How My Hero Academia’s Nomu Echo Fullmetal Alchemist’s Worst Abominations
Excellent villains that stand for everything the heroes do not are a staple of contemporary shonen anime. For instance, the evil Tomura Shigaraki in My Hero Academia wants to destroy hero society and replace it with his own, and for villains like him, exploitation and deception are standard practises. The League of Villains will even use dark technology to produce new life, namely the various Nomu, for evil reasons.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood also features evil anime scientists, with government researchers assembling a homicidal “doll” army of soldiers with one eye to carry out Father’s will and bring about a new world order. The Nomu and these doll soldiers serve as a stark illustration of what happens when bold, risk-taking science is misused to produce a perverted imitation of life, all in an effort to end the lives of others.
How the Nomu & FMA’s Doll Soldiers Represent Science Gone Wrong
The doll soldiers known as Nomu in My Hero Academia and FMA: Brotherhood share a number of symbolic similarities, including a critique of science. Since science is the study and application of facts with experiments to reach conclusions and produce new things in the process, it is ultimately a perfectly impartial and objective item in both fiction and reality. Some magic spells or fictitious skills are obviously good or evil, such as healing spells that are good and necromancy that is almost always bad. However, science is solely concerned with physical reality and the systematic study of it; it is a concrete and entirely impartial way to experience reality and create new possibilities.
MHA’s Nomu and FMA’s doll soldiers reflect the evil side of not science but rather people who utilise it, with some fantastical aspects added in, such countless Quirks and alchemy. Science cannot by itself be good or evil, but its application can, which is what gave rise to the Nomu and toy warriors. As instruments for anyone’s will, chemistry, formulae, lab supplies, and the like may be utilised in any manner; anime villains like Dr. Garaki and Amestris’ state researchers infused evil into the science they used. They could have theoretically grafted Quirks into individuals who need them for self-defense or discovered novel techniques for saving lives via surgery and body transplants.
The fantasy-style science that produced the Nomu and doll soldiers had the potential to save and enhance many lives, but its developers had no such intentions. The Nomu, the League’s semi-disposable Frankenstein-style shock troops, and the Amestrian doll soldiers, which are similar but without Quirks and in larger numbers, were instead the products of researchers who pushed the boundaries of science to create weapons to destroy other lives. Unfortunately for Edward and the professional heroes, that’s what happened when Dr. Garaki and the Amestrian researchers used science to unlock the potential of the human body. Science can create almost anything, including lethal weapons and abominations.
How the Nomu & FMA Doll Soldiers Represent Cheating With Power
The doll soldiers in FMA: Brotherhood and Nomu from MHA are other examples of villains who frequently use dishonest means to quickly rise to power. In addition to how they use their power, heroes and villains differ in how they acquire it. Heroes frequently work diligently and obediently over time to gradually gain strength, as demonstrated by Tanjiro Kamado’s two arduous years of preparation for the demon slayer entrance exam or Izuku Midoriya’s training with One For All. In the meanwhile, villains often take control right away utilising strategies that heroes would never approve of, such exploiting perverted technology or striking deals with stronger, darker forces.
Examples range from people in Demon Slayer being bitten to turn into demons to Dr. Garaki using dark science to conceive of the potent Nomu in a laboratory or even graft new quirks into Tomura Shigaraki without any prior training. FMA: Brotherhood showed the Elric brothers working hard to master alchemy while the state researchers created those doll soldiers, who were prepared for battle when they awakened, using a large science lab and numerous Philosopher’s Stones.
In this way, misapplied science enables anime villains to game the system and amass power with uncharacteristic quickness and accuracy. It wasn’t enough for Father and his favoured few to just train a new battalion of elite troops; they also used Philosopher’s Stones to make those soldiers in a laboratory. The primary League members were reinforced by Dr. Garaki and All For One with monster, lab-created Nomu who were sewn together and each given numerous Quirks to instantly become combat-ready warriors, rather than with new recruits who required training. If the heroes are to defeat these perverted by-products of misapplied technology, they must recall their training and push themselves to go Plus Ultra.
How My Hero Academia’s Nomu Echo Fullmetal Alchemist’s Worst Abominations
- Reference Sites:
- https://animesee.com/
- https://www.crunchyroll.com/
- https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/
- https://www.cbr.com/
