A vibrant underground venue, black cinderblock walls, dripping with sweat; a chaotic fusion of streetwear styles. Deku in an oversized oxidized copper jacket, sleeves hiding his hands, embodying youthful ambition. Soft green hues illuminated by neon lights, highlighting his determined expression. Bakugo and Todoroki in avant-garde outfits, exuding confidence and intensity. The atmosphere is electric, filled with hairspray and PVC scents. Dynamic poses, shadows dancing, capturing the essence of identity in a chaotic night. Digital camera in hand, the photographer feels the tension and thrill, blending anime aesthetics with gritty realism

The First Night I Shot Deku on a Sensor, Not a Negative

I can still feel the little metallic click of a rewind knob in my thumb—like popping the lid off a tin of mints. That’s what twenty years of film does: it gives your hands a memory that your head can’t argue with. Then last month my lab shut down “temporarily,” which is adult code for never coming back, and I found myself holding a digital body that smelled like fresh rubber and factory foam instead of fixer and damp cardboard. I hated how light it felt. I hated how fast it woke up.

The first time I powered it on, the screen asked me to confirm the date and time. Like the camera wanted my permission to remember. That was… weirdly intimate. Also: typing the year with a little joystick made my wrist cramp, which feels like a petty complaint until you realize how many petty things add up to grief.

And of course the first thing I shot on it—because the universe enjoys irony—was a night called “My Hero Academia Streetwear Remix: Deku Bakugo Todoroki in Avant Garde Chaos Nights.” Even the name feels like a poster stapled to a wet wall: too many layers, too much glue, still impossible to ignore.

I went anyway. Not because I’m a superfan. I’m not. I know the characters the way you know neighbors you’ve never spoken to: by silhouettes, by rumors, by the color of their noise. I went because the streetwear scene has become the last honest place to watch people perform identity without pretending they’re not performing. Film used to be my lie detector. Now I have a sensor and a menu system that asks me what kind of person I want to be.

The Venue Smelled Like Hairspray and Hot PVC

The place was a converted loading dock with black-painted cinderblock walls sweating in the corners. The air had that cocktail of synthetic leather, energy drink spill, and aerosol—like a backstage hallway where nobody admits they’re nervous. Bass crawled along the floor and up my shins. My old Nikon would’ve been an anchor here, a dense brick of intent. The digital body felt like a plastic apology.

I kept reaching for film habits: checking a phantom ISO dial, listening for the shutter as if it could tell me the truth. Digital shutters don’t confess; they just comply.

And—wait. This is where I should probably admit something: I almost turned around at the door. Not dramatically. Just that tiny half-step back you do when you realize you don’t have your “real” camera with you, so maybe you don’t have your “real” self with you either…

Deku walked in first—or rather, the Deku remix did. Green palette, yes, but not cosplay green. More like oxidized copper and moss after rain. Oversized jacket with a structure that looked almost architectural, sleeves long enough to hide the hands the way shy people hide smiles. The outfit wasn’t trying to reproduce an anime panel. It was trying to translate the feeling of being the kid who wants to be good so badly it hurts.

I raised the camera, took a frame, and immediately saw it on the rear screen. That instant feedback felt obscene, like reading someone’s diary over their shoulder while they’re still writing it.

A Small, Uncomfortable Detail (That People Outside the Scene Miss)

Back when I was still shooting film for streetwear pop-ups, there was a short-lived attempt—almost a joke, almost a scandal—to sew reflective piping into jackets that would intentionally trigger autofocus hunting and ruin photos. I saw one prototype up close: it had these thin, prismatic strips near the collarbone, and under certain LEDs it would make cameras “breathe,” pulsing in and out of focus. It wasn’t about privacy; it was about control. A middle finger to photographers who think they own the night.

I can’t prove this was ever widespread (and I’m not going to pretend I have a peer-reviewed citation for a piece of nightlife mischief), but I did see it, and I still remember how annoyed I felt—then, embarrassingly, how impressed.

Tonight I noticed echoes of that idea—nothing so blunt, but little patches and beads placed exactly where a focus point would want to lock. And I thought: Okay, you’re not just wearing clothes. You’re negotiating with the lens. And that thought just sat there, heavy, refusing to turn into a neat conclusion.

Bakugo Was Not a Character, He Was a Flash Grenade

Bakugo remix arrived like a door kicked open. Orange and black, yes, but in a way that looked burned rather than bright—charcoal edges, molten highlights. The fit was sharper, meaner. Not “avant-garde” in the runway sense; avant-garde in the sense of making you feel slightly unsafe.

My film instinct would’ve been to underexpose and let the shadows swallow the arrogance. Digital, though, has this cruel habit: it shows you everything you didn’t mean to show. Skin texture, sweat, the seam where confidence is stitched to insecurity.

I took a few frames anyway. I hate to admit this, but the digital sensor handled the chaos better than my beloved Tri‑X ever would. The highlights didn’t collapse into blank white the way they might’ve on a pushed roll. The blacks held detail like a secret kept just slightly too long.

I’m not saying digital is “better.” I’m saying it’s less forgiving in a way that sometimes looks like talent.

And then—this is so stupid—I caught myself looking for the “mistake” the way I used to. Like I needed one ugly frame to prove I was still me. There wasn’t one. Not immediately. That made me uneasy.

Side Note, Since I’m Already Confessing

I used to bribe myself to shoot film by carrying only 24-exposure rolls. It made me slow, made me stingy. It made every frame feel like it cost a sip of blood. With digital, my thumb gets reckless. Burst mode is a drug, and the dealer lives under my index finger. I caught myself firing three frames where I would’ve taken one, and I felt embarrassed—as if my camera could see my lack of faith.

Also: my shoulder started to ache about an hour in. My old setup was heavier, yes, but it balanced differently. This lighter camera made me tense up, like I didn’t trust it to stay in my hands unless I clamped down. Not a poetic metaphor. Just… muscle memory throwing a tantrum.

Todoroki Was the Only One Who Looked Cold Under Hot Lights

Todoroki remix hit differently. Everyone else was movement and noise; Todoroki was temperature. Half-tone color blocking, sure, but done with fabric choices that actually changed the air around him: matte on one side, slick sheen on the other, like one shoulder drank the light while the other threw it back. The styling was quieter, almost clinical, the kind of outfit that makes you stand straighter because it’s judging your posture.

I stood close enough to hear the clothing when it moved: that soft rasp of layered textiles, the whisper of nylon against cotton. Film would’ve loved that—film loves texture like it loves skin. Digital records texture, but it doesn’t romanticize it unless you beg it to.

So I did. I dialed down clarity. I nudged the white balance warmer than reality. I tried to give the file a little of the lie I used to get for free from silver halide.

There’s a moment here where I want to claim some principled stance—“I refuse to over-edit,” “I keep it truthful”—but honestly? I was chasing a feeling. And when you chase feelings, you end up making compromises you can’t fully defend.

Another Odd Detail You Don’t Hear Outside Back Rooms

There’s a tiny argument that keeps resurfacing among stylists who do anime-remix streetwear: whether “faithful color” is a trap. One designer I know refuses to use the canonical hues at all—claims it turns the wearer into a walking screenshot. Their failed prototype for a Todoroki piece was all in bruised purples and dirty cream, meant to suggest internal conflict instead of literal duality. It bombed. People wanted the recognizable split. The market demanded clarity, not nuance.

Is that “the market” or just… people wanting to feel seen fast, in a crowded room? I don’t know. I’m not even sure it matters. But I keep thinking about it anyway, like a pebble in a shoe.

Tonight’s Todoroki walked that line: faithful enough to read instantly, weird enough to feel alive. That’s the whole game, really—be legible, but not cheap.

The Avant Garde Chaos Wasn’t Random; It Was Curated Violence

“Chaos Nights” sounds like an excuse to be sloppy. It wasn’t. The lighting cues hit like choreography: strobing at the exact moments a jacket flared, red wash when Bakugo’s crowd surged, a cold blue pulse when Todoroki shifted through the room. Even the smoke smelled planned—sweet, almost vanilla, not the harsh chemical fog from budget machines.

That vanilla note—this is going to sound unrelated, but it slammed me straight into a memory of my grandmother’s closet. Not the clothes. The air. Warm fabric, old wood, a sweet-sour hint of sachets. I know, I know: why am I thinking about a closet at a dock-rave streetwear event? But bodies store associations like that. You don’t get to vote.

I kept thinking about film grain. Grain is honest mess. Digital noise is embarrassed mess. Grain looks like weather; noise looks like failure. And the whole night was about making mess look intentional.

That’s my biased thesis, I guess: anime streetwear remixes work best when they treat “character” as weather, not costume. Deku as humid summer air that sticks to your shirt. Bakugo as dry heat that makes you irritable. Todoroki as the draft that raises hairs on your forearm. If you only chase accuracy, you get Halloween. If you chase atmosphere, you get style.

And if you chase atmosphere, you also accept that you can’t fully explain it. Not cleanly. Not without killing it a little…

I Miss the Waiting, and I Hate That I Don’t

With film, I used to leave the venue and carry the night inside a canister. It would sit in my bag like a warm stone. The waiting mattered. The uncertainty mattered. I’d drink cheap coffee the next day, fingers stained with whatever the city left on me, and I’d wonder: Did I catch it? Did I miss it?

Now I chimp. I check the screen. I zoom in on eyelashes. I delete in the moment. I curate my own memory before it can ferment.

And yet—here’s the part I don’t say out loud to my film friends—I got some shots tonight that would’ve been almost impossible for me on film without a lot of luck. A split-second gesture, a glance reflected in a glossy sleeve, the exact moment the strobe hit and the crowd opened like a mouth. Digital gave me certainty. It also stole my suspense.

This is the part where I’m supposed to pick a side. Film romantic, digital realist. But it doesn’t split that neatly. It never did. It’s just that film made my indecision look like “aesthetic.”

One More Digression, Because This Is How I Cope

There’s a particular sound film cameras make when they’re about to run out—this subtle change in resistance, a tightening. I used to love that panic. It made me honest. Tonight, my memory card could hold thousands of frames. No tightening. No edge. So I created my own: I set a self-imposed limit and forced myself to stop at 72 shots. Arbitrary, theatrical, but it helped. It felt like putting my hands back on something real.

Also, for the record: 72 isn’t sacred. I picked it because it felt like three rolls in my head. That’s not a fact, it’s a superstition. But photographers run on superstition more than we admit.

Leaving the Dock, My Eyes Still Full of Neon and Fabric

Outside, the street was wet and the city lights smeared across the asphalt like spilled ink. My camera strap bit into my shoulder. My fingers smelled faintly like metal and someone else’s cologne. I scrolled through the images again, against my better judgment.

Deku looked softer than I expected, like the outfit had absorbed the room’s aggression and turned it into resolve. Bakugo looked like motion captured as threat. Todoroki looked almost still, but not calm—more like a storm holding itself together.

I should be angry about being forced into digital. Some days I am. But tonight taught me something I didn’t want to learn: this scene doesn’t care what I miss. It cares what I can translate. Film was my native language. Digital is my second language, and I have an accent I can’t hide. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe that’s the point.

Because “Avant Garde Chaos Nights” wasn’t asking for purity. It was asking for nerve.

And when I finally stopped scrolling—when I let the screen go dark and just listened to my own footsteps—there was this stupid little fear: that I’d wake up tomorrow and none of it would feel real unless I’d posted it.

I didn’t post. Not yet.

The city kept shining on the wet asphalt anyway, like it had its own archive. And I walked home with my camera warm from my hands, still trying to decide what I actually believe… and whether belief is even the job.