My Hero Academia: Deku’s Final Blow Against All For One Will Go Down in History

My Hero Academia has reached the major climatic moment of the series, as Izuku Midoriya came down to his final attack against archrivals All For One and Tomura Shigaraki. 

(SPOILERS FOLLOW!) 

The entirety of My Hero Academia Chapter 423 is dedicated to the epic thrust of Deku’s blow against All For One and Shigaraki – both literally and figuratively. The Lord of Villains doesn’t go out easily, unleashing his full array of quirks to attack, defend, and hold his failing body together. All For One’s Nomu minion Kurogiri tries to stop Deku, but Izuku has friends like Bakugo watching his back. The final blow is landed, and Izuku unleashes a last bit of One For All containing Yoichi Shigaraki’s (brother of All For One) essence into All For One. Yoichi marshals the essences of the other OFA users inside of All For One, and they annihilate the villain from the inside. Tomura Shigaraki gets a few moments of control over his body again, just as that body is crumbling away. 

MHA: Why Deku’s Final Blow Against All For One Is So ICONIC

Only a few manga series have brought the entirety of their series arcs, character arc, and themes together, as well as Kohei Horikoshi has with My Hero Academia’s climactic moment. It was written into the series from the very beginning that One For All and All For One were destined to collide – just as Yoichi was destined to face his evil brother. Not only to the supposedly “weak” and “powerless” Yoichi rise up to defeat his brother’s “ultimate power,” he did so as the leader of a heroic collective, with his “power” being the collective power of those who stood against evil and hatred. 

Then there’s the line that Izuku delivers to All For One before the final blow lands. Deku calls out the evil overlord for posturing as a “monster beyond all understanding,” when really he’s just a “lonely man” trying to hide a gaping emotional wound. Yoichi proves Deku right: on the spiritual plane, the impending dissipation of OFA’s First User causes All For One to break down, crying over the loss of his brother, the only person he truly loved and needed.

Deku’s physical/spiritual/verbal final blow against All For One is the only epic moment in the finale: There’s the brief epilogue as Shigaraki is also dying off, where we see Izuku make a fist bump with his villain rival, without having to worry about his dreaded disintegration effect any long. 

All in all, Horikoshi should get all the acclaim for this climactic moment of a Shonen hero’s victory. Like the Star Wars content that helped inspire My Hero Academia, the duel was so much deeper than the physical fight, and the iconography of the manga art will be fully on display when the anime series finally gets to this moment. 

My Hero Academia chapters can be read online at Shonen Jump.