My Hero Academia explored Toya Todoroki’s fall from grace with the newest chapter of the series! The war between the heroes and the Paranormal Liberation Front indeed shook up the hero world for good, but the ones who will be the most impacted from this going forward is the Todoroki family. Ever since All Might retired, Endeavor has been taking more of the center stage as his rise to the number one rank came with far more scrutiny from those around him. This meant that the Todoroki family’s dirty laundry has been put all out in the open.
But while the Pro Hero arc began with Endeavor coming to terms with how abusively he treated his family in the past, that was only the beginning as Dabi’s reveal that he was actually the long thought dead Toya Todoroki has sent Endeavor into a tailspin. The newest chapter of the series kicks off a flashback that adds a little more context to Toya’s eventual transformation.
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Chapter 301 of the series sees Enji/Endeavor, Rei, and Dabi all looking back at the past from different angles. When Enji finds out that Toya has inherited a strong version of his fire quirk, but the ice resistant body of his mother, he starts to pull away. The young Toya wants to surpass All Might because of how much his father wants him to, but Enjo decides to give up and begins to have more children with the hopes that one of them will be strong enough.
Hoping to make Toya give up his desire to become a hero by having more children and training them, this instead does the opposite as Enji sees the young Toya crack under the duress. Enji even tries to get Toya to give up the hero world completely and live a regular life, but this only hurts the young Toya more. He only wanted to do this for his father, and it’s increasingly feeling like he’s getting tossed aside.
Wanting to be noticed for his efforts, Toya then activates his quirk and attacks their newest child, a baby Shoto Todoroki. This first chapter is starting to fill in the blanks leading up to Toya’s death and rebirth as Dabi, and it’s starting to show even more of the Enji Todoroki that truly broke his family. It’s a complete collapse of his intended redemption arc.
What did you think of this glance into the Todoroki family past? Are you curious to see where this arc leads and what purpose it will ultimately serve? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
