My Hero Academia’s Ending Hurt Its Best Female Character

With My Hero Academia officially over, fans can now take the time to look back and reflect on some of the writing decisions leading up to the big finale. While much of the ending was handled fairly well, one character’s big emotional conclusion was handled rather poorly.

Ochaco Uraraka is one of, if not the best female character in My Hero Academia. Her character arc throughout the series has focused on themes of self preservation and building confidence. In the war arc, she shares a powerful moment with Toga, one of the series’ villains, that left an impact on her well into the final chapters of the manga.

My Hero Academia’s Ending Robbed Ochaco Of a Moment To Heal For Herself

Leading up to My Hero Academia‘s final moments, Ochaco begins to reckon with the survivor’s guilt associated with Toga sacrificing her life to keep Ochaco safe. It’s a heart-wrenching moment that challenges the idea of heroes being unflinching pillars that protect and shape society – something that My Hero Academia has, up to this point, balanced relatively well with being an otherwise upbeat shonen action series.

Ochaco is quickly discovered by Deku, though, whose attempt at comforting the traumatized young woman by declaring that she is his hero. The moment is meant to be a hard-hitting emotional revelation to help lift Ochaco out of her grief, but it just doesn’t hit the mark to wrap her character arc up in a satisfactory way. Firstly, Deku’s declaration of everything Ochaco has done for him, as opposed to focusing on how Ochaco is independently processing her grief and feelings toward Toga’s death is instead forced to process her feelings for someone else, and through their personal view of the situation despite not even being a witness to the events that transpired between the two girls.

The moment is far too brief, and too condensed to exude how either character ends up moving forward from the conversation. It leaves readers conflicted: was Ochaco robbed of a moment alone to let her bottled up emotions out? Was she forced to once again shove her conflicting feelings about being viewed as a worldwide hero because of how someone else perceives her?

There are some great aspects of Ochaco’s final moments in the story, though, including the information that she spearheaded a Quirk Counseling initiative to assist individuals like Toga who were told that there Quirks have no place in society. It shows her intent to continue to make society a better place for common people and Heroes, and to turn people away from villainy.

Additionally, My Hero Academia didn’t force Ochaco into a romantic relationship with Deku at the end of the series, instead leaving their relationship to be open-ended, and canonically platonic in nature. While this may be frustrating to some fans, it is ultimately the best possible outcome for both characters, now that they’re adults leading two very different professional lives.

My Hero Academia can be read on Viz Media’s Shonen Jump app, and the anime adaptation can be streamed on Crunchyroll.