My Hero Academia Reveals Kurogiri's Tragic Origin

The League of Villains is set to take the center stage beginning next week with the arrival of the Meta Liberation Army Arc, aka My Villain Academia, but before this dark new tale begins, My Hero Academia gave Eraserhead, Present Mic, and viewers quite the gut punch. With the teachers of UA Academy being brought to the supervillain prison known as Tartarus, Aizawa and Present Mic learn the origins of the villain Kurogiri, which ties into their past and reveals a disturbing secret regarding the creation of the Nomu and their ties to the world of Quirks.

Kurogiri has long been one of the most useful members of the League of Villains, using his ability to create warp gates that offered some quick escape routes for Shigaraki and his crew. With the smoky villain being captured by the heroes in a previous arc, Present Mic and Eraserhead are informed that not only is Kurogiri a Nomu, but he was created using the dead body of one of their dearest friends, Oboro Shirakumo. Having learned at UA Academy with the pair of current superhero teachers, Oboro had the ability to create a cloud front that could be used for a number of different purposes in battle.

Originally during their time as students, Aizawa and Present Mic talked about opening up an agency of their own with Shirakumo, but their dream was cut short when Oboro was killed during a rescue mission, crushed by a building. Unfortunately for hero society, Oboro's body was recovered by the villains and transformed into a bodyguard for Shigaraki in Kurogiri, unable to remember the life before he joined the League. With the two teachers being brought to Tartarus, they attempt to break through to the cloud-wielding hero and learn more about the current plans of the antagonist.

While we see glimpses of the three heroes growing up, their story is actually told in full within the spin-off manga of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, which took the opportunity to take readers into a flashback that showed how different Aizawa was in his earlier years before he became a vigilante. It was in this story that we learned more about Oboro Shirakumo, but unfortunately, there are currently no plans that we know of for this spin-off story to receive an anime adaptation of its own.

What do you think of Kurogiri's tragic origin story? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of UA Academy.