‘My Hero Academia’ Finally Addresses Endeavor’s Abusive Past

From the outside, you may think that My Hero Academia is always happy all the time. Its bright aesthetic and superhero leads aren’t easy to hate, but there is one guy fans say they could do without.

When it comes to Pro Heroes, Endeavor isn’t the best of guys, and the manga touched upon his history of domestic abuse in a heart-wrenching scene.

For those catching up on My Hero Academia, chapter 187 is the update you are looking for. The piece starts with Rei Todoroki being visited by two of her children, and it is Natsu who brings up the family’s overlooked past.

“Yesterday, he officially became number one,” Natsu says, bringing up Enji to his sister’s dismay. “The world doesn’t know about what he did to you and the rest of us kids. How he treated his family. He doesn’t appear on talk shows and stuff, after all.”

Continuing, Natsu says he feels no connection with Endeavor, but he can never forgive the new No. 1 hero for hurting his mom.

“I don’t remember him well. At this point, he basically feels like a complete stranger, but I can’t forgive him for how he treated you and Shoto, as though you didn’t exist,” the man continued.

As fans will remember, Enji has a rather colorful past, and none of it is very good. The monstrous man wanted to beat All Might so bad he manipulated Rei into a Quirk marriage to breed a successor who could beat All Might.

When his first kids weren’t up to snuff, he cast them aside until Shoto was born. Endeavor groomed Shoto from a young age to fight, abusing him along the way. Whenever Rei would stand up for her son, she would get knocked around the same, and the years of abuse she suffered pushed her into a psychotic break. After cracking, Rei was forced into a mental hospital by Enji who didn’t wish to deal with her, and the act was the last straw Shoto had with his father.

This harrowing encounter confirms the world is very clueless about Endeavor’s personal life and the crimes he committed. While Rei does try to apologize for her husband, fans have been quick to chalk the notion up to Stockholm Syndrome, so the franchise has its work cut out for it if it wants to redeem the fiery hero.

For those unfamiliar with the My Hero Academia juggernaut, the series was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has super powers but he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he’s eventually scouted by the world’s best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been collected into 15 volumes so far, and has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015.

How do you feel about this Pro Hero nowadays? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!