My Hero Academia Drops Aizawa’s Most Emotional Plea Yet

My Hero Academia is gearing for a huge war between the heroes and villains, and each new chapter has revealed just how far the villains are willing to go in order to defeat the heroes. While the Nomus were already a tragic existence as it was revealed that they are the results of human quirk experimentation from All For One, the latest addition to the Nomu weapons has made things far more tragic. In a recent chapter of the series, it was revealed that Kurogiri is actually a more intelligent Nomu.

But the more harrowing reveal was that Kurogiri’s body has a base that matches Aizawa’s childhood friend Oboro Shirakumo, who fans met in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. In the latest chapter, Aizawa breaks down with an emotional plea in the chance that talking to Kurogiri enough and reminding him of their past together will somehow get through to Shirakumo.

Chapter 254 of the series revealed that Shirakumo’s corpse was used as a base for the Kurogiri Nomu, and Gran Torino and Tsukauchi have called Aizawa and Present Mic to talk to Kurogiri in the hopes that they will spark their memories of their time together at U.A. Academy. It’s a miracle play, but it’s the only chance they have to break through Kurogiri’s intense programming. Now Aizawa is trying everything he can to potentially awaken Kurogiri’s memories of his past life as Shirakumo.

When Kurogiri mentions how he was loyal to Shigaraki, Aizawa mentions the cat they found during their student years. He mentioned that Shirakumo always moved forward without a second thought, and that he was always hesitating. He pulled Aizawa along and motivated him, and mentions how he’s now tough on his students because he wants them all to be a hero like Shirakumo was.

Mentioning how he wants someone to pull others along and inspire them in the same way Shirakumo once did him, Aizawa begins to cry as he mentions how he wants them to lead good and long lives. Finally, as the chapter comes to a close, he goes for one last plead that if Shirakumo is still in there inside of Kurogiri — he wants him to remember so they can all be heroes together like they planned to at U.A.

Shirakumo’s death had a big impact on Aizawa, and this was explored in the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes spin-off. Shirakumo was such a big influence on him heroically, that his death eventually pushed Aizawa down his path of becoming an underground hero. But now that the two series are connected so directly, fans might have to read through that arc to get the full story.

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 will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this month.