My Hero Academia Breaks Down How Aizawa's Quirk Works

My Hero Academia's fourth season has set up all the necessary pieces for the Shie Hassaikai arc to really kick into high gear, and the latest episode of the series saw a new hero alliance come together in order to formulate a plan that could feasibly take down Overhaul and his yakuza organization. During all of this, it's revealed that Overhaul has actually been distributing a terrible set of drugs that not only can boost the power of quirks, but can even outright destroy them. Because his own quirk can do something similar, Shota Aizawa was recruited for this new team.

Although Aizawa's quirk was previously revealed in the past, Episode 69 of the series actually sees Erased Head break down how it has an impact on his foes. Revealing that it's temporary because it doesn't dig as deeply as this new quirk destroying weapon.

As he explains, Aizawa's Erasure quirk does not attack the quirk directly. Because a quirk is an extra part with a special function added on to a human body, and lumped together as "quirk genes," Aizawa's Erasure quirk stops those genes temporarily when he looks at someone. He does not outright destroy them like Overhaul's newly distributed weapon.

Fat Gum reveals that when Tamaki's body was examined after being shot by the weapon, his quirk genes were damaged. They managed to heal, and now he can use his quirk without any problems, but it was clear that the damage was nowhere near the level of Aizawa's quirk. His Erasure quirk is not only temporary, but lasts only as he keeps his eyes on someone, so this explains why the effect doesn't last long.

So while Aizawa seemed to have a game changing quirk, the flaws seen in the quirk before are because it does not dig enough to have a strong and lasting impact. But this also implies that there's someone out there with an even stronger version of Aizawa's quirk that attacks quirk genes directly. And Overhaul's got his hands on it.

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 will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this December.