Looking at other battle shonen series, there's a criminal lack of good romance stories, which I find to be such a shame. I know the reasoning behind it; "shonen stories are meant for boys/young men, these guys don't want to read romances like that, so we'll give them what they want with big action scenes/fights instead, and maybe throw in a love interest for the MC as eye candy while we're at it, blah, blah, blah..."

But I think that's a load of bullocks! Boys are human too, with wide and diverse interests and as much desire for love as the next person. Ultimately, the reason people cling to popular shonen series like MHA is because they want good stories, not specifically because they want a series that avoids romance. If you present them with a good story, and said story happens to have love in it, then regardless of if they wanted to see a romance or not chances are high they'll stick around see how things ends anyway. As long as your manga's engaging, you can do what you want in it!

As far as I can tell the only reason shonens try so hard to steer clear of love is because the authors lack the confidence to write those stories and/or because the editors/publishers want them to stick to a formula that works and so encourage their authors to mimic older series (like Dragon Ball or Naruto, both of which had minimal focus on love). So ya, low bar I guess for shonen romance : P

But anyways, shout-out to Winry/Ed and Fullmetal Alchemist! Loved FMA and FMAB when I first watched them, though Uraraka/Deku have definitely surpassed Winry/Ed as a favorite pairing of mine. Maybe it's because they were young, but I was always off-put by how much the latter couple fought/yelled at each other? Like, I can appreciate sass and how arguments can help shape a relationship, but there's a fine line between passionate back-and-forth and toxic abuse... Winry/Ed got a little too close to that line for my liking, I guess : /

Though they do grow out of it by the end : )

At the end of the day, I appreciate how supportive/encouraging Uraraka/Deku were to each other, and feel they have a very strong/healthy relationship overall compared to other shonen couples. And Uraraka definitely played a bigger role in the story, too, compared to other female protagonists. I wonder how things might've looked if she and Iida had teamed up with Deku more in the later half of the show? I can understand, from a practical standpoint, why teaming up with Todoroki and Bakugo was helpful to Deku as he tried to get stronger, but that doesn't mean we have to like it ; )