Kirishima Eijirou

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Character
Name: Eijiro Kirishima
Occupation: U.A. High School
Relationships:
Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia
Other:
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Eijiro Kirishima is a supporting character of the shounen manga and anime series Boku no Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi.

Canon

Quirk

Hardening: Eijiro's Quirk gives him the power to harden and sharpen any part of his body. The ability not only protects him from physical attacks, but also from heat and shock waves. Eijiro also becomes stronger to an extent. The drawback of his Quirk is that there is a limit to how much damage the hardened skin can withstand, which causes the hardening itself to slowly dissipate, and Eijiro to lose stamina. He can maintain a basic hardened state for around 10 minutes. He also has an ultimate move called Red Riot Unbreakable, in which he hardens his entire body to an extreme degree, which lasts 30 to 40 seconds.

Appearance

Kirishima is 170 cm tall, has strong build and startlingly sharp teeth. He dyes his black hair bright red and put them in spikes as cameo to his hero idol Crimson Riot. Kirishima has dark red eyes, small dyed red eyebrows and a small scar on the top of his right eye.

Personality

Kirishima is a generally good guy, being very passionate and friendly, and often seen bringing the class together and even closely befriending Bakugo. He is seemingly obsessed with manliness and being manly, though this is mostly just a term for the strict moral codes he has, inspired by his hero inspiration, Crimson Riot. This results in a surprising gender-neutral code of chivalry. Kirishima is also shown to be rather self-conscious about his Quirk, perceiving it to be simple, boring, and not flashy. This is shown as early as the USJ arc, and carries on through his development.

Backstory and development

In the season 4 episode Red Riot, named after Kirishima's hero alias, we are given a look into Kirishima's past, beginning when his Quirk first manifested at the age of 4. When rubbing his eye, he cut himself with a suddenly hardening hand, giving himself the scar visible throughout the series. This leads to him resenting his Quirk from an early age.

Fandom

Controversies

  • Green haired Kirishima: while fandom was waiting for Kirishima's backstory in anime someone suggested what because his hair are solid black in manga it doesn't necessary mean it will be black in anime because some other characters with solid black hair have them green on colored pages and in anime (example). Twitter went wild with people thinking this theory is funny, scary or absolutely unrealistic. The wave was so big so fans started muting "green haired Kirishima" phrase.
  • Straight Kirishima: twitter was flooded with #StraightKirishima after audio drama with villain forcing guys from MHA hugging each other and trying to make them kiss each other. Kirishima was paired with Midoriya and answered with "I don't do this kind of thing!!!" which turned out to be fan Japanese-English mistranslation with original phrase being close to Kirishima not kissing random guys out of blue all the time and not "not kissing them at all".
  • Crossdresser Kirishima: after Horikoshi posted New Year 2023 art some fans got mad about Kirishima wearing "women clothes" — Miruko hero costume while he already wore Red Riding Hood costume with skit in official Halloween art and MHA Smash!! official parody manga, played evil stepmother in Cinderella play at elementary school wearing dress and had zero problem with being Magic Girl. So together with his idea of manliness being tied to strong spirit/heart and not masculine look it makes perfect sense for him to be comfortable cosplaying female characters.

Tropes & Fanon

  • Dragon Kirishima: common tag on AO3 which has 1,279 works on 2 December of 2022. When images from the BNHA Fantasy AU were first released, fans noticed that Bakugou was riding a spiky red dragon, and quickly theorized that this dragon was Kirishima. This theory was later confirmed by Horikoshi in light novel "U.A. Quest" written by Anri Yoshi. In BNHA Fantasy AU works, Kirishima is often a dragon, half-dragon or a dragon shifter, able to change form between a human and a dragon and something in between.
  • Tall Kirishima: a lot of Kirishima's fans share headcanon about him growing tall from 180cm up to FatGum's height of 250cm and having very strong build but most of them don't tag it. There are also people who headcanon him staying his 170cm forever, for example this tweet.
  • Kirishima Has Two Moms: common tag on AO3, it's a popular headcanon around Kirishima's fans. There are works with trans and cis mothers being Kirishima's biological parents but also with Kirishima being adopted son of two cis women or biological son of only one of them. This headcanon also exists in fantasy and royal AUs. From other hand there are works with Kirishima having mother and father or "two dads" even if we saw his mother in manga and anime (flashback about awakening of his quirk).
  • Kirishima Eijirou is a Ray of Sunshine: another common AO3 tag which has 3,500 works on 2 December of 2022 as he is friendly and easy going person who was made by creator to "glue the class together".
  • Civillian Kirishima or Kirishima never went to UA headcanon: can be combined with Kirishima being older than characters who are his classmates in canon. These kind of works explore themes about applying Kirishima's moral code to the other fields than being pro hero, so they can feature Kirishima saving people by working as firefighter or medic, feeling down if he feels like his work useless if it's for example office work or finding happiness in some regular job like running a flower shop.
  • Actually Firefighter Kirishima has his own tag on AO3. His canon desire to help people and building up muscles as main training to archive this goal together with his need to overcome his own fears and freeze response makes him perfect candidate for taking firefighter as profession. It also has good reason to use his canon muscles show off in burned clothes or erotic charity calendars.
  • Nurse Kirishima is less popular tag but there are also untagged works with physiatrist Kirishima. Again it goes from Kirishima's desire to help people and usefulness of his big muscles in everyday life with him being not good in academics (probably it's the reason why doctor Kirishima is pretty rare in fics). Also Kirishima's ability to handle rudeness by being close friends with Bakugou makes nurse Kirishima very good in handling difficult patients.
  • Villain Kirishima with subtag Blood Riot: very popular idea which branched to a lot of AUs ranging from "Kirishima only beats very bad guys and not that much" up to "Blood Riot is cold-blooded murderer who tortures innocent people for fun". Usually features very tall and muscular Kirishima which can be aged up to 45+ years and has mane of red hair and multiple deep scars on his body. His costume is often modified too to look sexier and more dangerous like cogs in his shoulders having metal spikes. Can have huge yakuza vibes.
  • Vigilante Kirishima: a lot less cruel variation of Kirishima using his quirk without license to help people and not to assert dominance. Usually have different hero costume with mask, can have black hair.
  • Queer Kirishima: there are fics with ALL variations of queer Kirishima. With every single one of them. And even if he looks like stereotypical Japanese gay guy who is interested only in another guys there are fics about him being straight. Kirishima canonically "likes tough guys" (his manga profile) so headcanon about him being gay is very popular but there are works with him having all kind of orientations (probably because he treats girls as equals). His obsession with manliness also be easily viewed as trans man trying to pass or as trans girl trying to convince herself what she is cis. But because being manly actually isn't about being masculine but about having brave heart it doesn't contradict headcanon about non-binary Kirishima.
  • Oni Kirishima: originated from the BNHA SMASH RISING game and inspired a lot of fanart, headcanons and fanfics about Kirishima in universes based of Japanese folklore, which spiraled to him being different type of creatures, for example popular Oni Kirishima X Kitsune Bakugou AUs (example) inspired Kitsune Kirishima fanart.
  • All fandom have takes on merfolk, right? So here is Merman Kirishima. His canon sharp teeth and bright Little Mermaid red hair are good base for merman Kirishima AUs. There are both fantasy and modern scientific ones, stories with the beautiful European mermaid type creatures and ones trying to be more realistic with merfolk's having scales all over their body, sharp claws to catch fish, grills and several fins. Also kraken!Kirishima.

Pairings

Example Fanworks

Cosplay

Fanfiction

Fanart

  • Kirishima Eijirou by Siplick, 2018

  • Kirishima doing Akira Slide by Rainy soul, 2020

  • Pro Hero Kirishima Eijirou by Storm, 2021

  • Villain Kirishima aka Blood Riot fanart by Lio, 2021

  • Fantasy AU Kirishima Eijirou in half-dragon form by Imani, 2020

  • Black haired Kirishima Eijirou fanart by charlie, 2020

Resources

References

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