Boku No hero Academia I: because it deserves a thread.

[Kitten Champion]

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Well I mean it's part of the realism thing. For a crazy psychopathic muslce man murderer, it's SCARY, and he's really intimidating, but it feels...I don't know, less dangerous some how? But this dude's got a GUN. Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but a gun just seems far more scary a thing to me then a guy bulging with muscles. Maybe I'm exageratting due to how great the writing is, because like you said this isn't really ground that many series look at. Maybe it just has something to do with how Japan's got really strict gunownership laws so seeing a villain with a gun makes him seem more impressive. I don't know!

Also yeah, if Tokoyami can master and control this power he'd be bloody powerful though.

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I think the gun culture thing influences what's expected from the heroes. In Western Superhero comics/television/cartoons/movies it's common to have guns play a significant role in the action, so many heroes are either immune to them due to some level of innate/artificial invulnerability or otherwise they dodge and disarm with skill/tech of some kind. It's just expected that Green Arrow will knock guns out of hands with his archery, Batman will batarang them from the darkness, Spider-Man will Spider-Sense the danger and reflexively dodge, all the way back to faster-than-a-speeding-bullet Superman - the threat has to be elevated to something more than what the average person could produce because that's the standard for what's impressive in a Western mindset.

Here, this is the first gun we've seen, we haven't even had that scene where All Might stands heroically with his hands on his hips and chest puffed out as he shrugs off gunfire. Most of these kids - and teachers - are not in any way bulletproof. None have any training with regards to armed assailants, they aren't doing drills with simulated gunfire, they likely haven't seen a gun in person in their lives. In short, guns haven't been trivialized as a nuisance wielded by petty thugs, they're still an unknown and dangerous element.