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 CEO of the Detnerat company. Their very first target to eliminate is the League of Villains.
Todoroki and Bakugo are taken by All Might to complete their Provisional License Exam. On the way back, and with their licenses, the two fight against a group of villains led by an a man using strange equipment that is broken when he is defeated.
The Detnerat Company, a company dedicated to creating items for people with shape-altering quirks, enter the hero support item market with mixed results. It's revealed the leader of the company is the son of Destro, a notorious villain who led the Meta Liberation Army, and is now leading the newest incarnation of it, as the publication of the reviewed version of Destro's manifesto is spreading through Japan and gathering supporters.
Meanwhile, a month and a half before the present day, the status of the League is revealed since they were last seen during the Internship Arc. The team turns out to have fallen on hard times without All For One's support and have been stealing from other villains to survive, while looking for The Doctor for assistance. Morale is at an all time low and Spinner almost comes to blow with Shigaraki and demands to know why he should keep following him.
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 then 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.
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 to gain the information in spite of Giran's refusal to reveal it by hacking his phone. Rikiya Yotsubashi/Re-Destro, the new leader of the Army, calls the League and gives Shigaraki an ultimatum; he can either stay where he is at which point their location will be revealed to the heroes, 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 from one of his naps, 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 arrive at 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 Army, the League turns out to be a powerful enemy as Toga's powers evolve and she is able to kill Curious together with her troops, though she is left far from unscratched, and Shigaraki's sleep deprived and sickened state works to give him flashbacks of his past and makes his quirk evolve into an infectious form.
Skeptic, the Mission Control 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 use his Quirk to fabricate more of their leader in case he dies. His attack on Twice backfires when, by breaking his arm, he confirms that Twice is the original, not a copy like he long feared, and inadvertently helps him overcome his own self-doubt and break his self imposed limitations allowing him to duplicate himself into a large army. The infinite Twice's save Toga and provide backup for the League negating their previous numbers disadvantage. An enraged Skeptic leaves to confront Twice personally while Geten, a strange member of the Army with a powerful Ice Quirk, destroys a large part of the Twice army by himself and confronts Dabi, who is quickly overwhelmed.
The Doctor, watching this, wakes up Gigantomachia early and leads him to the city.
Meanwhile, a flash to Hawks shows him trying to contact Dabi, and a flashback shows he was connected to the current disappearance of Best Jeanist.
With the help of the Twice army, Shigaraki is able to rest a bit (sleeping on the back of Twice and being taken to the tower at the center of the city) while being led to Re-Destro. Spinner realizes Hanabata keeps rallying the people, and decides to do something about him in order to let Shigaraki rest.
Shigaraki finally reaches the tower and destroys it with his evolved quirk, but Re-Destro uses his quirk to destroy Shigaraki's hand, which ends up only making his quirk stronger, managing to retaliate and escape his grasp at the same time that Skeptic calls him to reveal that Gigantomachia has reached Deika 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 from his past.
With new power, Shigaraki is able to destroy a huge city block in order to defeat Re-Destro. Upon seeing this, Gigantomachia stops and is amazed by Shigaraki's power, while Re-Destro is forced 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.
One week later, Re-Destro holds a ceremony to make Shigaraki the leader of the new "Paranormal Liberation Front". Hawks thinks Shigaraki now holds power equal to or greater than the heroes. Shigaraki asks the Doctor if he will support them now, but the Doctor wants him to make a delivery first...
Tropes
- Adapted Out: A handful of major scenes in the manga are taken out of the anime episodes:
- The League raiding a mansion belonging to an anti-mutant Quirk Cult.
- Seeing the sorry state the League is in at the beginning of the arc which ends up undercutting their eventual rise over the MLA despite their vastly fewer resources.
- Spinner hitting his Rage-Breaking Point and confronting Shigaraki over the direction that the League is going. This omission in particular ends up being detrimental to Spinner's character arc since it undercuts him eventually learning to respect Shigaraki and coming to define himself as someone who can help the League rather then just an "empty Stain cosplayer."
- However these get properly adapted later in a flashback, during 13th episode of 6th season.
- A look at Detnerat's day-to-day services before the story reveal about their true goal.
- Re-Destro regretfully killing a Detnerat secretary just for comparing his ancestor, Destro, to a terrorist.
- Kidnapping of Giran and his first meeting with MLA and Re-Destro also wasn't shown.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- For the League Of Villains as a whole, but especially for Spinner and Shigaraki. While the former has his character and motivations explored, the latter has his backstory explained, exposes his plans and is at the forefront of the conflict.
- Toga's backstory is brought up in chapters 225 and 226, where it showcases how the inability to reconcile her fixation for drinking blood brought on by her quirk with the standards enforced by society led her to eventually snap and become a villain.
- Chapters 228 and 229 expands more on Twice's history, being a down on his luck orphan who, because of a string of escalating misfortunes and having no one to count on save for the clones he made through his quirk, slowly slipped into a life of crime before his psychotic break and joining the League.
- Dabi has his moments in the first half of Chapter 228 and Chapter 230 fighting Geten, though curiously enough, no backstory has been shown yet.
- Anachronic Order: Downplayed. This Arc initially takes place before the Pro Hero Arc, showing how the League obtained a High-End Nomu, before having a Time Skip of a month fighting Gigantomachia, more or less bringing things in line of current events.
- Arc Villain: While both groups are villains, the antagonist of the arc is The Meta Liberation Army, led by Rikiya Yotsubashi/Re-Destro.
- Big Damn Heroes: Bakugo and Todaroki begin taking down a group of villains immediately after receiving their Hero Licenses.
- Black Comedy: Compress, Dabi and the Twices briefly trade blows with each other... while massacring an entire city.
- Brick Joke:
- 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!".
- 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. Sure enough the next chapter reveals that the League has been gorging themselves on sushi for an entire week after the battle was over.
- Close-Knit Community: While the Meta Liberation Army as a whole is well-spread throughout Japan, there are many members of them in Deika City. Every one of them are ready to face the League in the name of the MLA, even if it means sacrificing themselves.
- Darker and Edgier: 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, rivaling 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 Pasts of the Leagues members showing how they reached a point where joining a group of anarchist villains seemed like their best option.
- David vs. Goliath: The war between the League and the MLA plays out like this. At the beginning of the arc the League are barely scrapping by on their own without All For One's resources and have to make ends meet by robbing low tier villain groups. Meanwhile the MLA have vast technological and financial resources backing them with an army of 100,000 loyal soldiers compared to the League's little over half a dozen. However thanks to their growing power and comradery the League ultimately end up defeating their superior opponents and end up taking over the MLA and its resources for themselves.
- Designated Girl Fight: Toga and Curious, the League and the MLA's only notable female members, face off against each other.
- Deuteragonist: Since Shigaraki is clearly the main character of this arc the secondary lead role goes to Spinner. Not only does he serve as the narrator explaining what the League has been up to since last we saw them we also get multiple chapters of introspection from him where he reveals his belief that he is an empty slate and watch him gain a new purpose for staying with the League.
- Dungeon Bypass: Re-Destro is holding Giran in the tower at the centre of Deika City with an army of loyal soldiers between him and the League. Once the army of Twice's distract the army long enough Shigaraki simply disintegrates the tower, counting on the Twice clones inside to be able to break Giran's fall (they do), and forcing Re-Destro to fight him on the ground.
- Evil vs. Evil: The League of Villains versus the Meta Liberation Army, both terrorist groups, but have wildly different agendas.
- Fingore: Giran's fingers were cut off and scattered to five separate areas where the League of Villains participated throughout the series to this point. It is invoked as a declaration of war from the Meta Liberation Army.
- Fire/Ice Duo: Dabi (fire-using villain) is matched up against Geten (ice-using villain). Geten is able to utilize his Quirk/Meta Ability by not only manipulating ice, but make more from the moisture around him, preventing an obvious outcome against Dabi.
- Freudian Excuse: In a flashback, Shigaraki's father, Kotoro Shimura, didn't take kindly to his mother, Nana Shimura, leaving him behind for his own safety during her career as a hero. He had since made it a rule to forbid anyone in his family the talk of heroes in the household and punishes Tenko/Toumura frequently for breaking this rule, one way or another. When he takes this a step too far one day because he heard his son was in his study room (seeing a photo of him and Nana), the rest of his family finally calls out on his abuse. By then however, Tenko's Start of Darkness was established and they all die later from his then-uncontrollable Quirk.
- Go Out with a Smile: Curious is too impressed by Toga's Next Tier Power-Up and motives, wanting to write about her in her next article, to realize she is falling to her death thanks to Toga's power from Uraraka's blood.
- Let's You and Him Fight: The League's plan to deal with the MLA and Gigantomachia is to lure him straight to their base and let both wear each other out.
- Know When to Fold Them: Re-Destro orders his MLA to stand down after losing to Shigaraki. However, it is more than simply being overpowered; he witnesses Shigaraki able to use his Quirk/Meta Ability more freely after being "liberated" from whatever stress weighed him down. To Re-Destro, it is exactly likened to Destro's beliefs, and he later passes leadership to Shigaraki in hopes of furthering the MLA's goals.
- Murder in the Family: Shigaraki's flashback reveals that his Quirk finally awakened after countless abuse from his father, back when he was Tenko Shimura. He accidentally uses it on his dog, then does the same to his sister, mother and grandparents, in a state of panic. When his father tries to stop him, by attacking his son, Shigaraki snaps even further and murders him with clear intent.
- Next Tier Power-Up:
- 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).
- 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 fight against Re-Destro, after remembering his past in full, he is able to unleash his power across the city taking place, decimating many buildings.
- No Full Name Given: It is revealed during Tormura Shigaraki's flashback that he was renamed after All For One's last real name. AFO's first name is unknown, however.
- Off the Rails: Defied by Compress in regards to Twice planning to make infinite copies of the League. The whole point of them storming Deika City was to lure Gigantomachia there, and planning to multiply Dabi would pretty much kill everyone involved.
- Played straight, however, by the Doctor, who notices the League struggling against Geten, and proceeds to wake Machia up early to pull a Big Damn Villains.
- One-Man Army:
- Gigantomachia can single-handedly match the entire army, due to sheer size and massive strength.
- 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.
- Out of Focus: Poor Mr. Compress seems like the odd man out in this arc since, in comparison to everyone else in the League who get several A Day in the Limelight 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. This is even lampshaded at the end of the arc, when Compress is enjoying some sushi as a reward for a job well done, Dabi points out that he didn't do anything.
- Pietà Plagiarism: In chapter 226 there is a frame in which Toga and Curious are respectively posed in a similar fashion as Jesus and Mary in Michelangelo's Pietà sculpture. This is used to emphasize that Curious wants to turn Toga into a martyr for their cause.
- Quantity vs. Quality: Both the League and the MLA have honed in on their skills. However, while the MLA is indeed strong, especially by numbers, the League have become considerably stronger after dealing with deadly situations before this arc.
- The trope itself is namedropped by Re-Destro, pointing out that Twice's Zerg Rush tactics are useless against someone like Geten having a massive Area of Effect quirk.
- Rescue Arc: Giran is kidnapped by the Meta Liberation Army. The League of Villains naturally takes offense to this and tries to rescue him.
- Smash the Symbol: After remembering his complete memories, Shigaraki destroys his father's hand as a gesture that he no longer needs that support.
- Shout-Out: "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 The Killing Joke, 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. Shigaraki's flashback shows how much the abuse of his father eventually cause him to snap and lose control of his Quirk, killing his entire family and eventually being "adopted" by All For One, cementing his role as a villain.
- Start of Darkness: The arc finally sheds some light on most of the League of Villains, and why they become part of it in the first place. We also find out why Shigaraki hates heroes and what drove him to join All For One.
- Time Skip: 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 villains new design changes, and most significantly the formation of the Paranormal Liberation Front from the remainder of both villain groups.
- Villain Episode: The main focus of the arc is the League of Villains and their newfound conflict against the Meta Liberation Army, led by a Villain with Good Publicity named Re-Destro. To emphasize it, one of its first chapters is called My Villain Academia and shows Shigaraki breaking the series' logo to pieces.
- Lampshaded by Compress, who notes that Twice's He's Back! moment sounds suspiciously like a hero story.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Actively defied. The whole arc is meant to showcase that, just like the hero students of UA, 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.
- Villain Team-Up: Of a sort. After Re-Destro surrenders to Shigaraki the members of the League and the MLA are absorbed into one 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.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Yotsubashi runs a company dedicated to support people with Quirks that make 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 ancestor.
- When You Snatch the Pebble: Gigantomachia is the "pebble" for Shigaraki's gang to snatch. If they manage 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, Gigantomachia sees Shigaraki as just a bug to step on and not worthy of his master All For One's time.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Chapters 235 to 237 follow Shigaraki's childhood and how he became a villain.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: When one of Yotsubashi's workers talked to him about a book centering the Meta Liberation War, the worker compares the late Destro's acts for Quirk freedom to simple terrorism. Yotsubashi doesn't take the criticism well and kills him as a result.
- Zerg Rush: The Meta Liberation Army's initial plan, until the League counters by doing their own Zerg Rush.
