A Brief Character Study of the New Number One Hero of MHA Endeavor
- Jatin Thukral
- Dec 21, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 22, 2021
The Flame Hero: Endeavor or Tenji Todoroki is one of the most appealing anti-heroes of recent times in anime or manga. Endeavor plays a vital role in several arcs of the manga, providing his character with a diverse arc. Endeavor is one of the major side characters in My Hero Academia who appears quite frequently on the screen along with the main protagonists.
Enji is a tall man with a muscular physique. He has short and spiky, red hair with turquoise eyes. His beard and moustache appear to be made of fire, but when he turns off his flames on his face voluntarily, his stubble shows.
Endeavor's Hero Costume is comprised of a navy blue bodysuit with flames streaming across his chest, arms, and most prominently his shoulders. He uses his flames as a make-shift domino mask, and his boots appear to be made of flames as well. He sports white bracers styled in a cage pattern and a black belt with a white pouch attached to the side.
Enji Todoroki has serves as the number two pro hero in Japan just falling behind the number one hero and the symbol of peace – All Might. Endeavor gave his quirk a name that stands out while also describing the intensity of his character, “Hellflame”. Hellflame allows him to produce and manipulate intense flames of fire at his will.
Endeavor, however, has the best, highest rate of most number of resolved cases in the history of crime in Japan giving the idea that he’s a public man who likes to serves his duty with full integrity and determination. The stats could although be a little misleading here, as it is widely believed and arguably portrayed in both manga and anime themselves that Enji is a heartless, cruel, selfish and overtly obsessed with the idea of surpassing All Might, the number one hero one fruitful day. These character traits can easily be highlighted in his actions of past where he tried to purposefully “create” babies with his wife only with the aim of developing one into the ultimate hero with an ultimate combination quirk extracting features from both his/her parents’ quirks. Hence, he birthed and trained Shoto, his son, to become the number one hero someday and surpass All Might for Endeavor himself has lost his faith if he will ever be able to do that. His cruelty has shown in the manga and anime from time to time in the fragments of his past as flashbacks, where he’d hit his woman and treat his children badly if they did anything to lower his expectations. Endeavor never really played a father figure despite the fact that he is a father of four very beautiful children.
Endeavor carries a bad temper for the better part of the manga/anime, which is evidently shown on several occasions in the show. When All Might announced his retirement and Enji was handed the position of Number One Hero in Japan, his wrath could clearly be seen in his efforts of what seemed like a total destruction of his training hall by his own hands in the fury. Some flashbacks sequences also manifest the bad-tempered Enji as he misbehaves with one of his fans, who appears to be just a little kid.
According to Present Mic, Endeavor is usually not a sociable person. Despite this, his competence at solving crimes and defeating villains is unquestioned, with Endeavor having dedicated his life to studying and training to attain the top spot of the Hero rankings.
This image of endeavor wasn’t permanent though. It had to change. Everyone thought that the Number Two had a shot at redeeming his pseudo villainous character arc. All Might’s retirement nullified Enji’s dream of having his son Shoto surpass All Might to become a number one hero, hence, he had to proclaim the spot of number one hero. This forced Enji to look back at all the wrongdoings that he had done over these years with his family and the people around and ultimately atone to his sins. Enji resolved to become the Endeavor and the kind f hero that his children could be proud of calling their father.
During the Hero Ranking Ceremony Endeavor is shown to be more dedicated to the goal of becoming worthy of the No. 1 rank and the new symbol of peace. Despite his determination to become a better father and someone worthy of being the new symbol of peace, Endeavor still retains traces of his old personality, openly stating to Izuku and Katsuki during their work studies that he only wanted Shoto to come and had no real interest in teaching either of them. In spite of this, he still does his best to teach all three students about the fundamentals of heroism and compliments them when they manage to take out a villain faster than he could.
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