Anonymous asked: given the things said by kotaro and the moms reaction her confronting him that time was the first time kotaro used actual physical violence on tenko . which is why kotaro realized he went to far to quote tripl-l that chapter was enjis redemption arc in miniature where you got abuse then father ended up thinking and realized he was wrong ( kotaro would have most likely tried to reconcile with tenko had that event not happened ) kotaros fight of the fight or flight reaction won out 1/2

Answer:

hamliet:

and wanted to keep tenk away from him given that he just killed his
family nad its obvious that his quirk relies on being near him or touch
etc so the best way to avoid dying was to keep tenko away from him  and a
good number of people agree and say that was the one time kotaro was
justified in hitting tenko 2/2
       
    

*moans*

I will never understand this fandom’s demonization of Hana and sympathy for Kotaro. Or, well, I will. It’s total sexism at play here (I’m not accusing you Anon! But the fandom as a whole).

Kotaro wasn’t trying to protect himself; he wanted to murder a child we never once saw him say something positive about–hence, I can’t give him the benefit of the doubt, and neither does Shigaraki. Horikoshi actually doesn’t encourage us to; this is people trying to read a sad boy into it. There’s no textual evidence that Kotaro is supposed to be sympathetic, or that he was ever redeemed.

Like… Enji’s redemption arc has its issues but at least it’s shown to be a process. I don’t know who triple L is but that argument is a Gigantic Yikes. Kotaro made NO steps to redeem himself. Like, do people really think abusers don’t feel sad over their abuse of their victims? 99% of the time, they do. The cycle of abuse is a real thing.

Abusers swear to never do it again. They regret it, know they went too far, attempt to repair. Abusers aren’t monsters who never feel badly–they do feel badly. But they do it anyways because they want to enact their pain onto others. So next time they lose their shit it’s right back to the same behavior–which is what Kotaro did.

Behold:

Tension builds:

Explosion:

Honeymoon:

If Kotaro truly, truly wanted to change, he would have sacrificed himself to try to save his child (which is exactly what I think Endeavor will decide to do at some point, though he may survive). Kotaro’s last action–trying to kill his son–shows us that he did not change in what he thought of Tenko. Now, of course he was traumatized from the sight of everyone in his family dead, but it’s worth remembering that he was never once shown to value his family before this–and his actions of threatening Tenko stand in sharp contrast with everyone else in his family.

Tenko begged him for help. How can we not contrast Kotaro’s reaction with his wife’s?

And Kotaro tried to murder him despite having no way of knowing for sure because Tenko didn’t even realize just yet that this wasn’t an attack from an outside villain.

Kotaro scared his kids and his wife, exhibiting controlling behavior that he never shows any actions that support he really wanted to change, just words. He dies in his sins. If he had lived, yeah, maybe he would have sincerely tried to change, but the evidence we have textually simply doesn’t support it.