All Might is single handedly my most favorite My Hero Academia character. I love Deku, I think Uraraka is adorable, but no. All Might. My big, dumb man who is keeping a dark secret from everyone that expects the world from him. My big, dumb emotional support character. Arguably, he’s not the most well written, and sometimes elements of his character can be chalked up to stereotypical comic hero archetypes (which, I personally appreciate because I think that level of meta awareness in media is top tier). But, in the first episode, the thing that starts the whole series, is the fact that All Might isn’t invincible.
He’s dying. He’s weak, with scarring up his ribs. He can only show off his muscles and strength for so long until, much like the twig he shares a shape with, snaps. Once he exhales the power of being the best and most overpowered, overachieving hero to ever exist, he is just some guy. Some guy with fatigue, muscle weakness, and the need to sleep for hours on end. I love All Might because I have to do the exact same thing.
Since I could walk, talk, and think, my feet and ideas refused to sit in the present. If I could keep pushing, why would I stop? Was stopping not the same as pulling myself back? If I stopped now, would I have the power to push again, or would I forget to save my strength? Every moment of my life from toddler to teen was to get to college. It was to get to 18, and be a Harvard undergrad. It was to go to Yale and be fancy and prestigious. It was to get out of where I grew up and find something that I had always wanted- my own identity. The validation that I was smart enough, and dedicated enough to fight my own fights and live in cities that most cower from.
Life is a series of moments. Each, acting as a domino, falling into the next. Sometimes, they align perfectly, and fall in time with one another. Gracefully, they lay across the backs of the one after it. Life is ideally a series of moments that flow so perfectly together that there isn’t a way to mess them up. But life is not that. Life is like setting up a domino track in a kitchen with a younger brother and two cats playing cops and robbers while the dogs decide to hold their own Kentucky Derby 3 feet away. Something always goes wrong. When I started My Hero Academia, it had to have been 1 or 2 years ago. Maybe 3. 2020 doesn’t really feel over. All I can tell you is that when I went out, I could still smile at strangers and not worry about breathing in the recycled air of science deniers. I was just like All Might. I was going, and going, and going. And nothing was going to stop me. Nothing. My friends told me I was in too many places at once- youth meetings downtown, college classes, high school classes, play rehearsal, hospital internships, a party. I had found the secret to being immortal; it is to be so scattered that each day feels like a lifetime in a different version of you.
In the first episode of MHA, All Might has a conversation with Deku on the rooftop. A clear sky over Japan. Anime skies are drawn in a way that makes me wish real life could take a few notes. All Might, all powerful and all knowing, sits down. And changes. The same sky. The same world. The same man. Except completely different. He explains to our Young Midoriya that he isn’t really the way he looks- not this perfect person with the capability to be everywhere at once. He’s dying. In slow motion.
When art creates a mirror of what you see in yourself, I find the best cure to the crippling fear of self reflection is to turn off the TV. Flip the switch, and suddenly, you are only seeing the parts of you that you’re okay with being. You don’t see weakness and you don’t see pain. You see an all powerful, all knowing hero. I watched the first episode. And the second, third, and fourth. I loved that for once, I found a hero that wasn’t what he really was; a person just like me who was trying too hard to be more than he truly was.
After I do too much, my body needs a hard reset. I started calling these bad days “hard resets” because it felt more fun, like I was a robot needing a software update, secretly hiding among my friends and family, trying to blend into the mundanity of having a fully functioning nervous system. A hard reset used to show up every 3-6 months. A hard reset involves a few things: 1. Generally a bit of an emotional breakdown- usually I don’t have a hard reset till after I reach an emotional ceiling and breaking point. Crying over dropping some french fries or being 10 minutes late to a rehearsal tell me that I need to stop.
2. Anywhere from 10-16 hours of sleep- I hate this part. I hate wasting so much time. The sleep helps to process the trauma and whatever emotions I have not been able to show, so it’s the most necessary part of the shut down. But I hate it. I feel so useless, just needing to sleep it off.
3. Battling the lingering fatigue with exercise or art- I have some pretty intense fatigue episodes because of my illness. A lot of people don’t have tons of symptoms after treatment, but I’m in that 5 percent of lucky people who feel like their limbs are made of lead and procrastination even years after my hospital stay. At this point, following my 16 hours of sleep, I have to either exercise for hours on end or finish 4 canvas pieces. Sometimes both.
4. Promise to myself that I won’t let it get this bad again.
5. Lie to myself and say I can handle it all this time.
6. Repeat in 90-180 days.
In quarantine, though, it’s more like every 3 weeks. Is it because I have no idea when I’ll be able to see my friends? Yep. Is it because my parents don’t always want to deal with their traumatized college kid? Definitely. Is it because I’m worried about never leaving, or never being the person I thought I’d be? Oh, one million percent.
All Might is my most favorite. He’s so strangely like me in a way that I can’t find in most media. Not to be melodramatic, but having a fictional character be the same type of sick as me feels strangely like healing.
I don’t think I’ll ever finish My Hero Academia though. It’s not because it’s a bad show, or that I don’t like it- I love it. I LOVE it, love it. If I can put off watching it, it means that I’ll have more time to get to know these characters for the first time. I’ll have more time to see someone that reflects the parts of me I didn’t know I would ever want to look at. I’ll have more time, and I won’t have to worry about the series ending or not having those characters. I am so good at procrastinating that I manage to put off even the things I love doing.
I don’t know what happens with the show. Maybe that’s part of the reason I won’t watch it, it’s because I have no idea how it ends. I don’t know if All Might stays the way I am, or if he changes. I don’t know if that weakness is his downfall. I don’t know if right now, with how sensitive I am, if I can really live through the animated death of the first character to share my experience.
Maybe I’m a bit stronger than I give myself credit for.
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