My Hero Academia chapter 249 review

In the last chapter, 248, we see the first week of Internship with Endeavor. One week later, after some intense effort put in to ‘catch up’ to Endeavor, Fuyumi, Shouto’s sister, invites the 3 interns + Endeavor to visit their house.

In this chapter, we FINALLY get the focus on the Todoroki family’s background and family drama that we’ve all been waiting for. Adding to that, there’s now Endeavor who’s trying to work on his non-existent parenting skills (we have different opinions on this) and the hope that the fan theory with the highest chance of being canon will be talked about in the next few chapters.

Now, let’s jump into the content so I can tell you what’s so big about this chapter.

1) Endeavour? Forgiveness?

We again get reminded of Endeavor’s motivation: to be a better father. Whether he can or not, I guess we’ll see in the next few chapters. This guy received a lot of hate since his debut in the Sports Festival, and some of us fans are split between hating him and giving him a second chance.

Yes, he isn’t a great man, nor do I think his mindset represents what a hero aims for, BUT — in the next few chapters, I do expect to see how this topic of forgiveness will be filled with uncertainty. We’re not the only ones debating some sort of punishment for him who has questionable beliefs.

Shouto fully hates Endeavor, but at the same time, some part of him wants a ‘real family’, as Fuyumi repeatedly mentions her desire of everyone back together again in her monologues.

The thought of us… finally becoming a real family made me so happy… (Todoroki Fuyumi)

2) Internship situation

The next scene: we get back into the more light-hearted internships (aka Hero Work Studies), though it really isn't that light-hearted… there’s an angry Bakugou… with a bandana (?), yelling at Burnin (one of Endeavor’s sidekicks), for yelling in the morning. Sidenote: Endeavour has the biggest Hero Agency so it's probably noisy at this time.

I wonder who did that to Bakugou's hair (~flashbacks~ to Best Jeanist)

We get back into the more light-hearted internships, though it really isn’t all that light-hearted…

An angry Bakugou appears… with a bandana (?), yelling at Burnin for yelling in the morning. How ironic. The fact that it’s the crack of dawn, according to him, makes the reader realise how early heroes must get to work. But Burnin has such a… fiery personality that she’s already turned on her flames and stretching before it’s even time to head out. (We learn that she turns on her quirk as Endeavor does too!)

The young interns still haven’t managed to catch up even once to Endeavor, but Deku's positive attitude remains, just like how Bakugou's hairstyle remains totally unchanged during Internships.

“I think we’re slowly but surely getting the hang of it!” (Deku)

3) In action

To remind ourselves, the interns have been with Endeavour for a week now, and it's of course, frustrating for them. In their eyes, they have yet to catch up.

We must acknowledge their effort for trying so hard, just as they always have.

From chapter 247, we know that

1) Deku wants to be able to control his new power, Blackwhip. According to the wiki fandom, this power is "useful for capturing enemies and increasing one's own mobility by grabbing onto objects".

2) Shouto wants to lean Flashfire.

3) Bakugou wants to learn everything and nothing.

I wanted to point out how Shouto is using but fire and ice at the same time. It's an additional thing he's practising during this Internship.

4) Family Drama

The traditional Japanese home of the Todoroki family

First of all, Shouto notices Nastuo's shoes at 玄関 (genkan) area, the main entrance of the house. Natsuo is in the house. We know this spells trouble.

The last time Natsuo was in this setting of having a meal together with Endeavour, it did not go well at all. (Though you may want to point out that many great memes came out of the slurping panel)

The thing is, history repeated itself.

There's tension in the air and both Deku and Bakugou have realised the bad relationships in this family.

What a catastrophe.

Endeavour does say "Sorry I didn't realise" in response to Natsuo's snide remark, but it doesn't do anything to diffuse the tension. Natsuo leaves, just as he did a few weeks back. (Flashback to Endeavour and the Nomus)

Sorry, sis, I just can't do this. (Todoroki Natsuo)

Imagine your friends/classmates visit your house. And it's a mess. Everyone hates each other. Your brother doesn't put in the effort to hide his bad mood, and just gets up and leaves. You knew it would turn out this way and this is just the worst way it could have ended.

Plus, it just gets worse. Your friends (1 friend, 1 not-so-friend) know about all the drama in your family --> Bakugou revealing how he knows about the problems of the family.

Anyway, it's a disaster. Fuyumi probably feels the worst since she was the one who invited people bound to cause drama. (Either way, she gave us an interesting chapter).

P.S It doesn't help that Bakugou honestly points out the situation.

5) Past ties

Todoroki, I think right now, you're probably ready to forgive him

Can he do that? Readers don't have enough information force our opinions on Shouto. Other than that one main flashback and a few other panels in his perspective, readers, truthfully speaking, know next to nothing about the complicated past of all the siblings in the Todoroki family. We can only roughly guess how they were treated.

> Fuyumi, based on her strong desire to bring the family back together, suggests that she wasn't abused as badly as Shouto.

> Natsuo's resent for Endeavour is mainly the fact that he remembers how Endeavour treated Shouto and their mother (Todoroki Rei) in the past. We can't know for a fact that Endeavour didn't abuse Natsuo himself, but from how Natsuo recalls Shuoto being separated from them, we can infer that he probably didn't have the same brutal treatment as Shouto did.

> And now, what about Touya?

In the second last panel, we see Endeavour at a 仏壇 (Butsudan) in the house, bringing food to pay respects for someone who has died. A butsudan is usually a place where one reflects on a family member's death, and Endeavour is musing on what he can do for his family.

Recently I keep having the same dream

The dream he is referring to is the one at the start of the chapter. I wrote about it in my first point.

In his dream, Rei, Fuyumi, Natsuo, Shuoto are at the table, laughing happily, but Endeavour isn't there. And neither is Touya.

Dream. In some cultures, dreams are taken to be information on the future. They're significant. Thus, we can expect to see the elaboration of Endeavour remembering Touya in the next few chapters.

And now, for the most important thoughts: that one fan theory that I personally think has the most solid evidence and the highest chance of being canon.

Isn't Touya supposed to be Dabi? Didn't he have red hair?

Does Endeavour think Touya is dead or did he fake it?

How did Touya die?

Now, this article isn't here once again present to you the reasons why Dabi would be a Todoroki.

Let's ~flashback~ all the way to the Sports Festival flashbacks to answer some of these questions.

In the manga, the child in the middle is Todoroki Touya, who has white hair.

In the anime, the child has red hair instead. So not to be confused if you've seen both the anime and manga.

Yet he clearly did something to his hair. Even if the creators of the anime changed his hair to red in order to emphasise that Touya had a fire quirk, Touya may or may never have dyed his hair from red to white in the manga.

It is possible that he did though, the reason for that being the fact that he knew how he reminded Rei of his father. And Touya knew how Rei was scared... scared of him.

So maybe Touya's hair was dyed white in the manga, while it remained red in the anime. The most important thing that we learn in this chapter is that Touya is presumably dead. The other siblings have talked about Touya, ironically saying not to talk about him. But we've never known what happened. Did he run off? Well, now we know what the issue with talking about Touya is. He's dead to the Todoroki family.

But if Dabi is Touya, we have more evidence to say where his scars come from. A fire he created and apparently died in? So maybe we do know how Touya disappeared from the Todoroki household.

Lastly, Endeavour definitely thinks Touya is dead. It's a monologue after all, and he has completely no suspicion of Dabi being his son.

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This is the first time we see the face of the missing Todoroki child since Touya has only been mentioned or has his back facing us. This is the first time we have a front view of Touya, unless it isn't. (You get what I mean)

As we were given more background information on the Todoroki family, the issues that the Todoroki family have never brought up before will be explored more in the next few chapters of My Hero Academia.

Since it's the 2nd Internship arc, the Internships of other students will hopefully be shown as well.

Thanks for reading this review!

Chapter 249 was officially released on 11th Nov 2019

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The Anime Novelist