Most main characters are also the most powerful one (or one of the most powerful ones) in their group. Deku (until recently) isn't. And he's treated as such, despite his being one of the finalists in the school tournament, no heroes really want to take him on in their agencies, and really only All Might has (unfounded) unwavering belief in him. I think the manga does a decent enough job showing his planning skills, but yeah in physical combat early on all he can do is hurt himself.
Because it's bringing a knife to a gun fight? The only thing that saves him is he can hit a mean fastball and somehow withstand the force of magic smashing his arms to bits.
Wasn't his main strategy before to just toss a tidal wave of clones at people? His dumbest thing in battle was probably trying to talk his opponents out of being evil.
I was referring to Kiyomaro lol
Not really. His anti-magic sword is way more effective than that and in a lot of cases stronger than the magic he's going up against.
With what he can actually do with those swords, he'd be dumber if he didn't participate in fights. It's the most OP ability to have in a world where everyone fights with magic.
Seriously this a big example why I think some people skip the story, Deku don't use legs because All Might never uses legs, simple
The scene actually happens in the anime but he doesn't think those words. Added for comedy.
Neither of these mitigate how dumb it is to attempt to smack a fireball with the broad side of a sword.
I mean
But why is that dumb? If that's what his sword can do, why is it dumb to do it? To send back attacks that are sent at you?
When? How so? What's an instance of him doing a dumb thing in a battle?
So Deku who admired all might for like a decade, never once had a thought like "man, if I had those power I would THIS with them"? This is the dude who had notebooks going over everything a certain hero was and what they did
No because he wanted to be All Might, not All Might that kicks instead
Again you are ignoring the story, it isn't about IQ or anything, Deku, like almost everyone in the story, idolizes All Might and to be just like him. It isn't Deku being dumb, it is about him being a extreme fanboy that lives in the shadow of his idol
Goku is a genius in actual battle though. He just does dumb things in order to gratify his own egoic desire for more battle.
Tanjiro is a weird one because his thing is supposed to be that he's not really a good fighter, though that's explained later on to an extent.
I'd read that manga. Gash Bell has a lot of smart characters with fights won through strategy though.
Sure, his fighting style is simple because the task at hand is only ever simple. But I wouldn't call him dumb over just having a simple job to do, rather he just doesn't have to show he's particularly smart.
