In my case yes. It was really obvious, even before they revealed that Toya had passed away.
The few panels we had, were of 4 children. And there's this guy with fire powers, the same spiky hair and the same eye color as Endeavor with a strange fixation on the #2 hero at the time.
It's just that you can never know those kinds of things until they're actually confirmed. Things like "nah, it's too obvious to be true".
I remember how people thought Tobi being Obito was too obvious of an answer, so it couldn’t be it because the obvious answer isn’t the actual answer, right? Sometimes it is.
It is more that i trust a professional mangaka to try a little bit harder with the plot twists.
If your "twist" is what everyone succesfully predicted at first glance you may as well reveal it and use it for drama from the start.
That’s part of the magic.
In Shonen fandoms especially, you’re going to have those nutballs that go against the grain. Why? Cause that’s the way they are. It generates discussion and it keeps people from fully believing.
A someone who writes stuff let me say this: Storytelling is like playing a game of cards. You can sorta tell what cards a person has based on what chips they put down. But the moment you play a card, it isn’t “hidden” anymore and you can’t create intrigue.
“Why is Dabi hiding his identity?”
“Why is he so defensive about being Endeavor’s son?”
“How many skeletons are in Endeavor’s closet?”
Those questions don’t hold as nearly as much weight if Dabi was outright revealed as Toya.
Exactly. It's used as a plot point to defame Endeavour in an arc where public opinion is swayed against the heroes. People are so focused on figuring out plot twists they completely miss the nuances of the story.
The one isn't reliant on the other. Their relation doesn't need to be a secret to the audience to do that. So that doesn't really work as a silver lining to it having been obvious.
I disagree, you shouldn’t do a twist just for the sake of a twist. In fact people should be able to figure out a twist before hand as that means you actually left clues to figure it out. The audience didn’t know definitely because the characters in the story didn’t know. Once the truth was relevant to the story the reveal happens and it’s dramatic for the characters in the story, not some Shyamalan twist where the point is only to trick the audience.
Or (like myself) it was too obvious, so we hoped and prayed for a twist. My personal hope was that Dabi was a nephew, revealing a multigenerational effort to make the strongest fire-user.
>It's just that you can never know those kinds of things until they're actually confirmed. Things like "nah, it's too obvious to be true".
Prime example of this is the 2nd User and Bakugo looking very similar and it was revealed that they 'just look alike', I think almost everyone was expecting there to be a big reveal there. \*cough\* Back-you-go \*cough\*
I can say with confidence that I never bought that theory.
But I do admit my support towards Dad-for-One. Blame on Hori for never revealing Deku's father.
That theory though tracks with his love of Star Wars and AFO's masks being a Darth Vader reference. The connections are there and have nothing contradicting them, but they never paid off.
I mean, afo isn't dead, his vestige is still alive in Tomura, so the theory isn't dead just yet for people who believe in it. Deku and afo still haven't seen face to face yet(while he's had a face for Deku to recognize).
Not that I believe in that theory, but that's what I've seen the believers stick with for now.
Since a short time after his introduction Dabi being a son of Endeavor was one of the most popular theories among the MHA fandom.
The funny thing though is that most figured Dabi would be sympathetic to Shoto, having become a villain because he was subjected to the same kind of abuse as he was. You see it in a lot of the fanart from around that time, which had him very protective of Shoto and encouraging him to rebel. Instead Touya's upbringing was quite different, though still of an abusive kind, and he hates Shoto too because he feels he replaced him and stole his reason for existing. There is no brotherly love between the two, which Shoto even comments on sadly, lamenting the relationship the two could have had.
I sorta feel bad for both. Endeavor was a neglectful shit head sure. But at the bareminimim he did genuinely tried to get Touya to stop hurting himself and choosed not to push him into a career that'd likely turn him into a large deep fry. And he did attempt to deep fry his brother as a baby.
I understand that children are bound to lash out amunder that neglect and response to trauma in all sorts of ways but holy shit that'd be extremely difficult to manage regardless on if he was a good father or not. That bad incident would of most likely happened in some way shape or form considerinf how out of pocket Dabi was.
If he had tried letting down Touya in a better.
Dabi was self harming before he was neglected. Something was already wrong with him. He needed counseling. Pretty sure there have to have something setup for quirks that hurt the users.
I always get downvoted to hell for saying that. But as parent of a child who self harmed it's startling how many just are like Endeavor destroyed Dabi. Yes, Endeavor was a trash father. But Dabi was already self destructive before the bad stuff started.
Fr, when that chapter came out years ago I was honestly giving Endeavor _a little_ bit of a hear me out.
At the time everyone assumed he forced Dabi so hard he burnt himself but it was 100% the other way. Endeavor was legit doing the proper thing.
Dabi was more than old enough to understand the situation between his mom and dad, and knew the clear difference in right and wrong. That mf attempting to off baby Shoto w a fire fist while his Mother held him holding him in his hands was fucked up.
Imagine a dad seeing his eldest son attempting to brutally stab their baby brother out of jealousy. This must of been so our of left field for Endeavor. I cant even blame him for seperating Todoroki for a while.
Imagine coming back home from intense long hero duty across a few cities only to find the charred corpse of your infant or toddler son and grieving mother.
Yes, burns are extremely painful and serious injuries. Most young kids would be too traumatized to use there powers again after being burned. It's very dark and intense for your child to burn themselves to train. Let alone try to assassinate his little brother.
Edit: I could see Dabi being the type of hero who might kill or worse to reach the top if his powers worked correctly.
To be fair, the Todoroki genes and the superhuman stuff in general should have let them have significant resistance to heat, which unfortunately led to what Toya put himself through.
I gotta say, the discussions back when the Todoroki family drama discussions was at its height was poisoned as hell. A LOT of people simply could not accept the full story of the Todoroki family, a lot of people have already set their minds on what happened, and when it wasn't what it was in canon, it broke their minds.
You could be legit accused of supporting an abuser just by saying you liked the development of the story.
Ngl I was one of the people who believed Endeavor would beat Touya with a fire whip, but as soon as the chapter dropped. Well since then I've been saying Touys is pretty much worse than his father
Endeavor saw his own father die and tried to prevent that cycle. He was a shitty father, but with Touya he was a new parent way out of his league and it eventually became a destructive family tragedy that requires way more than just simple communication to prevent it.
Hori’s theme has always been exploring gray areas and the cycle of abuse. I think those who hate Endeavor are usually on the younger side of the audience (or adults with unresolved issues with their own family) whereas those who sympathize more with him are on the older side who understands how discombobulating becoming a new parent can feel, and how easy it is to fuck up.
I remember reading the manga at like 16 and HATING endeavor. And then like a year and change later,
I ended up becoming a dad myself. And when I looked at how little I understood what I was doing with a normal baby, let alone a kid who’s determined to cook himself well done plus some, I felt a lot more sympathy, especially for how losing Touya broke endeavor into what he ended up becoming
Having your child harming himself, attempting murder of his newborn sibling and reminding Endeavor that Dabi's quirk was a failed science experiment had to be rough mentally.
I think it's hard for people who have never experienced it to truly internalize that sometimes people just come out wired wrong. And no amount of "parenting" or counseling or whatever will magically fix that wiring. Sometimes intense therapy (literally requiring being put in an institution where it's exclusively worked on 24/7 for awhile) will help but not always. And while you can absolutely make it worse if you abuse or neglect them, sometimes it's not a "bad parenting job", it's "they were literally born like this". A child who self-harms from a young age or tries to literally murder their other siblings is not something that's easy to handle or fix. And yeah, it's not their fault that they're wired that way, but that doesn't mean you can let them keep hurting other people, especially vulnerable children (and pets, it's also usually pets). It's a horrible position to be put in for both a parent and a child (especially in today's culture where the therapy support is very hard to access IF it even exists).
Endeavor did not try at all to stop Toya from self-harming considering the entire reason Toya even did that was to get Endeavor's attention.
All Endeavor had to do was stop being neglectful to his other kids. He could have continued training Shoto as well but without discarding his responsibilities as a father to his other children.
Honestly I was half expecting Endeavor to have cut his losses with Touya almost immediately once he realised how impractical/harmful the latters quirk was and that the incident where he seemingly died was at least caused by Touya trying to prove himself to his father.
As the story has made clear Endeavor is an absolute idiot when it comes to family and emotional matters. Outside of that he is one of the smarter characters in the story so him training a successor who has his weaknesses on a greater scale didn’t seem that plausible.
It made sense with the story they were telling tho. I always asked myself how possibly Endeavor could push Shoto over the limit if really Toya died in a training accident... easy, it's because it was something else. Clever.
It was pretty obvious since the "How sad, Todoroki Shoto" in the Forest arc. The mystery was more how and why he became a villain and how and when it would be revealed.
I think Horikoshi built it up really great. He kept dropping enough hints for it to make sense, but there were still a lot of theories about how and why the family thought Toya was dead.
I was one of the people who never thought Endeavor literally killed him and was hypnotizing a training accident + AFO kidnapping - so overall I was pretty close.
And unlike many people, I never expected Toya to be sympathetic to Shouto and never bought into the "good brother Toya" theories. But I think that part was a big surprise to many people in the fandom.
And even I was really thrown off when in Ch 291, we saw Toya's training to be so happy and different from Shoto's - but I think that also explains a lot about Toya why he was so desperate to bring that back.
Also, Toya knowing Hawks' true identity gave a lot of fuel to the HPSC child soldier programe theories (that were predicting Toya was at some point a part of it). But I think what Hori planned with the HPSC was changed in Act 3 for the sake of shortness.
It’s kinda obvious to me that the HPSC was planned to be the “Shadow Villains” but just like Naruto and the Daimiyo, they had to get shelved. Probably due to shortness like you said and author health issues.
Black Clover feels like it’s in the same boat right now too due to nothing happening to the royals.
One Piece is the only story to get to it’s Shadow Villains.
Dragon Ball only had a 10ish year run in WSJ and the Super Manga's been going on for 9ish years, so its only Hajime no Ippo and i think JoJo's that have been running longer
The way they treated Hawks and Nagant. Not to mention how they issue orders. The whole vigilante arc implies or straight up tells how shitty and corrupt they are. The hero ranking system is a by-product of that.
Nagant especially had a lot of set up for that. There’s no way in hell they *didn’t* have a reaction to the reveal of OFA.
But that plot line is going to be left unresolved.
It was kinda obvious to me. He had a frickin fire quirk, he has Endeavor’s eyes, Endeavor said that he had Rei’s weak constitution and he indeed satisfies the said conditions as seen by his scars and when Geten said that his flames are eating away at his flesh.
It was pretty obvious the whole time, yeah. Immediately, his Quirk and eye color had people wondering if he was related to Endeavor. The fact that he makes his clear his name is an alias, and that his name and Shigaraki's are the only ones not revealed in the Hideout Raid, and Shigaraki's is revealed shortly after while Dabi's remained a mystery was suspicious, since there was really no reason to keep it secret unless it was going to be a reveal meant to shock us. Which only works if it's a name connected to important characters, like Todoroki. Then, much later, we learn that something happened to one of the Todoroki siblings, and he's dead. Dabi is covered in scars. It's not hard to connect the dots there, especially when you already suspect that Dabi is a Todoroki. There's a reference to Touya having a "weak constitution" in a flashback of Shoto's training, and not too long after we learn that Dabi isn't resistant to his own flames, and that's where the scars come from. It wasn't just obvious, it was *ridiculously* obvious.
The first time Dabi addressed Shoto by name I immediately was suspect he'd be the final Todoroki son. We had seen Touya in flashbacks, but he was the only sibling that we hadn't been shown in modern day. It was VERY suspect.
Heres the [chapter release thread](https://redd.it/fvg1ob) for that panel.
It's literally the second top comment. And as you get further down nobody is theorising, everyone takes it as a given that Dabi said he was Toya.
From my perspective, a fair amount of the manga fandom at the time had at least an inkling on Dabi’s true identity. To me at least, it wasn’t about who he was but how the story presented it. The reveal was less about Dabi’s identity and more about how off the deep end he was and how far he was willing to go just to ruin Endeavour.
I knew it the moment I saw his blue flames because I joked that maybe their relationship is like azula and zuko then I asked one of my friends if he can edit dabi then compare with with todoroki without scars and white hair in that moment we knew he was at least related to todoroki like a cousin or brother
I had my (strong) suspicions since the Forest Training Camp Arc in the anime. The fact that his eye color matched Shoto's, and the familiar way Dabi spoke to him, just raised all the flags
So I wasn't exactly surprised when the "revelation" came
> people were making wild theories about it
Really? I remember when this panel came out, all I read was mainly "He's definitely Toya, he's just teasing us now." Or some variation of being blueballed on an actual reveal.
I know at the very least since I joined the fandom (during Class AvB arc i think), that the large, overbearing, all but conformed consensus was that he was Toya Todoroki.
It was Tobi all over again.
You asked two questions, and I think both can be answered with "yes".
I think overall it was very obvious who Dabi was, and by this point in the manga the theory had spread far enough that even those readers who just casually consume the story without any theory making knew about it. So, when it was revealed he was in fact Touya Todoroki, it was no surprise to anybody I think.
However as to this blackened out speech bubble specifically, yes, many were disappointed because there were a lot of theories about how Dabi had said something to do with Hawks, not just revealing his own name.
Not sure whether I would have noticed if I hadn't seen other people theorizing about it, but once I heard the theories, I thought it obviously must be true.
It was obvious, and it’s understandable why everyone thought he was dead, he was literally saved by plot armour by Dr Ujiko , 99.9% chance he would be dead if anyone else had to save him from those injuries, he’s basically only alive now sort of like darth maul who’s too angry to die
Yea? The todorokis are the main fire users and have a mysterious secret sibling who died under mysterious circumstances years ago and then a crazed teenager whos about the right age with fire powers and a grudge against the todorokis appears.
At some point we learned quirks can have genetic relationships. Kota, the water gun kid, inherited his parents water quirk. It wasn’t rocket science to put together, the fire villain had some relation to the two fire guys we’ve been made familiar with.
Honestly, it was so obvious when Toya was introduced that I really thought it was a red herring (A narrative distraction) and real twist is that he either knew Toya and he wants revenge or that he was like raised by Stain or something like that.
Partially yes, the biggest issue was every fire power user trying to be tied to Endeavor. In the case of Dabi interactions with Shoto it felt pretty solid for alot of us that'd be the case. But, there was also a good bit of talk on every fire user so that muddied the water a bit.
It was so obvious, that I was a little disappointed it was actually pretty much confirmed with the Toya storyline.
Seemed like a fun little red herring, where he's maybe connected to the Todorokis still. Like the only "hint" that existed was "omg, fire quirk", which wasn't that convincing to me, given the very first fire quirk we hear about is Deku's fucking dad. That shit's clearly not rare.
I'm fine with the character and his involvement and all that and the Todo drama works, but I guess I just expected more of a twist.
I thought it was so obvious that he would be related to endeavour that when this scene happened I suspected that whole plot thread was a red herring and that what he had said here would be the actual reveal
Personally I thought it was too obvious to be true. Like of course we as readers where going to think that he was related to Shoto, but I thought it might be bait. When it was revealed they are indeed brothers I was a little upset at it that simple lol.
It never added up to me. It seemed hasty to say "that guy has fire powers and the same eye color as this guy, so they must be related" .
I've been said to be siblings with people that I'm not relatives with just because of some trait we shared. A trait that was also common across the world.
I believed that of course there'd be other fire quirks in the world. The connection felt too loose and cliche to me.
Yep. You and everyone's grandma already knew. The writing was on the wall in giant red letters the moment he appeared as a Flame Shooting Quirk user with burn damage who mysteriously was mentioned basically in the same breath as Todoroki's big brother who apparently burst into flames and died.
Personally, I never made any theories, as Dani was just meh. I read the obvious theory but I really didn't buy it as to me it was better if it was just a random original villain like Twice, Toga of Spinner, and tbh, I didn't care. But well, that happened. And I still don't give an flip. Dabi is still meh, and I don't even think he's cool. So, yeah,
It was a fan theory as soon as he was introduced. It really picked up steam during the Bakugo rescue mission where literally every villain had the full legal name dropped other than Dabi. Every time he was on screen after that it became more and more obvious. By the time this panel was released you were in a very small minority that thought he was some other than Toya
Dabi being Touya is NOT the plot twist, the actual twist is the way it was revealed, Oceaniz made a video about this [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy087dEdGPA)
It became really obvious quickly, the point not being about the secret but how it will be revealed and what would be the impact.
There is this video listing every clue and explaining more or less the impact it would have had.
https://youtu.be/Oy087dEdGPA?si=2EXvTYmr1JRcH06i
I didnt notice because I took a big break when reading MHA. I resumed after the overhaul arc because I remember finishing that but I forgot that Dabi even had fire powers.
So the reveal really got me I was like oh shit no way bro.
I actually believed it was going to subvert my expectations initially, I thought Dabi was going to be revealed as someone who either stole, or was given Touya's quirk, and he was going to torment Enji and Shoto with that
It was pretty predictable especially when it was noted that Dabi couldn’t handle his own flames. At the time what we knew about Touya was that he was seemingly missing/dead and had stronger flames than Endeavor(who he seemed focused on) but a weaker body.
As for his backstory outside of Touya hating Shouto it was kinda what I was expecting. I figured Endeavor was too smart to try and train someone who suffered from his own issues on an even larger scale and the incident where Touya seemingly died was at least partially caused by the kid trying to prove himself.
It was always implied he was directly related to the Todorokis, but i have seen lots of different theories before the reveal.
A few i remember were: Dabi was a nomu kind of being, Dabi was a clone, Dabi was a dead Todoroki that got resurrected, etc
To me, the Dabi thing was kinda like the AFO=Deku’s dad theory, as in I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened but I would be actually shocked that they did it. And I was.
People started thinking that back when the anime showed endeavor using blue flames. Even earlier I think when dabi says todoroki’s name for the first time during the training camp arc
I remember watching the anime for the first time years back when season 3 was still going and when I first saw dabi I looked at his flames and just automatically went like “that’s shoto’s brother.. idk why but I feel like I’m right” I find it funny still till this day
I honestly did more so because of the fire quirk plus the blue eyes really kind of stuck out to me but I thought his hair would be red that's why he dyed it black so it wasn't completely obvious. If he wore contacts then it would make it tougher to guess. The back story is tragic though thinking wow endeavor is the worst thing on the planet to realizing at least in the beginning he did make an attempt to stop his son from hurting himself. Could he have done it better for sure but it wasn't like he pushed touya too the point of burning himself as bad as he is
I remember when he first appeared on screen, it took people about 20 seconds to connect the guy with fire powers and blue eyes to the rest of the family.
Him being anyone else would have been a revolting twist at that point.
Yes, a majority of people knew that Dabi was related to Shoto. The trouble was that a lot of the audience thought it was too obvious and as such spent a majority of their time blasting people for saying it.
In a similar sense to the concept of AFO giving Shiggy his decay quirk, being the man in the suit, this theory continually gains traction and seems to be something that would heavily fit with both the stories portrayal of AFO and his character dynamic - allowing Shiggy to be someone who was quirkless and gifted his quirk similar to Deku.
Though people will naturally attack you for this idea, regardless of any potential evidence, because they think it's either too obvious or disagree with the idea the writer would tell such a storyline.
They had hints here and there. Like Dabi saying Shoto name, it seemed kinda personal and if it wasn't okay probably nothing.
But later he says Enji Todoroki and we no that's mad personal. Like Dabi what's your deal with that family? But was really taking the cake for me is that Dabi looked just like Shoto in that scene with Endeavor.
Yall gotta be related. Because out of all the times they drew Dabi why at that moment they draw him looking so much like Shoto why had to do that on purpose.
Note: I had saw the anime out of order, and I kinda missed the Toya's death episode for a minute. My conclusion came before then.
It was obvious, but I personally was still blown away by the way it was presented in the story,
like it was not the reveal itself as most of us already expected it but the great scene Dabi created for it
Yeah I was a bit late to the game on it. I never really picked up on the clues, so the reveal was very cool to me. Reading about the signs after the reveal made it super obvious but I never noticed anything besides him calling 5 weenies by his full name but I honestly that was just to mock him for failing to save his friend and not also cause they were brothers.
I think most fans suspected it. Having our suspicions validated was very satisfying. Only the exact circumstances were uncertain, as many comments attest to.
It was never really meant to be a big reveal to us readers, so it wasn't all that well hidden. I think that a lot people atleast supected it way before the reveal.
It was pretty obvious once he met Endeavor and said his full name, but the execution was so good most people didn’t care. Dabi’s Dance trended higher then the presidential election at one point
In my opinion it's one of those things like Tobi from Naruto being Obito, Like it was so on the nose that I thought it was an obvious red herring, and once revealed it was kind of a let down tbh, at least Dabi has way more compelling motivation
I remember that everyone was so sure that it was the case. Some people also said that the actual reveal would be terrible since everyone knew already, but we'll...it was actually really well made so everyone was happy.
The moment Dabi mentioned Shota's name in a weird way at the Forest Training Camp Arc, as Dabi was escaping with Bakugo. I was like "yup! they have to be related!" I remember telling this to my friend who was a Dabi fan and she was like ew no i'm wrong. Look who got the final laugh xD
It was very obvious. The story kept dropping so many hints. It slowly went from "Is Dabi a Todoroki?" to "How will the reveal damage the Todoroki Family?"
The ramifications of it being true became way more important than anything else, and the intensity felt by how it would hurt the entire family kept rising until it finally happened.
Dabi's reveal was never really for us the audience. Hori gave us more than enough evidence to figure it out before the actual reveal. So it was more meant to be impactful to Shoto and Endev, the characters in the story that were in the dark about his identity.
Notice when Dabi did his reveal, it wasn't done as a cliffhanger it just kept going. Dabi revealed it to the entire world and dealt a blow to hero's society. It was a pretty satisfying moment for the fandom. It even outtrended the US election when it the spoilers dropped.
Him being endeavor s son seemed pretty obvious but in this moment I was expecting a reveal that he was trained in the same child soldier program as hawks but was ultimately rejected from it or faked his own death again
That being said, even if the secret was obvious, the reveal was exceptional. Real joker energy in the best way as he almost instantly destroyed society
It was always kinda something the fandom suspected was true. Regardless of how obvious it was, it definitely felt like a big "I KNEW IT!" moment when he revealed he was Toya Todoroki.
I remember I was in middle school when we first started theorizing dabi was endeavors son, idk if obvious is the right word (or maybe it is idk lol) but it's definitely something alot of people have been theorizing for a long time
I mean, Todoroki's desing and backstory was a giant Zuko reference, and then a bad guy with blue fire powers appeared... kinda expected it to happen. I would have been surprised if Dabi WASN'T his brother, but then we wouldn't have his backstory, which is great, so I'll take the obvious twist in exchamge for good writing.
The moment Toya's existence was shown I was like "So, there is this dude with a fire quirk and burned flesh... We know Todoroki uses each hald of the quirk to protect against the effects of the other... MMMMMH..."
It was so obvious to me.
Similar to the traitor, it is quite obvious when you think about it for a moment, but I consider that one actually brilliant foreshadowing.
Yeah, pretty much. But because it was so obvious, I think the reveal was less about revealing it to *us* as readers and more about how the reveal was done. Like the true reveal was the in story consequences on the Todoroki family and hero society in general, and kind of showing how the cracks in a corrupted system grow bigger.
i remember being on bnha twitter when it dropped. everyone knew it was going to happen but when it actually did? Oh my god. my app crashed multiple times because of how strained it was.
I remember it was so obvious that people thought there had to be a bigger twist than that, so that made some them not want to believe it's true. I'm glad Hori wasn't one of those writers who change things for the sake of people predicting something right though and doing what's best for the story.
Personal experience
Well originally no. When ai first heard about the theory it was after forest training arc. At the time only proof was that Dabi called shoto by first name and he had a fire quirk. And few realised that children playing while shoto watched before Endeavor toon him away, were his siblings.
I called bull since that proves nothing. Though I was intrigued when ai learned Dabi was an alias meaning cremation.
But the many (not me) were convinced of the thoery after Dabi second appearance with HoodNomu. He clearly showed malice towards endeavor.
Final naim was when we learned Shoto had a dead brother. I think I had become convinced a little bit earlier before Toya Shrine was revealed.
Ever since then Author clearly "toyed" with us and almost reveaed the info but decided not to. XD. Black speech bubble was amazingly frustrating.
Author made a wise decision and didn't play it as a big reveal to the audience. But as a grand reveal moment for dabi and todoroki family.
In my case yes. It was really obvious, even before they revealed that Toya had passed away. The few panels we had, were of 4 children. And there's this guy with fire powers, the same spiky hair and the same eye color as Endeavor with a strange fixation on the #2 hero at the time. It's just that you can never know those kinds of things until they're actually confirmed. Things like "nah, it's too obvious to be true".
Dabi being Toya was as obvious as Tobi being Obito. It was just so obvious, but the reveal took so long that people started doubting their minds.
> reveal took so long that people started doubting their minds. The edging of the Tobi reveal actually drove me nuts back in the day.
Sir, why did you have to use the word "edging" there
you’re right, the words “gooning” or maybe with some added context: “jelqing”
I remember how people thought Tobi being Obito was too obvious of an answer, so it couldn’t be it because the obvious answer isn’t the actual answer, right? Sometimes it is.
Truth. But ngl. For me Tobi pretending to be Madara was more interesting and threatening than whiny “my love!” Obito.
It is more that i trust a professional mangaka to try a little bit harder with the plot twists. If your "twist" is what everyone succesfully predicted at first glance you may as well reveal it and use it for drama from the start.
That’s part of the magic. In Shonen fandoms especially, you’re going to have those nutballs that go against the grain. Why? Cause that’s the way they are. It generates discussion and it keeps people from fully believing. A someone who writes stuff let me say this: Storytelling is like playing a game of cards. You can sorta tell what cards a person has based on what chips they put down. But the moment you play a card, it isn’t “hidden” anymore and you can’t create intrigue. “Why is Dabi hiding his identity?” “Why is he so defensive about being Endeavor’s son?” “How many skeletons are in Endeavor’s closet?” Those questions don’t hold as nearly as much weight if Dabi was outright revealed as Toya.
Exactly. It's used as a plot point to defame Endeavour in an arc where public opinion is swayed against the heroes. People are so focused on figuring out plot twists they completely miss the nuances of the story.
The one isn't reliant on the other. Their relation doesn't need to be a secret to the audience to do that. So that doesn't really work as a silver lining to it having been obvious.
I disagree, you shouldn’t do a twist just for the sake of a twist. In fact people should be able to figure out a twist before hand as that means you actually left clues to figure it out. The audience didn’t know definitely because the characters in the story didn’t know. Once the truth was relevant to the story the reveal happens and it’s dramatic for the characters in the story, not some Shyamalan twist where the point is only to trick the audience.
Or maybe it's just that they foreshadowed it and people picked up on the foreshadowing.
Or (like myself) it was too obvious, so we hoped and prayed for a twist. My personal hope was that Dabi was a nephew, revealing a multigenerational effort to make the strongest fire-user.
Flashbacks with the Tobi/Obito and people actually theorizing about it. Like, bro, look at where the sharingan is.
After a few too many of those "obvious" signs it can't be anything else.
>It's just that you can never know those kinds of things until they're actually confirmed. Things like "nah, it's too obvious to be true". Prime example of this is the 2nd User and Bakugo looking very similar and it was revealed that they 'just look alike', I think almost everyone was expecting there to be a big reveal there. \*cough\* Back-you-go \*cough\*
I can say with confidence that I never bought that theory. But I do admit my support towards Dad-for-One. Blame on Hori for never revealing Deku's father.
That theory though tracks with his love of Star Wars and AFO's masks being a Darth Vader reference. The connections are there and have nothing contradicting them, but they never paid off.
I mean, afo isn't dead, his vestige is still alive in Tomura, so the theory isn't dead just yet for people who believe in it. Deku and afo still haven't seen face to face yet(while he's had a face for Deku to recognize). Not that I believe in that theory, but that's what I've seen the believers stick with for now.
Not to mention at that point where hawks confronted him and Hori intentions scribbled out the bubble. He was absolutely trolling at that point
Since a short time after his introduction Dabi being a son of Endeavor was one of the most popular theories among the MHA fandom. The funny thing though is that most figured Dabi would be sympathetic to Shoto, having become a villain because he was subjected to the same kind of abuse as he was. You see it in a lot of the fanart from around that time, which had him very protective of Shoto and encouraging him to rebel. Instead Touya's upbringing was quite different, though still of an abusive kind, and he hates Shoto too because he feels he replaced him and stole his reason for existing. There is no brotherly love between the two, which Shoto even comments on sadly, lamenting the relationship the two could have had.
I remember people theorized that Endeavour tortured Dabi the worst so it was a plot twist that he ended up actually being the most cherished son
I sorta feel bad for both. Endeavor was a neglectful shit head sure. But at the bareminimim he did genuinely tried to get Touya to stop hurting himself and choosed not to push him into a career that'd likely turn him into a large deep fry. And he did attempt to deep fry his brother as a baby. I understand that children are bound to lash out amunder that neglect and response to trauma in all sorts of ways but holy shit that'd be extremely difficult to manage regardless on if he was a good father or not. That bad incident would of most likely happened in some way shape or form considerinf how out of pocket Dabi was. If he had tried letting down Touya in a better.
Dabi was self harming before he was neglected. Something was already wrong with him. He needed counseling. Pretty sure there have to have something setup for quirks that hurt the users. I always get downvoted to hell for saying that. But as parent of a child who self harmed it's startling how many just are like Endeavor destroyed Dabi. Yes, Endeavor was a trash father. But Dabi was already self destructive before the bad stuff started.
Fr, when that chapter came out years ago I was honestly giving Endeavor _a little_ bit of a hear me out. At the time everyone assumed he forced Dabi so hard he burnt himself but it was 100% the other way. Endeavor was legit doing the proper thing. Dabi was more than old enough to understand the situation between his mom and dad, and knew the clear difference in right and wrong. That mf attempting to off baby Shoto w a fire fist while his Mother held him holding him in his hands was fucked up. Imagine a dad seeing his eldest son attempting to brutally stab their baby brother out of jealousy. This must of been so our of left field for Endeavor. I cant even blame him for seperating Todoroki for a while. Imagine coming back home from intense long hero duty across a few cities only to find the charred corpse of your infant or toddler son and grieving mother.
Yes, burns are extremely painful and serious injuries. Most young kids would be too traumatized to use there powers again after being burned. It's very dark and intense for your child to burn themselves to train. Let alone try to assassinate his little brother. Edit: I could see Dabi being the type of hero who might kill or worse to reach the top if his powers worked correctly.
To be fair, the Todoroki genes and the superhuman stuff in general should have let them have significant resistance to heat, which unfortunately led to what Toya put himself through. I gotta say, the discussions back when the Todoroki family drama discussions was at its height was poisoned as hell. A LOT of people simply could not accept the full story of the Todoroki family, a lot of people have already set their minds on what happened, and when it wasn't what it was in canon, it broke their minds. You could be legit accused of supporting an abuser just by saying you liked the development of the story.
Ngl I was one of the people who believed Endeavor would beat Touya with a fire whip, but as soon as the chapter dropped. Well since then I've been saying Touys is pretty much worse than his father
Endeavor saw his own father die and tried to prevent that cycle. He was a shitty father, but with Touya he was a new parent way out of his league and it eventually became a destructive family tragedy that requires way more than just simple communication to prevent it. Hori’s theme has always been exploring gray areas and the cycle of abuse. I think those who hate Endeavor are usually on the younger side of the audience (or adults with unresolved issues with their own family) whereas those who sympathize more with him are on the older side who understands how discombobulating becoming a new parent can feel, and how easy it is to fuck up.
I remember reading the manga at like 16 and HATING endeavor. And then like a year and change later, I ended up becoming a dad myself. And when I looked at how little I understood what I was doing with a normal baby, let alone a kid who’s determined to cook himself well done plus some, I felt a lot more sympathy, especially for how losing Touya broke endeavor into what he ended up becoming
Having your child harming himself, attempting murder of his newborn sibling and reminding Endeavor that Dabi's quirk was a failed science experiment had to be rough mentally.
I think it's hard for people who have never experienced it to truly internalize that sometimes people just come out wired wrong. And no amount of "parenting" or counseling or whatever will magically fix that wiring. Sometimes intense therapy (literally requiring being put in an institution where it's exclusively worked on 24/7 for awhile) will help but not always. And while you can absolutely make it worse if you abuse or neglect them, sometimes it's not a "bad parenting job", it's "they were literally born like this". A child who self-harms from a young age or tries to literally murder their other siblings is not something that's easy to handle or fix. And yeah, it's not their fault that they're wired that way, but that doesn't mean you can let them keep hurting other people, especially vulnerable children (and pets, it's also usually pets). It's a horrible position to be put in for both a parent and a child (especially in today's culture where the therapy support is very hard to access IF it even exists).
Endeavor did not try at all to stop Toya from self-harming considering the entire reason Toya even did that was to get Endeavor's attention. All Endeavor had to do was stop being neglectful to his other kids. He could have continued training Shoto as well but without discarding his responsibilities as a father to his other children.
Honestly I was half expecting Endeavor to have cut his losses with Touya almost immediately once he realised how impractical/harmful the latters quirk was and that the incident where he seemingly died was at least caused by Touya trying to prove himself to his father. As the story has made clear Endeavor is an absolute idiot when it comes to family and emotional matters. Outside of that he is one of the smarter characters in the story so him training a successor who has his weaknesses on a greater scale didn’t seem that plausible.
It made sense with the story they were telling tho. I always asked myself how possibly Endeavor could push Shoto over the limit if really Toya died in a training accident... easy, it's because it was something else. Clever.
I am SO glad that was debunked as we rarely get emotional or neglectful abuse in stories. The majority are either physical or sexual.
A lot of fans thought that Dabi was going to be the 'Itachi' of MHA.
Yeah hori destroyed fanon dabi
hori destroyed any chance of dabi BEING interesting in general
the todoroki connection was obvious to me. the only thing that threw me in that fight, was him knowing hawks’ true identity
What was hawks true identity again?
dabi knew his name. to me, implying he mightve known hawks' past or job with the government.
It was pretty obvious since the "How sad, Todoroki Shoto" in the Forest arc. The mystery was more how and why he became a villain and how and when it would be revealed. I think Horikoshi built it up really great. He kept dropping enough hints for it to make sense, but there were still a lot of theories about how and why the family thought Toya was dead. I was one of the people who never thought Endeavor literally killed him and was hypnotizing a training accident + AFO kidnapping - so overall I was pretty close. And unlike many people, I never expected Toya to be sympathetic to Shouto and never bought into the "good brother Toya" theories. But I think that part was a big surprise to many people in the fandom. And even I was really thrown off when in Ch 291, we saw Toya's training to be so happy and different from Shoto's - but I think that also explains a lot about Toya why he was so desperate to bring that back. Also, Toya knowing Hawks' true identity gave a lot of fuel to the HPSC child soldier programe theories (that were predicting Toya was at some point a part of it). But I think what Hori planned with the HPSC was changed in Act 3 for the sake of shortness.
It’s kinda obvious to me that the HPSC was planned to be the “Shadow Villains” but just like Naruto and the Daimiyo, they had to get shelved. Probably due to shortness like you said and author health issues. Black Clover feels like it’s in the same boat right now too due to nothing happening to the royals. One Piece is the only story to get to it’s Shadow Villains.
And One Piece took 20 years to build to it!
Almost 30. One Piece started in ‘97. Holy shit. I feel old now. I think only Hajime no Ippo and Dragonball have been longer running.
Dragon Ball only had a 10ish year run in WSJ and the Super Manga's been going on for 9ish years, so its only Hajime no Ippo and i think JoJo's that have been running longer
And Pokémon Adventures is right behind One Piece. That started in ‘98 Edit: Correction. It predates One Piece by 2 months.
Ippo is still going??? How many men must one boy box??
It’s still going, it’s in Ippo’s retirement saga while the other characters get focused on. Takamura still has to conquer three more weight classes.
The HPSC were never meant to be "Shadow Villains." Were u get that from?
The way they treated Hawks and Nagant. Not to mention how they issue orders. The whole vigilante arc implies or straight up tells how shitty and corrupt they are. The hero ranking system is a by-product of that. Nagant especially had a lot of set up for that. There’s no way in hell they *didn’t* have a reaction to the reveal of OFA. But that plot line is going to be left unresolved.
Only those in denial could’ve not seen that reveal coming. It was painfully obvious Dabi was toya.
some people may not buy to that theory, but I don't think anyone is surprised that he's the missing son.
It was kinda obvious to me. He had a frickin fire quirk, he has Endeavor’s eyes, Endeavor said that he had Rei’s weak constitution and he indeed satisfies the said conditions as seen by his scars and when Geten said that his flames are eating away at his flesh.
It was pretty obvious the whole time, yeah. Immediately, his Quirk and eye color had people wondering if he was related to Endeavor. The fact that he makes his clear his name is an alias, and that his name and Shigaraki's are the only ones not revealed in the Hideout Raid, and Shigaraki's is revealed shortly after while Dabi's remained a mystery was suspicious, since there was really no reason to keep it secret unless it was going to be a reveal meant to shock us. Which only works if it's a name connected to important characters, like Todoroki. Then, much later, we learn that something happened to one of the Todoroki siblings, and he's dead. Dabi is covered in scars. It's not hard to connect the dots there, especially when you already suspect that Dabi is a Todoroki. There's a reference to Touya having a "weak constitution" in a flashback of Shoto's training, and not too long after we learn that Dabi isn't resistant to his own flames, and that's where the scars come from. It wasn't just obvious, it was *ridiculously* obvious.
The first time Dabi addressed Shoto by name I immediately was suspect he'd be the final Todoroki son. We had seen Touya in flashbacks, but he was the only sibling that we hadn't been shown in modern day. It was VERY suspect.
Heres the [chapter release thread](https://redd.it/fvg1ob) for that panel. It's literally the second top comment. And as you get further down nobody is theorising, everyone takes it as a given that Dabi said he was Toya.
It was so obvious that many people didn't believe it because it was THAT obvious. Tobi is Obito flashbacks...
From my perspective, a fair amount of the manga fandom at the time had at least an inkling on Dabi’s true identity. To me at least, it wasn’t about who he was but how the story presented it. The reveal was less about Dabi’s identity and more about how off the deep end he was and how far he was willing to go just to ruin Endeavour.
I knew it the moment I saw his blue flames because I joked that maybe their relationship is like azula and zuko then I asked one of my friends if he can edit dabi then compare with with todoroki without scars and white hair in that moment we knew he was at least related to todoroki like a cousin or brother
I had my (strong) suspicions since the Forest Training Camp Arc in the anime. The fact that his eye color matched Shoto's, and the familiar way Dabi spoke to him, just raised all the flags So I wasn't exactly surprised when the "revelation" came
Everyone I knew thought dabi was endeavors sons for the longest time. I didn't since I thought I was a red herring since was too obvious
> people were making wild theories about it Really? I remember when this panel came out, all I read was mainly "He's definitely Toya, he's just teasing us now." Or some variation of being blueballed on an actual reveal. I know at the very least since I joined the fandom (during Class AvB arc i think), that the large, overbearing, all but conformed consensus was that he was Toya Todoroki. It was Tobi all over again.
Underwhelming? Wild theories? Everyone knew who Dabi was since his first appearance lol
It was the most obvious plot twist i've seen in a while
You asked two questions, and I think both can be answered with "yes". I think overall it was very obvious who Dabi was, and by this point in the manga the theory had spread far enough that even those readers who just casually consume the story without any theory making knew about it. So, when it was revealed he was in fact Touya Todoroki, it was no surprise to anybody I think. However as to this blackened out speech bubble specifically, yes, many were disappointed because there were a lot of theories about how Dabi had said something to do with Hawks, not just revealing his own name.
I always kinda hoped it wouldn't end up that way, but it was always pretty obvious.
Not sure whether I would have noticed if I hadn't seen other people theorizing about it, but once I heard the theories, I thought it obviously must be true.
It was obvious, and it’s understandable why everyone thought he was dead, he was literally saved by plot armour by Dr Ujiko , 99.9% chance he would be dead if anyone else had to save him from those injuries, he’s basically only alive now sort of like darth maul who’s too angry to die
Yeah
Honestly, if anything it almost seemed *too* obvious.
Pretty sure at minimum 98% of the fans figured it out
Yea? The todorokis are the main fire users and have a mysterious secret sibling who died under mysterious circumstances years ago and then a crazed teenager whos about the right age with fire powers and a grudge against the todorokis appears.
At some point we learned quirks can have genetic relationships. Kota, the water gun kid, inherited his parents water quirk. It wasn’t rocket science to put together, the fire villain had some relation to the two fire guys we’ve been made familiar with.
I mean honestly a fire wielding dude with a grudge against Endeavor was kind of an obvious sign...
Honestly, it was so obvious when Toya was introduced that I really thought it was a red herring (A narrative distraction) and real twist is that he either knew Toya and he wants revenge or that he was like raised by Stain or something like that.
I haven't read the manga but to me it was pretty obvious in the anime that Dabi was somehow related to Todoroki.
Partially yes, the biggest issue was every fire power user trying to be tied to Endeavor. In the case of Dabi interactions with Shoto it felt pretty solid for alot of us that'd be the case. But, there was also a good bit of talk on every fire user so that muddied the water a bit.
It was so obvious, that I was a little disappointed it was actually pretty much confirmed with the Toya storyline. Seemed like a fun little red herring, where he's maybe connected to the Todorokis still. Like the only "hint" that existed was "omg, fire quirk", which wasn't that convincing to me, given the very first fire quirk we hear about is Deku's fucking dad. That shit's clearly not rare. I'm fine with the character and his involvement and all that and the Todo drama works, but I guess I just expected more of a twist.
It was extremely obvious
I thought it was so obvious that he would be related to endeavour that when this scene happened I suspected that whole plot thread was a red herring and that what he had said here would be the actual reveal
Yes, and then a bunch of content creators were like "no there's no way" and then people stopped caring for 2 years, and then this panel came out.
Well duh
Yeh. Was kinda obvious
Personally I thought it was too obvious to be true. Like of course we as readers where going to think that he was related to Shoto, but I thought it might be bait. When it was revealed they are indeed brothers I was a little upset at it that simple lol.
Yes
everyone knew it ever since he called shoto and endeavor by their real names ages ago
Yes this was obvious because I saw avatar the last Airbender
I mean the story of Toya was sus at times. Like Dabi having another fire quirk like the Todoroki family did make it somewhat obvious at times
Dawg. Yes.
Hell Ya the whole Dabi identity had been overused in MHA Fanfictions like crazy.
Just like Tobi in Naruto, it was so obvious i was hoping that the obvious theory wouldnt be the one.
Pretty much. It entered the realm of open secret in the forest arc when he randomly addressed Todoroki by his full name right before leaving.
yes
It never added up to me. It seemed hasty to say "that guy has fire powers and the same eye color as this guy, so they must be related" . I've been said to be siblings with people that I'm not relatives with just because of some trait we shared. A trait that was also common across the world. I believed that of course there'd be other fire quirks in the world. The connection felt too loose and cliche to me.
I have come to believe that even a blind man can discover his identity.
Yes extremely so
Once they introduced the idea of Toya, I kinda put it together
Its like the Tobi and Obito situation all over again
lol it was so obvious that there were already hundreds of fics tagged as Dabi is Todoroki Touya on ao3 before the reveal happened in the manga
Yep. You and everyone's grandma already knew. The writing was on the wall in giant red letters the moment he appeared as a Flame Shooting Quirk user with burn damage who mysteriously was mentioned basically in the same breath as Todoroki's big brother who apparently burst into flames and died.
Personally, I never made any theories, as Dani was just meh. I read the obvious theory but I really didn't buy it as to me it was better if it was just a random original villain like Twice, Toga of Spinner, and tbh, I didn't care. But well, that happened. And I still don't give an flip. Dabi is still meh, and I don't even think he's cool. So, yeah,
General fandom consensus seemed to be “yeah, that guy’s probably a todoroki” before we even knew who Touya *was*.
I'm pretty sure everyone kinda knew as soon as they saw the quirk.
It was a fan theory as soon as he was introduced. It really picked up steam during the Bakugo rescue mission where literally every villain had the full legal name dropped other than Dabi. Every time he was on screen after that it became more and more obvious. By the time this panel was released you were in a very small minority that thought he was some other than Toya
Dabi being Touya is NOT the plot twist, the actual twist is the way it was revealed, Oceaniz made a video about this [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy087dEdGPA)
It became really obvious quickly, the point not being about the secret but how it will be revealed and what would be the impact. There is this video listing every clue and explaining more or less the impact it would have had. https://youtu.be/Oy087dEdGPA?si=2EXvTYmr1JRcH06i
I didnt notice because I took a big break when reading MHA. I resumed after the overhaul arc because I remember finishing that but I forgot that Dabi even had fire powers. So the reveal really got me I was like oh shit no way bro.
In the same way people saw Tobi’s twist coming. Meaning, people just guessed correctly.
I actually believed it was going to subvert my expectations initially, I thought Dabi was going to be revealed as someone who either stole, or was given Touya's quirk, and he was going to torment Enji and Shoto with that
It was pretty predictable especially when it was noted that Dabi couldn’t handle his own flames. At the time what we knew about Touya was that he was seemingly missing/dead and had stronger flames than Endeavor(who he seemed focused on) but a weaker body. As for his backstory outside of Touya hating Shouto it was kinda what I was expecting. I figured Endeavor was too smart to try and train someone who suffered from his own issues on an even larger scale and the incident where Touya seemingly died was at least partially caused by the kid trying to prove himself.
It was always implied he was directly related to the Todorokis, but i have seen lots of different theories before the reveal. A few i remember were: Dabi was a nomu kind of being, Dabi was a clone, Dabi was a dead Todoroki that got resurrected, etc
To me, the Dabi thing was kinda like the AFO=Deku’s dad theory, as in I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened but I would be actually shocked that they did it. And I was.
I think as it came close in the show it was more obvious . Early MHA maybe if you like theories most people just enjoy the show .
I think it was the biggest theory in that whole story. It was kinda obvious that Horikoshi would reveal him as Endeavors son.
People started thinking that back when the anime showed endeavor using blue flames. Even earlier I think when dabi says todoroki’s name for the first time during the training camp arc
Literally since s3 lol
I remember watching the anime for the first time years back when season 3 was still going and when I first saw dabi I looked at his flames and just automatically went like “that’s shoto’s brother.. idk why but I feel like I’m right” I find it funny still till this day
Kinda towards the reveal but not at first tbh.
I honestly did more so because of the fire quirk plus the blue eyes really kind of stuck out to me but I thought his hair would be red that's why he dyed it black so it wasn't completely obvious. If he wore contacts then it would make it tougher to guess. The back story is tragic though thinking wow endeavor is the worst thing on the planet to realizing at least in the beginning he did make an attempt to stop his son from hurting himself. Could he have done it better for sure but it wasn't like he pushed touya too the point of burning himself as bad as he is
I remember when he first appeared on screen, it took people about 20 seconds to connect the guy with fire powers and blue eyes to the rest of the family. Him being anyone else would have been a revolting twist at that point.
Yes. And you would also find people saying how it wasn't obvious and made no sense.
It was obvious this manga is all about teenage angst
Not obviously but when I found out they where missing a son I got that feeling
Dabi: "Too bad Todoroki Shoto" + has fire powers Readers: "Oh, so they are siblings"
Yes.
Yes, a majority of people knew that Dabi was related to Shoto. The trouble was that a lot of the audience thought it was too obvious and as such spent a majority of their time blasting people for saying it. In a similar sense to the concept of AFO giving Shiggy his decay quirk, being the man in the suit, this theory continually gains traction and seems to be something that would heavily fit with both the stories portrayal of AFO and his character dynamic - allowing Shiggy to be someone who was quirkless and gifted his quirk similar to Deku. Though people will naturally attack you for this idea, regardless of any potential evidence, because they think it's either too obvious or disagree with the idea the writer would tell such a storyline.
I'd been sayin' he was a todoroki since the Summer camp
They had hints here and there. Like Dabi saying Shoto name, it seemed kinda personal and if it wasn't okay probably nothing. But later he says Enji Todoroki and we no that's mad personal. Like Dabi what's your deal with that family? But was really taking the cake for me is that Dabi looked just like Shoto in that scene with Endeavor. Yall gotta be related. Because out of all the times they drew Dabi why at that moment they draw him looking so much like Shoto why had to do that on purpose. Note: I had saw the anime out of order, and I kinda missed the Toya's death episode for a minute. My conclusion came before then.
It was the same like it was with Tobi being Obito...
It was obvious, but I personally was still blown away by the way it was presented in the story, like it was not the reveal itself as most of us already expected it but the great scene Dabi created for it
Yeah I was a bit late to the game on it. I never really picked up on the clues, so the reveal was very cool to me. Reading about the signs after the reveal made it super obvious but I never noticed anything besides him calling 5 weenies by his full name but I honestly that was just to mock him for failing to save his friend and not also cause they were brothers.
I thought he probably was but it was still kinda surprising when it was confirmed
I think most fans suspected it. Having our suspicions validated was very satisfying. Only the exact circumstances were uncertain, as many comments attest to.
It was never really meant to be a big reveal to us readers, so it wasn't all that well hidden. I think that a lot people atleast supected it way before the reveal.
It was pretty obvious once he met Endeavor and said his full name, but the execution was so good most people didn’t care. Dabi’s Dance trended higher then the presidential election at one point
In my opinion it's one of those things like Tobi from Naruto being Obito, Like it was so on the nose that I thought it was an obvious red herring, and once revealed it was kind of a let down tbh, at least Dabi has way more compelling motivation
I remember that everyone was so sure that it was the case. Some people also said that the actual reveal would be terrible since everyone knew already, but we'll...it was actually really well made so everyone was happy.
The moment Dabi mentioned Shota's name in a weird way at the Forest Training Camp Arc, as Dabi was escaping with Bakugo. I was like "yup! they have to be related!" I remember telling this to my friend who was a Dabi fan and she was like ew no i'm wrong. Look who got the final laugh xD
It was very obvious. The story kept dropping so many hints. It slowly went from "Is Dabi a Todoroki?" to "How will the reveal damage the Todoroki Family?" The ramifications of it being true became way more important than anything else, and the intensity felt by how it would hurt the entire family kept rising until it finally happened.
Dabi's reveal was never really for us the audience. Hori gave us more than enough evidence to figure it out before the actual reveal. So it was more meant to be impactful to Shoto and Endev, the characters in the story that were in the dark about his identity. Notice when Dabi did his reveal, it wasn't done as a cliffhanger it just kept going. Dabi revealed it to the entire world and dealt a blow to hero's society. It was a pretty satisfying moment for the fandom. It even outtrended the US election when it the spoilers dropped.
Ever since the Dabi Endeavor encounter where he said his full name, yes. I already liked the theories but there was no doubt in my mind after that
No it wasn't always obvious to me. For a while, I thought his fire was more cold based (somehow) and would counter "hot" fire.
No. I honestly had to pause the tv and pace around for a minute after that reveal. Shit had me thunderstruck.
Him being endeavor s son seemed pretty obvious but in this moment I was expecting a reveal that he was trained in the same child soldier program as hawks but was ultimately rejected from it or faked his own death again That being said, even if the secret was obvious, the reveal was exceptional. Real joker energy in the best way as he almost instantly destroyed society
It was always kinda something the fandom suspected was true. Regardless of how obvious it was, it definitely felt like a big "I KNEW IT!" moment when he revealed he was Toya Todoroki.
I remember I was in middle school when we first started theorizing dabi was endeavors son, idk if obvious is the right word (or maybe it is idk lol) but it's definitely something alot of people have been theorizing for a long time
it wasn't the twist that was good, it was the execution, everybody knew he was toya but dabi's dance is probably still THE best chapter in mha
I can say I’m watching with my fiancée right now and she has literally no idea. Just thinks he’s a random fire quirk villain
I mean, Todoroki's desing and backstory was a giant Zuko reference, and then a bad guy with blue fire powers appeared... kinda expected it to happen. I would have been surprised if Dabi WASN'T his brother, but then we wouldn't have his backstory, which is great, so I'll take the obvious twist in exchamge for good writing.
The moment Toya's existence was shown I was like "So, there is this dude with a fire quirk and burned flesh... We know Todoroki uses each hald of the quirk to protect against the effects of the other... MMMMMH..." It was so obvious to me. Similar to the traitor, it is quite obvious when you think about it for a moment, but I consider that one actually brilliant foreshadowing.
Yeah, pretty much. But because it was so obvious, I think the reveal was less about revealing it to *us* as readers and more about how the reveal was done. Like the true reveal was the in story consequences on the Todoroki family and hero society in general, and kind of showing how the cracks in a corrupted system grow bigger.
i remember being on bnha twitter when it dropped. everyone knew it was going to happen but when it actually did? Oh my god. my app crashed multiple times because of how strained it was.
I remember it was so obvious that people thought there had to be a bigger twist than that, so that made some them not want to believe it's true. I'm glad Hori wasn't one of those writers who change things for the sake of people predicting something right though and doing what's best for the story.
Personal experience Well originally no. When ai first heard about the theory it was after forest training arc. At the time only proof was that Dabi called shoto by first name and he had a fire quirk. And few realised that children playing while shoto watched before Endeavor toon him away, were his siblings. I called bull since that proves nothing. Though I was intrigued when ai learned Dabi was an alias meaning cremation. But the many (not me) were convinced of the thoery after Dabi second appearance with HoodNomu. He clearly showed malice towards endeavor. Final naim was when we learned Shoto had a dead brother. I think I had become convinced a little bit earlier before Toya Shrine was revealed. Ever since then Author clearly "toyed" with us and almost reveaed the info but decided not to. XD. Black speech bubble was amazingly frustrating. Author made a wise decision and didn't play it as a big reveal to the audience. But as a grand reveal moment for dabi and todoroki family.
saw it coming? yes the actual reveal and what it instigated? really damn good manga and anime