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Another awful take, though this one is far more common.
Denki is not an idiot. Just because he struggles with studying and his grades, that doesn't make him unintelligent. We think that's a pretty insensitive mindset to have.
We feel like people's views on this aren't helped by how this topic is treated canonically. Every single official description or stat listing for him feels the need to point out how "stupid" he is.
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We also dislike how the series consistently makes fun of the drawback of his quirk. It's not the most pleasant experience, and it's both a physically and mentally vulnerable moment for him. It really shouldn't be played up for laughs as often as it is. We will sometimes smile and chuckle when he short-circuits, but there's a difference between finding it endearing and making fun of him.
Recently, Horikoshi confirmed that Denki's intelligence doesn't change when short-circuited, which debunks people's beliefs.
We don't know where the belief that he becomes "dumb" when he short circuits comes from in canon, anyway.
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It was shown all the way back in season one that he still has awareness of what's going on around him. When he was briefly captured by a villain and threatened by his quirk, he looked scared.
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And after the cavalry battle during the sports festival, there was a moment where short-circuited Denki walked up to Iida and Uraraka and started mumbling, trying to communicate. There was text that popped up on the screen to translate it since it was incoherent ("That was fun!")
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All it does is make it harder for him to communicate and fight. It doesn't affect him intellectually.
If Denki was really as unintelligent as people believe, he wouldn't have even gotten into UA to begin with. The school has a 0.2% acceptance rate. They don't let just anyone in; Denki had to work for it.
People also seem to forget that Denki has thought of legitimate strategies:
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In addition, he is very observant. He tends to notice things others may not, which is even stated in the light novels.
And like we said in our miscellaneous information page, Denki is legitimately a nerd, even if it may not be immediately obvious.
He's shown to have an extensive vocabulary, using obscure words that nobody else really uses.
He's also really into trivia:
And he even makes an obscure reference to a novel, implying that he's into literature.
Denki just struggles focusing and has test anxiety. That's all. If the subject he was being taught was something he was actually interested in, he'd excel with flying colors. There are a lot of people like that, and it doesn't make him any less competent than his classmates.
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