My Hero Academia should still reverse Deku’s biggest change

❘ Published: 2024-05-24T15:33:30

Kohei Horikoshi/Bones

As My Hero Academia is ending soon, it should reverse the biggest change made to Deku before the manga wraps up.

My Hero Academia is one of the best modern shonen has to offer and has been a fan favorite for a decade now. Written and illustrated by Kohei Horikoshi, the manga is among the most-read titles on Manga Plus and has a hugely successful anime adaptation.

The manga debuted in 2014, but all good things must come to an end. With the Final War Arc drawing to a close, all that’s left is to wrap things up before the story finally ends for good.

And what the epilogue needs is to undo the big change made to Deku: making him Quirkless again. After all this ordeal, he deserves to have his One For All back and fulfill his dream of becoming the greatest Pro Hero. Here’s our take on why Deku should get his Quirk back.

Deku lost One For All

There have been plenty of plot twists in My Hero Academia, but the one that came in the final stretch of the Final War was irrefutably the most shocking. After Shigaraki managed to steal the fourth One For All user, Shinomori, and his Quirk Danger Sense from Deku, the entire trajectory of the fight changed in the blink of an eye.

Up until that point, One For All had been kept out of All For One’s reach but Shigaraki managing to steal a vestige meant the danger was too close for comfort. With this in mind, Kudo, the second One For All user, planned to forcibly transfer One For All and the past users’ vestiges onto Shigaraki.

The plan was to destroy Shigaraki from within. Despite this meaning Deku would lose One For All and become Quirkless once again, the aspiring hero selflessly did just that.

Deku losing his Quirk was important for his character arc

While Deku losing his Quirk was heartbreaking, it was also necessary for his character arc. He started his journey as Izuku Midoriya, a Quirkless boy, dreaming of becoming the greatest hero like All Might. Even though he didn’t have a superpower, he had the wish and determination to save people and help society.

Deku receiving One For All from All Might meant that he now had the means to fulfill his dream of becoming a hero. However, there was another aspect of his dream that didn’t require a special ability.

Even without a Quirk, the young man never shied away from giving his all to save someone, as evident when he blindly tried to save Bakugo at the beginning of the story. This is the core of Deku’s character: being determined and selfless enough to jump into danger for others’ sake.

Receiving One For All put him on the path to becoming the No. 1 Hero, but in reality, it was his strength of character that made him the world’s hope. With his Quirk, he was the strongest, but even without it, he had the heart of a hero.

My Hero Academia Chapter 422 has a heartwarming scene where All Might reminisces about his first meeting with Deku and how the young man has been All Might’s greatest hero from the first time they met. The scene wonderfully captures the relationship between the two and the essence of being a hero.

One doesn’t require a special ability to become the greatest hero; one just needs the wish to change the world for the better. This is the message My Hero Academia has been trying to impart all along, with All Might and Deku being the greatest examples, as they both started as Quirkless outcasts only to become the greatest heroes.

So, Deku becoming Quirkless was depressing, but it was also a necessary callback to his origin. Before My Hero Academia ended, his arc needed to have this setback and remind the readers what the story is all about.

The Final War has ended

Deku might’ve given up his Quirk to save Shigaraki, but things didn’t go exactly as planned. When the connection between the two was established through One For All, the hero got to see the tragedy that turned Tenko Shimura into Tomura Shigaraki.

Just as the fated foes came to understand each other, Shigaraki’s body was overtaken by All For One, the final boss of the series, while Deku lost his arms. His friends and allies managed to get him to heal his arms, but he no longer had One For All or any of the past users’ Quirks. All that was left was the embers of One For All within him, similar to All Might in Kamino.

With only that in his arsenal, Deku landed a hit on All For One, awakening the vestiges of the past users and Shigaraki within the villain. And with that, Kudo’s plan was finally successful as the past users and Shigaraki destroyed All For One from within.

Now that All For One was destroyed and Shigaraki was finally saved from his hatred by Deku, the Final War was over. It took My Hero Academia two years to conclude the war and the characters within it generations to finally get rid of All For One.

The past One For All users have fulfilled their purpose

What makes One For All the most special Quirk to ever exist is not only its transferable nature but also its ability to hold onto the past users’ will. Seven generations of users remained inside the Quirk for years with the sole purpose of defeating All For One.

It all started with Yoichi’s regret of not being able to stop his brother’s evil tyranny. He died with that regret, having passed One For All to Kudo. From then on, every One For All user vowed to defeat the villain and sacrificed everything for it.

The eighth user, All Might, almost completed this purpose, but even he couldn’t completely destroy All For One, leaving the task for the ninth user, Deku. But now that they have defeated All For One, they no longer have a purpose.

In My Hero Academia Chapter 423, Yoichi hinted that after they destroyed All For One, the past users’ vestiges would all cease to exist, as stopping the villain was their salvation.

Now, does that mean One For All would also cease to exist? That’s unclear, at least as of now. There could also be another possibility where the transferable Quirk remains, but the other Quirks belonging to the past users would vanish alongside their vestiges.

In one of those scenarios, Deku gets his Quirk back but with a catch, while the other scenario brings him back to the starting point as a Quirkless individual once again.

Deku should get One For All back

The core of My Hero Academia is not a superhero with special abilities but an ordinary individual with extraordinary determination to change the world for the better. And Deku represents it perfectly.

However, when everything’s said and done, the aspiring hero should still get One For All back by the My Hero Academia ending. There are plenty of reasons behind that. After all his selfless acts to defeat All For One and save society from collapsing, he should not end his journey without a fair chance of fulfilling his dream.

At his heart, Deku is a hero and always has been. But in a superhuman society, one needs to have a superpower to be able to fight villains with horrifying powers. And no matter how strong his determination is, he cannot fight villains without a Quirk.

All For One might’ve been the big bad villain of My Hero Academia, but his end doesn’t mean that evil will stop spreading. There will be more bad guys with more destructive ideas, and one cannot win every fight with morals and determination alone.

So, Deku should get his Quirk back to be able to become the greatest hero not only in the eyes of All Might and his friends but the whole world. This will be the most satisfying legacy for both him and All Might.

Another reason why the green-haired protagonist should get his Quirk back is because it was given to him by All Might. One For All was given to him as a token of the former Symbol of Peace’s belief in Deku and his dream. And there is nothing Deku loves and respects more than All Might.

The Quirk was the first thread to connect them and strengthen their bond. To Deku, One For All is not just a Quirk or his means to achieve his dream. But to him, it’s a precious gift from All Might that he cherishes above all.

Even when he had to give up One For All to Shigaraki for their plan, what made him hesitate wasn’t becoming Quirkless but giving away the priceless gift he received from his idol. His feelings make it absolutely necessary for him to get his beloved Quirk back.

Last but not least, My Hero Academia is a shonen manga, and like every other manga from its genre, it’s expected to end on a positive note. Nobody wants to invest 10 years of their lives to follow a character’s journey, only for them to end up with nothing by the end.

We have been going on this journey with Izuku Midoriya for a long time and want the best ending for him. Him losing One For All and ending up as a Quirkless person living a normal life while his friends all become Pro Heroes is the absolute worst ending we can imagine.

My Hero Academia is a story of hope, and it should stay so until the very end. Deku getting One For All back and becoming the greatest hero in the epilogue is the best ending we can think of for My Hero Academia.

Though this is what we want, what Kohei Horikoshi actually has in mind for Deku is still unknown. We’ll only get to know that when My Hero Academia Chapter 424 is released on June 2, 2024.

Until the next chapter is released, check out My Hero Academia Season 7 as it’s streaming on Crunchyroll with three episodes released so far. Our My Hero Academia Season 7 episode schedule will help you with that, and we have a guide on My Hero Academia: You’re Next, the upcoming anime movie.