My Hero Academia's Big War Arc Must Have Major, Brutal Deaths

My Hero Academia's manga has spent months building up to a major new story arc, which will see Tomura Shigaraki and the League of Villains using their new Paranormal Liberation Front army to attack all of Japan. The villains' goal is to destablize the current social order and its laws restricing quirk use. Meanwhile, a combined team of Pro Heroes, Cops, and U.A.'s Class 1-A elites have joined forces to mount the counterstrike. The latest chapters of My Hero Academia have quickly ratcheted up the stakes of the impending "Meta Liberation War," to the point that it now is all but certain that My Hero Academia is about to drop some major character deaths on fans.

In fact, we'd go a step further and say that My Hero Academia's upcoming war arc must deliver some major, brutal, character deaths, that will change the course of the series, going forward.

Chapter 257 of the My Hero Academia manga pretty much foreshadowed the fact that All Might could likely die during the events of the Meta Liberation War - specifically because the famed hero just dropped a whole soliloquy about how he finally has entertained the possibility of living a long, full life. All Might's death would definitely be the biggest thing to rock My Hero Academia's fandom thus far, and if ever there was an arc epic enough to warrant it, this would be it.

However, while All Might is the clear candidate for a major death in the War arc, he's not the only person who should fall!

This is a full-fledged war we're getting into with this new arc. In a story that's focused on the next generation heroes trying to find their way, the first real experience of war will be a trauma that redefines them forever. In that sense, to truly make this war arc significant for the kids of Class 1-A, they can't make it out of the war without losing a few of their classmates. There's a wide range of characters that you could sacrifice, from character deaths that would affect the other students more than the fans (Mezo Shoji, Koji Koda, Rikido Sato, Mashirao Ojiro); to characters that would be a moderate loss for both characters and fans (Tokoyami, Mineta, Mina, Lida, Jiro); to characters that would rock both the characters and fans to the core (Bakugo, Shoto, Ochaco, Tsuyu, Kirishima). Whatever the case may be, Class 1-A needs to return from this war with serious mental/emotional scars from losing friends.

The blood can't stopping running there, either. While All Might is the major trophy to knock over, other Pro Heroes like Grand Torino, Eraser Head, Present Mic, or even Endeavor himself are also prime candidates for major hero deaths; not to mention Hawks, who took on the risky double agent mission to infiltrate the Paranormal Liberation Front.

Finally, the heroes are not the only ones who need to experience loss in this war: the villains need to suffer big losses, too. Any of the major members of the Meta Liberation Front (Re-Destro) are easy to kill off - but longtime League of Villains fan-favs like Twice and Himiko Toga should also be possible fodder. Twice seems like a clear possible sacrifice, ever since the villain was revealed to be the PLF's secret weapon, able to spawn an entire army of doubles. With a power overload like that, Twice seems like he could be the ultimate sacrifice for the villains' plan.

In the end, the only two guaranteed survivors should be Deku and Shigaraki, who are truly boosted to that All Might / All For One level of rivalry, after the trauma of war.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 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.