My Hero Academia Reveals Shigaraki’s First Tragic Kill

My Hero Academia chapter 235 opened up the dark backstory of Tomura Shigaraki (aka Tenko Shimura), with a look at the home and family life that first shaped the League of Villains leader into the psycho that he is. However, the newly-released chapter 236 manages to take My Hero Academia to an even darker and more horrific place.

In this new chapter, we learn how Tenko Shimura went from unstable and troubled boy to ruthless killer – starting with his first, and most tragic, killing experience. Needless to say, some MAJOR SPOILERS follow!

My Hero Academia chapter 236 picks up right where 235 left off: a very young Tenko Shimura is sitting on the front stoop of his house with his family dog, crying his eyes out. His father, Kotaro, has just smacked Tenko around, mistakenly blaming the boy for stealing a picture of his grandmother, Nana Shimura (All Might’s predecessor) from Kotaro’s study.

Well, chapter 236 wastes no time scarring fans for life. Sitting on the stoop, petting his dog Mon, Tenko’s long-awaited quirk finally kicks in. Unfortunately, his “decay” effect completely destroys poor Mon, leaving the dog as a gruesome soup of blood and doggy parts.

The way this scene is presented (it’s the very first panel of the issue) is extremely jarring, and really sets the tone for a story that’s more like a horror film than a chapter of My Hero Academia. Without SPOILERS, the rest of Tenko Shimura’s introduction into killing makes the dog killing look like a fond memory. At the same time, the moment with Mon isn’t so much horrifying as it is tragic. Whereas Tenko’s murders as Shigaraki, or other killings from the boy’s past, were motivated by a frightening psychosis, the destruction of Mon was an accident – a horrible first manifestation of Tenko’s tragic quirk.

The moment the dog dies is clearly a deeply pivotal one for Tenko. It’s simultaneously a moment where the boy realizes that he indeed has a quirk, and realizes how powerful his quirk is. However, Tenko’s joy and elation at finding out he’s not a quirkless freak is quickly replaced by a horrible new realization: his joy of killing. All in all, it’s a horrific and heartbreaking origin story, which at the same time makes Tomura Shigaraki an even more intriguing villain than he has been.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he’s eventually scouted by the world’s best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia is gearing up for an even bigger end of 2019 with a new film in theaters later this year too.