Boku no Hero Academia

[Buffalobiian]

This is exactly what happened. He damaged his arms too much and making them do any more risks permanent disability, so he is now going to use his legs (with more care to avoid damaging them like his arms). As for him being a crippled version of All Might, I tend to disagree. He can still use his arms, but he wants to avoid doing so because of how damaged they already are.

Deku's issue is that he's damaged himself from using One for All, because his body can't handle it.

To discuss this a little more, I'm going to outline how I understand his damage model works:

We've seen 2 damage models for Deku / One for All so far:

1) Safe zone (currently 10% for Deku), and ?100% for All Might.
-within the safe zone, you can punch and do whatever you want without accumulated damage.
-All Might hasn't shown any evidence of accumulated damage being true
-Neither has Deku whenever he operates in his safe zone.
-the "ligamentous damage" explanation is kinda vague and doesn't make sense but I'll leave it.
-they haven't equated this to "osteoarthritis" or other such overuse diseases.

2) Break zone (whenever Deku goes 100%)
-so far, Deku has either been 0%, 10% or 100%
-when he goes 100%, shit breaks and never heals right again.
-That's why his arms are fucked now.
-That's what he's got to stop doing.
-I think that braces reducing damage from further Break Zone attacks wound be unrealistic.
-I think Deku needs to stop doing this shit, and focus on building his body's tolerance.

-----------------------
I'm going to throw a hypothetical one in now:

3) "Yellow Zone"
-This hasn't been shown yet, but I'm adding it here for illustrative purposes.
-Let's say there isn't a single fatigue point, and that past Safe Zone, there is an area where damage slowly accumulates with repeated use.
-This is the Yellow Zone that Deku hasn't been shown to use.
-It is in such a zone where his braces and kicks are useful from a damage-mitigation perspective, if
-----a) damage accumulated here can heal 100%, thus making load-sharing a good idea, or
-----b) impact to limbs in the Yellow Zone is small enough that braces can actually absorb them - effective extending Deku's safe output level when he wears his suit.

Now let's talk about how Deku is addressing his issue:

In the latest episode, he's told us that he'll use his legs to position better, use cleats to increase attack effectiveness etc,
He's maximising his damage for a given output, which is just smart fighting. Good on him, but that doesn't solve his core problem unless he intends to keep using the "Yellow Zone", has never been proven to exist.

Deku's injuries stem from one core issue: He keeps using 100% All for One and hurts himself.
His being different by kicking and modifying his suit doesn't address this at all.
-If he sticks to his 10%, he won't need braces at all.
-If he intends to go into Yellow Zones with this without hitting the Break point, they did a poor job of explaining it. (By poor, I mean they didn't explain this at all).
-In the end, Deku needs to work on
1) Not using 100%, and
2) Increasing his limit.

Now, why do I feel badly about kicking being introduced as a solution?

Fighting with his legs neither addresses 1) nor 2), which has been my biggest beef. We're not getting any answers on how Deku will actually get better.

What he's done is given himself some armour, some claws, and learned how to kick on point. It'll make him a bit stronger and help him pass this provisional exam, but that's not how he'll be the next All Might.