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There's no major shonen protag dumber than Midoriya in battle

Skittles

Skittles

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,272
Nah for real. Out of everyone I can think of, no one even comes close to this person's lack of intelligence when fighting. Which is funny because this is how the creator tries to portray him outside of battle

AptSecretDragon-max-1mb.gif



Yet everything he does while fighting is just like this
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His game plan while fighting is literally how many unfucked up appendages do I have left that I can cause irreversible damage to? Then his solution (which he spends like two fucking episodes figuring out)...is to not punch as hard. Ya know, something that someone with common sense would have thought of after the first two times it happened. The biggest offender was the build up after the doctor called him a dumbass for using his arms like that. Then it's a several episode build up of him figuring out a solution and the moment finally happens with a full on orchestrated build up to...him using HIS FUCKING LEGS INSTEAD

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Man, go somewhere else with your dumbass shit. I ain't ever seen some shit like this from Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Goku, etc
 

Deleted member 16657

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Using the first post spot to deliver a vital message - go read MHA Vigilantes instead which is basically what MHA should have been.

Deku was originally supposed to have no powers and use traps and shit to fight instead but the editors didn't like that idea. Vigilantes features a main character with a semi-useless quirk that he uses as best as he can to be a hero.
 

Deleted member 52442

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midoriya fought a kid who had no physical abilities but could control you - only if he could make you talk to him


midoriya knew this before hand

midoriya still almost lost


midoriya almost lost a fight against an otherwise average joe because he couldn't shut the fuck up

he will never be cool. never.
 
Fj0823

Fj0823

Legendary Duelist
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,658
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Goku forgot the Mafuba Seal
Goku gave Cell a Senzu
Goku didn't destroy Vegeta with SS3 to prevent Buu from hatching.
Goku did not take his heart medicine
Goku asked Zeno to do the TOP
 
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OP
Skittles

Skittles

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,272
Kegels said:
midoriya fought a kid who had no physical abilities but could control you - only if he could make you talk to him


midoriya knew this before hand

midoriya still almost lost


midoriya almost lost a fight against an otherwise average joe because he couldn't shut the fuck up

he will never be cool. never.
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Man really had to be saved by his Quirk asspulling for him.
 

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10,774
Fj0823 said:
Goku forgot the Mafuba Seal
Goku gave Cell a Senzu
Goku didn't destroy Vegeta with SS3 to prevent Buu from hatching.
Goku did not take his heart medicine
Goku asked Zeno to do the TOP
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Click to shrink...

Goku knew Gohan could beat Cell (and he was right)
Goku going SS3 would have made Vegeta suicidal and i think still would have released Buu?
Goku didn't get sick in his heart until later because the timeline was altered after trunks visited
 
Stowaway Silfer

Stowaway Silfer

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
32,819
Takyon Edit the spoiler you're quoting, not your own reply lmao.
Fj0823 said:
Goku forgot the Mafuba Seal
Goku gave Cell a Senzu
Goku didn't destroy Vegeta with SS3 to prevent Buu from hatching.
Goku did not take his heart medicine
Goku asked Zeno to do the TOP
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Most of those aren't things he did in battle though, just things that affected him later.
 
KingM

KingM

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,480
PogChamp said:
Using the first post spot to deliver a vital message - go read MHA Vigilantes instead which is basically what MHA should have been.

Deku was originally supposed to have no powers and use traps and shit to fight instead but the editors didn't like that idea. Vigilantes features a main character with a semi-useless quirk that he uses as best as he can to be a hero.
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I think the main character in Vigilantes has a busted quirk he doesn't use correctly or under uses because it's too good for him. It's not too different from MHA.
 

Deleted member 3465

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Lol at the people defending Goku, it doesn't get more generic or dumb than that. Goku is the worst and absolutely is the worst part of the franchise after the showdown on Namek
 
Thatonedice1

Thatonedice1

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,112
Working on that also.
Kegels said:
Goku knew Gohan could beat Cell (and he was right)
Goku going SS3 would have made Vegeta suicidal and i think still would have released Buu?
Goku didn't get sick in his heart until later because the timeline was altered after trunks visited
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Even if Goku knew Gohan could win giving Cell and senzu and needlessly risking everyone lives (and leading to his own ending) was pretty stupid. (Also 16 probably wouldn't be dead if Goku didn't give Cell a senzu).
 
KingM

KingM

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,480
Fj0823 said:
Goku forgot the Mafuba Seal
Goku gave Cell a Senzu
Goku didn't destroy Vegeta with SS3 to prevent Buu from hatching.
Goku did not take his heart medicine
Goku asked Zeno to do the TOP
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Outside of forgetting the seal they all were either things he could not have known like the consequence of like the ToP or when to take.the medicine. Trying to preserve time on Earth with just using SS2 and he even stopped the fight ince he saw where things were going with Buy. Or him being correct like his belief that Gohan would destroy Cell since Gohan was much stronger than everyone else at that time.

Thatonedice1 said:
Even if Goku knew Gohan could win giving Cell and senzu and needlessly risking everyone lives (and leading to his own ending) was pretty stupid. (Also 16 probably wouldn't be dead if Goku didn't give Cell a senzu).
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Cell being a bad loser and Gohan wanting to torture him would have happened either way given Gohan's personality.
 

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Thatonedice1 said:
Even if Goku knew Gohan could win giving Cell and senzu and needlessly risking everyone lives (and leading to his own ending) was pretty stupid. (Also 16 probably wouldn't be dead if Goku didn't give Cell a senzu).
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Yeah it was pretty cocky, although bolded was only because Cell decided to attack them all instead of just 1v1ing Gohan

moon. said:
Lol at the people defending Goku, it doesn't get more generic or dumb than that. Goku is the worst and absolutely is the worst part of the franchise after the showdown on Namek
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BWoog said:
Goku is much MUCH dumber.
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Goku is pretty smart in battle from Saiyan saga to cell saga (rewatched them recently) minus the Cell-Senzu bean thing. Dunno about buu saga and super is funded fan fiction and i know hes flanderized there
 
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Skittles

Skittles

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Oct 25, 2017
8,272
Goku is dumber outside of battle yes, which makes his choices more understandable. The worst thing he does in battle is feed Cell the bean. However, Mido is portrayed as exceedingly competent outside of battle. Which makes his dumb choices in battle even more baffling
 
ScoobsJoestar

ScoobsJoestar

Member
May 30, 2019
4,071
A lot of shonen protagonists start out bland but grow on me as the series goes on. Deku has done the opposite because...

Kegels said:
midoriya fought a kid who had no physical abilities but could control you - only if he could make you talk to him


midoriya knew this before hand

midoriya still almost lost


midoriya almost lost a fight against an otherwise average joe because he couldn't shut the fuck up

he will never be cool. never.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because of stuff like this.

And how apparently a lot of superheroes fight pretty much without using their quirk at all and are still good at their job or use gadgets, and in spite of this he never actually tried to learn how to fight (or hell even be in shape) until he was handed the greatest power on earth.

And how he's generally less clever the more the manga goes on for.

Really haven't been feeling Deku since the sports festival tbh. His defining characteristics used to be that he took stupid hype risks and was super clever. He stopped taking stupid risks(because honestly the more times you do it the less hype it gets - VS Todoroki it was rad, VS random muscle fiber dude I don't even remember much of that fight) and he stopped being super clever. So now he's just a default protag, he's nice wants to help people and…stuff.

Man, I really loved him at the start of the manga but he's been in a decline while other characters get more interesting.
 
Lunar Wolf

Lunar Wolf

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Nov 6, 2017
16,237
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Skittles said:
Nah for real. Out of everyone I can think of, no one even comes close to this person's lack of intelligence when fighting. Which is funny because this is how the creator tries to portray him outside of battle

AptSecretDragon-max-1mb.gif



Yet everything he does while fighting is just like this
giphy.gif



His game plan while fighting is literally how many unfucked up appendages do I have left that I can cause irreversible damage to? Then his solution (which he spends like two fucking episodes figuring out)...is to not punch as hard. Ya know, something that someone with common sense would have thought of after the first two times it happened. The biggest offender was the build up after the doctor called him a dumbass for using his arms like that. Then it's a several episode build up of him figuring out a solution and the moment finally happens with a full on orchestrated build up to...him using HIS FUCKING LEGS INSTEAD

ZOVuM20.gif


Man, go somewhere else with your dumbass shit. I ain't ever seen some shit like this from Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Goku, etc
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So basically Deku is the anti-Naruto/anti-Luffy.

Ichigo's not particularly battle-intelligent. He's actually pretty average albeit book-smart.

Goku does some really dumb shit in combat and outside combat.
 
Sandfox

Sandfox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,743
Fj0823 said:
I know, but every single Shonen Anime protagonist is super dumb in some way, Deku learning to use his legs kick as a way to win isn't that egregious.

I draw the line at them being dumb in a way that betrays their character arc. Like Tsuna.
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Shounen is big on the "battle genius" thing, so "dumb in battle" isn't really that common. The big thing though is that Deku is supposed to be smart, while the intelligence of other leads are used as gags.

Thatonedice1 said:
Even if Goku knew Gohan could win giving Cell and senzu and needlessly risking everyone lives (and leading to his own ending) was pretty stupid. (Also 16 probably wouldn't be dead if Goku didn't give Cell a senzu).
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That was more because Goku both thought Gohan was like him and loved fighting as well as needing Cell to push Gohan for the transformation. It's hard to say how that fight turns out though because it's possible Cell just kills them all if things didn't go the way they did. Goku and everyone else got super lucky.

Skittles said:
Jojo is seinen tho. Otherwise Part 2 Joseph and Part 4 Josuke would be up there
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Jojo used to be in WSJ.
 
Shirosaki

Shirosaki

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm a big Bleach fan, but come on. Ichigo lived off one move the entire manga, Getsuga Tenshou. He branched out only when his Hollow side was involved. This just seems to be more so of a Shonen thing with main characters.
 
Thatonedice1

Thatonedice1

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,112
Working on that also.
I'm not gonna quote the replies to my last message because both answers are pretty fair. Don't know what a hypothetical "none senzu" fight with Cell would have looked like so no point in arguing against those points.

Going to the point discussed in this thread. I think Deku being not the brightest in fights is actually sticking to his character. Remember Deku likes heros and hero stuff so much that he use to constantly mumble to himself about it all the time. Proving he has a tendency to over think things. So during fights instead of being in the moment and reacting to opponents moves he instead thinks about it to much. At least thats my take. As for not using his legs..... yeah that's pretty stupid. Don't know what Horikoshi was thinking there.
 
Jarmel

Jarmel

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Oct 25, 2017
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Most shounen characters are idiots unless they're written like 'super geniuses' in JoJo.
 
Lunar Wolf

Lunar Wolf

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That'd actually be an interesting concept.

A default Shonen protagonist that goes through all the motions of a Shonen protagonist including OP moveset except rather than being a battle-genius, he's a battle idiot and relies on his overpoweredness to barely win but he's competent outside battle.
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

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Oct 24, 2017
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Fj0823 said:
Goku forgot the Mafuba Seal
Goku gave Cell a Senzu
Goku didn't destroy Vegeta with SS3 to prevent Buu from hatching.
Goku did not take his heart medicine
Goku asked Zeno to do the TOP
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Most of that is outside of battles and more a issue of battlelust or hindsight later.

The bolded is a great example of exactly why Goku would be considered smarter in battles.

He at least knows that anything which will push his stamina/condition beyond recovery should only be used as a last resort. See Kaioken x4 and SSJ3.

Meanwhile our boi Midoriya out there breaking all his fingers on his opening salvo.
 
ChubbyHuggs

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Oct 27, 2017
2,262
I don't know. They all have dumb shit they do. Asta sticks out the most to me since he has no "magic" and throws himself into fights where people can destroy cities.
 

Deleted member 16657

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Jarmel said:
Most shounen characters are idiots unless they're written like 'super geniuses' in JoJo.
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It's really interesting how little super genius protags there are in battle shonen. The closest thing to the strategy you get in a Jojo battle is... maybe a sports shonen? The strategic elements, counterplay and teamwork (along with fantastical powers depending on the shonen) are kind of similar.
 
Sandfox

Sandfox

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Oct 25, 2017
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If you want a good shounen lead that's super smart outside of battle and uses that intellect in fights read Gash Bell/Zatch Bell.
 
Kensuke

Kensuke

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Oct 25, 2017
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Imo this is kinda unfair to Deku as a character. At the start of the manga when he activates the quirk it goes full power because he has no idea how to use it. It wasn't about learning to punch less hard, but how to even perceive and tap into the quirk.

The using kicks relevation seems funny, but bypasses the context of him being under intense pressure of being the next All-Might. In the first arcs Deku tries to emulate All Might to a fault, which of course includes primarily fighting with his fists. The 'revelation' he can focus on a more kick-based fighting style is significant because it's character development. He's finally ready to adopt other ideas on how to use the power and become his own hero instead of an All Might copy.
 
Midramble

Midramble

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It's because of this I've read MHA slower and slower each week. May swap over to vigilantes. Deku should have given his power to someone that is... a million times better. I say this as a Deku fan.
 
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