You’d be hard pressed to find a more tragic tale than that of Nana Shimura in My Hero Academia. The mentor to All Might and Gran Torino, Shimura was the predecessor to the “Symbol Of Peace” as the wielder of the One For All quirk. During her heroic career, her husband was killed while saving their son, Kotaro, and causing an unfortunate series of events that didn’t just lead to her own son’s death but also the path that led to her grandson, Shigaraki, to joining the League of Villains and reveling in his devastating quirk.
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In the recent chapters of My Hero Academia’s manga series, a new light was shined upon the home life of Shigaraki as a child and the turbulent home life that came directly from Kotaro’s hatred of his mother for giving him up to a foster family. In fear of Kotaro suffering the same fate as her husband, Shimura decided to continue the hero game but leave her son in the care of those who weren’t. Harboring a grudge for heroism since it cost him both his mother and his father, Kotaro forbade his son Shigaraki from dreaming of becoming a hero, sometimes through violent means.
The conflict between father and son boiled over when Shigaraki’s quirk first manifested itself and unleashed a power that quickly and horrifically killed most of his family. Though the first few deaths were accidents, Shigaraki purposefully laid his hands upon his father, cutting him to ribbons with her new found ability. With a glee that we hadn’t witnessed before, the young quirk wielder dove head first into a life of villainy following this point.
While we’ve seen Shimura in bits and pieces throughout the series, it’s clear that there’s a lot more under the hood in terms of what has happened during her life and how her actions, both positive and negative, rippled throughout the MHA universe. At some point, we’re sure that more mysteries will be revealed about the background of the woman who helped to create the “Symbol of Peace”, All Might.
What do you think of the tragic back story of Shimura giving her son up for adoption to attempt to save him from the “hero life”? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime!
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 is gearing up for an even bigger end of 2019 with a new film in theaters later this year too.
