History Recap / MyHeroAcademiaMetaLiberationArmyArc

** Shigaraki's Quirk requires him to touch someone or something with all five fingers of either hand. Following his training while fighting Gigantomachia, he is seemingly able to decay groups of people during the battle against the MLA, with just a wave of his hand. By the end of his end against Re-Destro, after remembering his past in full, he is able to unleash his power across the city taking place.

* QuantityVsQuality: The trope itself is namedropped by Re-Destro, pointing out that Twice's ZergRush tactics are useless against someone like Geten having a massive AreaOfEffect quirk.

* ShoutOut: "All It Takes is one Bad Day" is the title of a chapter and of volume 24 as whole. The phrase is heavily associated with ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', in which ComicBook/TheJoker makes a rant about how "one bad day" is all it takes to turn anyone into someone as deranged as him.

* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: [[DefiedTrope Actively defied]]. The whole arc is meant to showcase that, just like the students, The League of Villains is getting stronger and more dangerous with each trial they face, with individual members gaining better control of their quirks, unlocking new abilities, and overcoming mental barriers that stand in the way of their potential. The Arc even ends with the League multiplying many times in size and resources by absorbing the Army.

** Shigaraki's Quirk requires him to touch someone or something with all five fingers of either hand. Following his training while fighting Gigantomachia, he is seemingly able to decay groups of people during the battle against the MLA. By the end of his end against Re-Destro, after remembering his past in full, he is able to unleash his power across the city taking place.

* WhenYouSnatchThePebble: Gigamachia is the "pebble" for Shigaraki's gang to snatch. If they managed to successfully tame him, then the Doctor is willing to provide his aid to Shigaraki, seeing him as a worthy successor of All For One and lead the League of Villains. Until the end of the arc, however, Gigamachia sees Shigaraki as just a bug to step on and not worthy of his master All For One's time.

* NextTierPowerUp: Previously, Toga's Quirk only allows her to change her appearance based on whose blood she drinks. During her fight with Curious, she discovers that she can now use the Quirk of that same person (in that case, Uraraka's Zero Gravity Quirk).

[[caption-width-right:350:''All It Takes is One Bad Day'']]

* NextTirePowerUp: Previously, Toga's Quirk allows her to change her only her appearance based on whose blood she drinks. During her fight with Curious, she discovers that she can now use the Quirk of that person (in that case, Uraraka's Zero Gravity Quirk).

* SmashTheSymbol: Shigaraki destroys his father's hand as a gesture that he no longer needs that support.

Before Shigaraki can respond the League is found by Gigantomachia who challenges them to a fight to determine Shigaraki's worth as All For Ones successor. After being defeated by the brute Gigantomachia wallows in despair over the League's weakness. They are them transported to meet the Doctor, who presents himself as "Daruma Ujiko" and shows them the High-End Nomu he's been working with and says he'll give Shigaraki all the support he wants if he manages to tame Gigantomachia. This leads to the next month and a half in the life of the League; with them looking for a missing Giran, Dabi serving as the Doctor's support which eventually leads him to releasing the first High-End/Hood in Fukuoka, and Shigaraki in a constant battle with Gigantomachia for dominance. During this time the League receives monetary support from the Doctor and individual members take turns helping Shigaraki subdue Gigantomachia.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Perhaps not too surprising since its an arc focused entirely on the villains but this is easily one of My Hero's darkest arcs to date rivalling that of the Internship Arc. There is a lot more graphic onscreen murders, maiming and mutilations handed out between both groups and the arc focuses a lot on the {{Dark And Troubled Past}}s of the Leagues members showing how they reached a point where joining a group of anarchist villains seemed like their best option.

** Gigantomachia can single-handedly match the entire army, due to sheer massive strength.

** Losing the support of All For One and Kurogiri hit the League hard. They all are living in a run-down cabin in the middle of the woods, having to steal from other villains to survive.
** After the arcs main action is resolved its shown that, despite letting go of his fear about not being the original, Twice's condition has regressed and in fact may have gotten ''worse.'' While Twice may have overcome his major emotional block the fact is that one major epiphany does not "cure" such a serious mental condition especially if [[ThereAreNoTherapists the person in question isn't undergoing any mental health therapy.]]

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Yotsubashi runs a company dedicated to support people with Quirks that makes their personal life otherwise difficult. Behind the scenes, he is known as Re-Destro who, along with the Meta Liberation Army, wants to dissolve laws that restrict Quirk usage. The group follows in the footsteps of Destro, Yotsubashi's descendant.

* RealityEnsues:
** The arc showcases that there exists FantasticRacism against mutant-type quirks, with a KKK-like society against them. Spinner's entire reason to join the League is to try to change that after suffering a lot of it growing up.
** Losing the support of All For One and Kurogiri hit the League hard. They all are living in a run-down cabin in the middle of the woods, having to steal from other villains to survive.
** After the arcs main action is resolved its shown that, despite letting go of his fear about not being the original, Twice's condition has regressed and in fact may have gotten ''worse.'' While Twice may have overcome his major emotional block the fact is that one major epiphany does not "cure" such a serious mental condition especially if [[ThereAreNoTherapists the person in question isn't undergoing any mental health therapy.]]

* ArcVillain: While both groups are villains, the antagonist of the arc is The Meta Liberation Army, led by Rikiya Yotsubashi/Re-Destro.

* VillainEpisode: The main focus of the arc is the League of Villains and their newfound conflict against the Meta Liberation Army. To emphasize it, one of its first chapters is called ''My Villain Academia'' and shows Shigaraki breaking the series' logo to pieces.

* ArcVillain: The Meta Liberation Army, led by Rikiya Yotsubashi/Re-Destro.

* DesignatedGirlFight: Toga and Curious, [[SmurfettePrinciple the League and the MLA's only notable female members]], face off against each other. [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed somewhat]] by the fact that the MLA still has female {{Mooks}}, and Geten's AmbiguousGender.

* ShoutOut: "All It Takes is one Bad Day" is the title of a chapter and of volume 24 as whole. The phrase is heavily associated with ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', in which The Joker makes a rant about how "one bad day" is all it takes to turn anyone into someone as deranged as him.

The Meta Liberation Army, a terrorist group once dormant against the regularization of quirks, starts to rise again, under the leadership of their new leader, the bastard son of their old leader Destro and the leader of the Detnerat company. Their very first target is to eliminate the League of Villains.

Todoroki and Bakugo are taken by All Might to take their provisional license Exam. On the way back and with their licenses now, the two fight against a group of villains led by an a man using a strange equipment that is broken when he is defeated.

Meanwhile, we're shown that Gigantomachia has destroyed the League of Villains a month and a half before. The team turns out to had fallen on hard times without All For One's support and has been stealing from other villains to survive, while looking for The Doctor with no clues and had been attacked by Gigantomachia. They are them transported to meet the Doctor, who presents himself as "Daruma Ujiko" and shows them the High-End Nomu he's been working with and says he'll give Shigaraki all the support he wants if he manages to tame Gigantomachia. This leads to the next month and a half in the life of the League, with them looking for a missing Giran while Dabi serves as the Doctor's support and releases the first High-End/Hood in Fukuoka, Shigaraki has been fighting with Gigantomachia for a month and a half while the League receives monetary support from the Doctor and take turns helping Shigaraki.

The Meta Liberation Army's new leadership turns out to have kidnapped and tortured Giran over the course of a month in order to extract the location of the League from him. They eventually manage the information in spite of Giran's refusal to reveal it. Rikiya Yotsubashi/Re-Destro, the new leader of the Army, warns Shigaraki that he can choose on whether he wants to be arrested by heroes when he reveals their location to them, or he and the League can come to meet him and deal with each other face to face.

Shigaraki formulates a plan to deal with all his problems: they'll attack Deika City, the base of the MLA, to rescue Giran, and attract Gigantomachia to Shigaraki after he wakes up, in this way setting their two opponents against each other and let the Army weaken Gigantomachia while the latter destroys the former, rescuing Giran in the process.

The members of the League go to Deika City, being greeted by the hero Slidin' Go, who reveals that 90% of the city population are members of the army, including the heroes and even himself. They are greeted by lead members of the Army Chitose Kizuki aka. Curious and Koku Hanabata aka. Trumpet. Kizuki isolates Toga to fight her, while Hanabata announces that they will hold the Meta Liberation Army's Revival Celebration.

To the surprise of the enemy, the League turns out to be a powerful enemy as Toga's powers evolve and she is able to kill Curious together with a group, though far from unscratched, and Shigaraki's sleep deprived and sickened state works to give him flashbacks and makes his quirk evolve into an infectious form.

Skeptic, the MissionControl of the Army takes center stage as he attempts to send his puppets to avenge Curious by killing Toga while trying to harm and capture Twice in order to fabricate more of their leader. His attack on Twice backfires when, by breaking his arm, he confirms that Twice is the real one, and inadvertently helping him overcome his own self-doubt and allowing him to duplicate himself into a large army which proceeds to save Toga and be a large helping hand to the League, but Geten, a strange member of the League with a powerful Ice quirk is able to destroy a large part of that army while fighting Dabi, who is becoming overwhelmed.

The Doctor, watching this, wakes Gigantomachia and leads him to the city.

Shigaraki is able to remember his past, how his family died, and how he came to be under All For One. With a new found strength after this memory and Gigantomachia rampaging through enemy ranks, he destroys his father's hand as a symbol of moving on.

* ZergRush: The Meta Liberation Army's initial plan, until the League counters by doing their own ZergRush.

[[caption-width-right:350:My Villain Academia]]

** When the League is squatting in their run-down hideout Mr. Compress complains that, if they had stuck with the Hassaikai, they'd be gorging themselves on sushi. After defeating Re-Destro and gaining control of his army and resources at the end of chapter 239 Shigaraki remembers Compress' complaint and comments that Re-Destro must have a lot of money clearly intending him to pay for lunch.

* OutOfFocus: Poor Mr. Compress seems like the odd man out in this arc since, in comparison to everyone else in the League who get several ADayInTheLimelight chapters as well as one-on-one fights against one of the top members of the MLA, Compress seems to fall on the wayside killing mooks. Even Dabi, who hasn't had a ton of focus, is at the very least going up against Geten who is definitely one of the strongest members of the MLA.

* TimeSkip: A short but significant one happens in chapter 240 which takes place a week after the battle at Deika City and showcases the aftermath of the MLA's fight with the League. Specifically we see how the MLA covered up their battle with the League, many of the new [[CostumeEvolution design changes]] and most significantly the formation of the Paranormal Liberation Front from the remainder of both villain groups.

* VillainTeamUp: Of a sort. After Re-Destro surrenders to Shigaraki the members of the League and the MLA are absorbed into on group and rebranded as the Paranormal Liberation Front with Shigaraki as the Grand Commander and the former members of the Vanguard Action Squad and the MLA's top brass being turned into the organizations commanding officers.

With new power, Shigaraki is able to destroy a huge city block in order to defeat Re-Destro. Upon seeing thi, Gigantomachia stops and is amazed by Shigaraki's power, while Re-Destro s force to chop off his own feet in order to avoid the effects of decay's infectious form. Defeated and with his army diminished, Re-Destro surrenders himself and what is left of the Army to Shigaraki as Gigantomachia quietly seems to acknowledge Shigaraki as the successor to his master.

* BrickJoke: When the League of Villains is raiding the CRC's mansion in chapter 220, Twice questions aloud whether religions are profitable (since the CRC seem to be low on valuable goods). In chapter 227 (about a month and a half later in-story), while fighting the MLA, Mr. Compress remarks the Meta Liberation "Army" is more like a cult, causing Twice to come to the conclusion that "religions do make bank!".

** Shigaraki, by the end of the Arc, has amassed enough power with his quirk that he can destroy an entire city block, and everything within it with his quirk.

* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: [[DefiedTrope Actively defied]]. The whole arc is meant to showcase that, just like the students, The League of Villains is getting stronger and more dangerous with each trial they face, with individual members gaining better control of their quirks, unlocking new abilities, and overcoming mental barriers that stand in the way of their potential.