to Sekoto Peak it was him who found Tōya.

What happens later is interesting.

All for One manages to deliver a good blow and Enji has an inner monologue with his younger self who… basically tells him he’ll never improve but that has to go on doing what he has always done, what has kept him alive, struggling against his weakness, to keep on raging.

It sets Enji in full Endeavor’s mode as the first thing he says is that putting an end to the fight is his duty.

He acknowledges some unpleasant truth like how, as Tōya said, the past never dies. He can’t just tell hurt people to move on.

He acknowledges that he’s the cause of many stolen futures… but he’s still not really focusing to his family in this. He thinks that his mistakes took form as Tōya and this lead to so many stolen futures, because he now acknowledges he’s the cause why Tōya did that…

‘Ore no ayamachi ga Tōya no sugata to nari’ 俺の過ちが燈矢の姿となり “My mistakes took the appearance of Tōya”

‘Ooku no hito no mirai wo ubatta’ 多くの人の未来を奪った “And stole many people’s futures.” [Chap 357]

… but he’s more focused on playing penance to society than to his son and it’s in this vein he claims he’ll continue watching Tōya.

‘Batsu wa ore ga uke tsudzukeru…!’ 「罰は俺が受け続ける…！」 “I will continue take punishment/being punished…!”

‘Katte Tōya wo mi tsudzukeru!’ 「勝って燈矢を見続ける！」 “I will win, and I will continue watching Tōya!” [Chap 357]

His idea that he’ll win this and after will keep his eyes on Tōya is not something he plans to do for Tōya. It’s for society so that it will have a path toward the future. It’s Endeavor’s atonement to society.

His keeping his eyes on Tōya doesn’t mean finally giving his son the attention he demanded, means to finally taking responsibility for him, keeping him from harming himself or the others as he hadn’t done when Tōya was younger.

It misses the part of the point of why he’s to blame for not watching Tōya when Tōya was a kid, not just because as a result Tōya got physically hurt, but because he got emotionally hurt by his neglect. Tōya isn’t doing all this because he got burnt, but because he got neglected.

However Enji hasn’t realized this yet and, in fact, when Enji finds himself face to face with Tōya and tells himself this time he’ll look at him…

‘Shimei…’ 使命… “My mission…”

‘Kondo wa ore ga miru’ 今度は俺が見る “This time I will watch you.” [Chap 376]

…and what he does after?

He doesn’t confront him on the hurt he caused him, he doesn’t apologize, he worries Tōya might have hurt Shōto and then drags him away so that Tōya won’t manage to hurt others.

And yeah, he’s clearly not trying to atone to him.

However, while many saw this as Enji saying one thing and doing another because it seemed he was escaping from the duty of looking at his son, this is actually what he’s doing, he’s making sure his son won’t hurt people. He’s trying to look after him… but he’s not looking at him.

He’s taking care of his mission, protecting people. And yes, he’s also doing one of his duties as a father, not taking care of his child but being responsible for his child’s actions, making sure they won’t hurt anyone. That’s why the tagline of that chapter in the magazine version says:

‘Chichi ni kasareta no wa…’ 父に課されたのは… “What the father was tasked/imposed with…” [Chap 376]

In a redemption arc atonement and redemption aren’t the task of the day, something others push on you. They’re your choice, your decision. No one can force you to redeem. You either decide for it or don’t.

We all were thinking now Enji would look at Tōya the way Tōya wanted, but that’s not the plan. Enji isn’t going to be there for Tōya like Tōya wanted… he’s going to act in a way that will stop Tōya from hurting others.

So Enji escapes to lead Tōya away from the others, so as to stop the incarnation of his mistakes from stealing other futures.

And it turns out this isn’t enough because Tōya is going to explode and when he’ll do… he’ll take so many lives with him. Tōya promised him he would try to take away from him what Enji tried to protect, that he’ll take away from him what Enji deemed precious in retaliation, and boy, he’s going to do it in a litteral blast.

And so Enji has to face his son… and in a way he really faces him as, although Tōya is in a terrible state, when Enji watches him all he sees is young Tōya smiling and asking him to watch him show him what he now can do.

It’s now he’s starting to reach step 2, because now he’s not seeing Tōya as a personification of his mistakes, but as his child… and tells him to stop because he doesn’t want HIM to die.

And it’s when Enji realizes Tōya has inherited Rei’s Quirk as well that Enji finally, FINALLY has his epiphany. [Chap 387]

This was what he wanted, a child with a superior fire Quirk and Rei’s Quirk to cool it down... and he got it, in a horribly warped way. The visual shows him thinking back to all he did that lead him to this moment, to have his wish fulfilled in such a distorted way, included his promise to ‘win and then watch over Tōya’.

Only now that he has finally connected all the dots and realized how much he hurt his son, he’s ready to finally watch him the way Tōya wanted.

AND YEAH! THAT’S STEP TWO! TOOK US A LOT OF TIME!

So finally…

2) Due to some circumstances Character A realizes what an horrible thing/things he did.

The visual is symbolic, Tōya had asked Enji to dance with him in hell, and now Enji is doing it. He’s with him in hell, he understands his pain and understands he’s the cause of it.

In fact it’s no more child Tōya he’s seeing, it’s the Tōya who told him to dance with him and Enji now is willing to do it

Enji finally answers to his son’s needs, takes full responsibility for what he did to Tōya. Finally he sees him, he sees the hell in which Tōya is, finally he’s with him like Tōya wanted, like Tōya needed.

‘Zenbu ore no sekinin da’ 「全部俺の責任だ」 “Everything is my fault/responsibility.” [Chap 387]

And with step 2 comes step 3.

3) Character A comes to genuinely regret his actions, they plague him, he’ll ABSOLUTELY have to either fix things or make up for them because he can’t bear living otherwise, it’ll always gnaw at him.

Enji goes through his original plan, bear the burden of the responsibility and live his life atoning (to society).

He goes on pointing out how Tōya had been watching him for all this time… even if it was painful, even if Enji wasn’t watching him back… while Enji didn’t watch him back so as to spare himself from facing responsibility, from facing pain.

‘Zenbu seotte tsugunai ni ikineba to omotte ita’ 「全部背負って償いに生きねばと思っていた」 “I thought I had to shoulder everything and live my life making amends.”

‘Demo omae wa zutto ore wo mitsudzuketetanda mon na…’ 「でもおまえはずっと俺を見続けてたんだもんな…」 “But you were always keeping on looking at me…”

‘Omae wo mite yarenakatta…’ 「おまえを見てやれなかった…」 “I couldn’t look at you…”

‘Omae ni mo tsugunawanakya ikenakattanda’ 「おまえにも償わなきゃいけなかったんだ」 “I have to make amends to you, too.” [Chap 387]

He can’t atone solely to society, he must atone to his son as well.

His dream of him never being at the table with his family comes to his mind. While in a way he accepts to make it become true… he accepts he won’t sit at the table with them… at the same time this time this time he won’t leave one of his family members alone, he won’t leave Tōya alone.

4) Character A starts to put all his efforts into atoning one way or another.

I’m not sure if, at that point, the explosion could have been avoided had Enji killed Tōya, but he’s not considering it because he won’t let his son die alone. He’ll die with him but in a way that won’t drag others with them. He thinks if they’ll go high in the sky the others won’t be caught up in the blast. Note that Tōya’s heat is so high it’s burning him but he’s not letting go of him.

Through the whole story, even when it was at his lowest, Enji has never thought to die, he always thought he would atone and keep living… this is also why Tōya said the bullying wasn’t enough, because his father never became as suicidal as him, and despite everything not even ‘Endeavor’, his Hero persona, died... but, after all, Enji’s whole start was that he didn’t want to end up like his father and die so he has a strong attachment to life… but now he’s accepting it. He’ll die with his son so as not to let him alone. It’s what Tōya asked him to do in a way.

But then Rei joins them and she immediately starts by apologizing to Tōya… as well as trying to cool him down. If Enji was ready to die with him… Rei, and then the rest of his children, will try to make their hardest to save them (and the rest of Japan from Tōya’s explosion) using their ice Quirk, a Quirk Enji always judged inferior to his fire Quirk which now is completely useless.

Enji can’t do nothing at this point, he can’t even bring Tōya up high in the sky, it’s too late for that, he can only beg Tōya, saying no one else has to die, just his life should be enough.

‘Mou… tanomu kara…ore dake ni shitekure…’ 「もう…頼むから…俺だけにしてくれ…」 “Now… I'm begging you… only me, please” [Chap 388]

Though Tōya’s mind seems to be partially gone, he’s aware enough for the first time everyone is paying him attention… and can’t understand why, if it was such a simple things, they hadn’t done it sooner. Now it’s too late, he’s about to explode and drag his whole family with himself.

But then Shōto, with the ice Quirk Enji only wanted him to have to cool down his fire Quirk, joins them and saves the day… yet he remarks in terms of sheer firepower, his own wouldn’t have been enough if he hadn’t added it to the one of his family members, rejecting the idea he was the masterpiece creation Enji wanted… remarking again how everything Enji did and believed, even in terms of Quirks and masterpieces and strength was wrong.

Meanwhile Tōya informs everyone this isn’t enough to soothe his hurt, that he still hates them all and himself as well and wants them all to die.

And, despite having to crawl to do so, Enji reaches him, rests his hand on him and apologizes to him.

‘…Tōya…! Warukatta… Sekoto-take ikanakute…gomen na…!!’ 「…燈矢…！悪かった…瀬古杜岳行かなくて…ごめんな…‼」 “…Tōya…! It was my bad... For not coming to Sekoto Peak…I’m sorry…!!” [Chap 390]

Remember Enji’s various apologies to his family?

We had an ‘imamade sumanakatta’ (今まですまなかった) said to Fuyumi, that was just a pro forma, then a ‘warukatta’ (悪かった) said to Natsuo, that was a really light way to admit it was his fault, then he went for ‘Suman… hontō ni… sumanai. Suman…’ (すまん…本当に…すまないすまん…) which better expressed how sorry he was.

Now… now he starts again with ‘warukatta’… but then he uses ‘gomen na’ (ごめんな).

‘Gomen na’ (ごめんな) is the informal/contracted version of ‘gomen nasai’ (ごめんなさい/御免なさい)” which comes from the verb ‘mensuru’ (免ずる) “To forgive” in its imperative form at which is added the honorific prefix ‘go’ (御) “Honorable”.

This is the apology you use when you really do something wrong, something you weren’t allowed to do, and asks for forgiveness, although you’re meant to use it only with people you’re close with like family and friends (for people you’re not close with use Endeavor or Hawks’ apology).

Basically Enji is begging his son and his family to forgive him with this ‘I’m sorry’ because he’s finally acknowledging he didn’t just ‘wronged them’, he is understanding how badly he wronged them and is so very sorry about it.

Basically previously Enji finally took seriously the consequences of his actions, but he still doesn’t quite grasp how much at fault he was, how much he hurt others. Now he does. He didn’t just troubled them, he hurt them and even if it happened in the past they still carry the psychological consequences of it and might carry them for the rest of their lives if he doesn’t manage to atone to them properly.

And when Tōya doesn’t just forgive him but professes his hate for him, he accepts this, he respect his son’s feelings and doesn’t try to escape to it. He tells Tōya to tell him more. This time he’ll listen, he’ll be there even if it’s painful for him, because saying all that IS GOOD FOR TŌYA.

And, since he’s at it, he apologizes also to his whole family and it’s all ‘gomen na’ (ごめんな).

Yes, it’s not a great apology speech, not to Tōya nor to the rest of the family. There are plenty of ways he wronged them but he’s picking one for each of them… and my poor Shōto gets solely a sorry without him even picking a thing for Shōto.

But, credits when it’s due, he’s not in the best physical situation and the real core of the apology isn’t that it’s a literary masterpiece… it’s that this time IT’S FINALLY HEARTFELT. This time he’s genuinely sorry for causing pain TO THEM, not for himself but FOR THEM, this time he wants to soothe their hurt that’s why he’s saying he’s sorry.

He doesn’t expect them to comfort him, he is fine if they toss hurtfull words at him, acutally he asks for them, to tell him how they feel, because he wants to make them feel better.

Yes, he still has a long way to go but he’s finally there, he’s finally ready to do all he can to have his family forgive him, even if he has to crawl, even if he has to face pain physical and psychological, because he’s sorry he has hurt THEM and wants THEM to feel better and that’s exactly the whole point of atoning.

You wants to ‘save’ the others from the pain you inflicted them.

However, at this point in the manga… we might never get to see step 5 because we likely will never see the end of step 4. Enji will have to work for his atonement, to get his family to forgive him… not because it’ll make him feel better, but because it’ll make them feel better.

The story will probably end with the promise he’ll work in this direction and, since this is an optimistic story, the idea is, of course, that he’ll manage to atone eventually, that he’ll manage to do enough for his family to fix all his wrongdoing. We’ll probably be asked to just… believe he’ll do it instead than seeing it, and the most we’ll get will be at most a flash forward showing him finishing to do so, having done so.

So yes, in a way we were right and in a way we were tricked. We were right into thinking the redemption arc was unsatisfying because we were tricked into thinking we were watching a redemption arc coming to full course, when instead Enji’s arc was not about redeeming himself but about coming to the point in which he could start working to redeem himself, the point in which he would genuinely understand his wrongdoings, the consequences they had and feel sorry for someone else that’s not him.

He created his family to basically take care of his needs, but now he’s finally ready to be the one who’ll take care of his family’s needs. He’s ready to be a father. He’s ready to try to work to deserve to sit at that table with his family and be happy for simple things with them. It took him a long time but finally he managed to work in the right direction.

At least… that’s my interpretation of his arc. As I’m not Horikoshi I might, of course, be wrong.

Said all this, thank you for sitting with me in this long analysis.