Spoiler for chapter #390 of My Hero Academia ahead.My Hero Academy ended the lengthy storyline of Dabi and the Todoroki family, and it chose to end things with one of the most well-deserved and belated apologies in manga history. Recent chapters of My Hero Academia have seen the Todoroki family come together to stop Dabi, as Shoto rushes to the scene before his brother can destroy himself and drag the others out. While Rei, Fuyumi and Natsuo are no heroes, they still feel a responsibility to stop Dabi and put their lives first in order to do so.
Unfortunately, there was no way to get past him, and their power wasn’t enough to stop him from exploding. Shoto arrives and deploys his ultimate ice technique, the Great Glacial Aegir, which cools everything down forever. However, as Dabi/Toya lay there dying, it turned out that Endeavor still had something to say.
Endeavor’s My Hero Academia apology is just the first step
After getting ready to endure Dabi’s insults, Endeavor began to apologize to Toya for not being on the mountain the night they learned of his death. He then apologizes to his wife Rei for making her so nervous that she gets angry. He apologizes to Fuyumi and Natsuo for neglecting them and blames Fuyumi as the eldest. Finally, he apologized to Shoto, albeit less specifically. These apologies are at least a decade overdue at this point, but it signals the final turning point in Endeavor’s redemption journey: taking full responsibility.
Endeavor’s arc throughout My Hero Academia is one of realizations about everything he’s done to achieve hero number one status. Most of his family won’t talk to him, and Shoto hates him so much that he’s not even willing to use his half Quirk fire. In the end, when Endeavor received the title, it wasn’t all he dreamed of, and even his public behavior made people uncomfortable with him at the top. That’s when Endeavor finally begins to understand all that he has sacrificed and who has been hurt along the way. Now, Endeavor proves he’s changed – which is why he’s able to identify and apologize for specific things he’s done wrong.
The quest to lead can be a lonely and empty one, as Endeavor has learned the hard way. Being the best leaves no time for anything else. Now that Endeavor can finally accept the consequences of his decisions and apologize for them, he’s well on his way to forgiveness, even if it’s just the beginning. While Endeavor’s apology may not mean much to Toya/Dabi, it certainly means a lot to the rest of the Todoroki family, even if My Hero AcademyTheir #1 hero has a long way to go to make up for them.