How My Hero Academia Was Able to Heroically Kill Off Its Biggest Villain

My Hero Academia has reached the final fights against Tomura Shigaraki and All For One, and the manga found a clever way to permanently take out All For One without staining any of the heroes with death! My Hero Academia has been dealing with a key issue in each one of its fights as while the villains can kill off as many heroes as they want, the heroes can’t really do the same. There’s an unspoken rule that the heroes really can’t deliver a final decisive blow despite how threatening some of the villains can really be in the future. 

This was the major issue with the fight against All For One as while the villain clearly represented the biggest threat against the world, there was the question of whether or not a hero could actually wipe out the villain to truly end the fight once and for all. But My Hero Academia found a way around this by having All For One essentially take his own life through the hubris of unleashing a continuous use of his ultimate power. Meaning all the heroes had to do was survive long enough for it to happen. 

How My Hero Academia Kills Off All For One

As seen in My Hero Academia past, a hero killing a villain comes with it some massive drawbacks. When Hawks killed Twice, it not only further sent Toga down a path of darkness where she no longer had any love for the ideals of heroic society, but it was also a very clinical move by series creator Kohei Horikoshi himself. My Hero Academia’s heroes notably never really deal that final killing blow, and that keeps them heroic in terms of its superhero inspirations from Western comics. But Hawks was already tainted by death, a hero allowed to kill. 

That brings us to the final fight with All For One. Bakugo was allowed to have the final victory over the villain in a decisive matter because of all of the heroes that had been dealing damage to him before the final blow. All For One’s body rewinded itself to non-existence, and therefore was able to be a complete death and defeat of the villain without necessarily having Bakugo kill. It’s a heroic victory over the villain, and a way to keep the heroes completely clean. 

But that likely won’t be the same for Tomura Shigaraki himself. What did you think of All For One’s defeat in My Hero Academia? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!