Recap / My Hero Academia Final War Arc

Battle Flame

After the revelation of Aoyama's status as the UA Traitor, the students of Class 1-A aren't going to let this final insult lay down. The time has come to settle things with All For One and the League of Villains once and for all. As the young heroes contemplate whether they can truly save "their villains", the Pros come together with a plan to divide and conquer All For One's army. As the battlelines are drawn, the stage is set for the ultimate showdown between hero and villain. The Final War to decide not only the fate of Japan, but the world at large, is about to begin.

Tropes:

• All for Nothing:
  • All For One had planned to fuse with and take over Shigaraki so he can be powerful enough to overwhelm Midoriya and finally take One For All. To that end, he absorbs Eri's Quirk vestige within one of Overhaul's quirk-erasing bullets allowing him to use a variation of Eri's Rewind Quirk. With this, he not only heals all of his wounds, but restores his body to its prime from before All Might brought him to near death. Once it becomes apparent that he can't stop Rewind which is constantly deaging him, something he has been warned and acknowledges about, the heroes stall for time as he becomes increasingly younger by the minute. In the end, All Might and Bakugo become the final obstacles and damage him enough that he turns into a baby before vanishing completely. However, the AFO vestige within Shigaraki still exists (just left incapacitated after Shigaraki regained total control of his own body), so not all traces of the legendary villain are gone for good.
  • All For One suffers this again with his century-long pursuit of One For All. Due to Deku using the Quirk factors within it to break through Shigaraki's subconscious, not only is the stockpiling Quirk the only power left, but Yoichi's vestige is gone, preventing All For One from reclaiming the last trace of his brother. On top of that, even though All For One has regained control of Shigaraki's body, thanks to the battle with Deku, Shigaraki's powerful form is ruined and his Decay Quirk is gone. As such, All For One believes that his inevitable world domination feels hollow now.
• Ambiguous Situation: After Kurogiri arrives to rescue Tomura he's caught between the desire to protect his charge and his returning memories as Oboro Shirakumo, leaving him unable to move. When he sees Aizawa and Present Mic being overwhelmed by the Toga-Twice clones he teleports them away from the battlefield. While Kaminari believes that Kurogiri saved the two of them Mandalay points out that by teleporting Aizawa away he's removed Erasure from the board which helps out Shigaraki. It's currently left ambiguous which side of Kurogiri's personality is in control or if he's helping both sides.
• An Arm and a Leg: In Chapter 418, Izuku manages to get through to Tomura's spirit, at the cost of both his arms, which have been disintergrated via Decay. When All For One retakes control of Tomura's body, Izuku finds that he's totally helpless when he falls and can't get back up.
• Battle in the Centre of the Mind: Recognizing that defeating Tomura in a drag out brawl is impossible now, especially since Izuku refuses to kill him, the One For All wielders realize that the only way to defeat him is by attacking a mental scar left over by Star and Stripe. This involves transferring the individual Quirk vestiges into Tomura's psyche with enough force to shatter them against the scar and weaken the mental barrier he has placed around himself. While this does work doing so causes Izuku and Tomura's memories to start bleeding together allowing them to experience each other's lives. Eventually, Izuku successfully breaks into Tomura's own subconscious, where he is able to win a battle of wills against Tomura. That's when the memories of a third party begin to manifest, heralding the reemergence of All For One's vestige.
• Book Ends: All For One's initial plan for Izuku at the start of the war's outbreak was to leave him in the most disadvantageous position possible: breaking him emotionally with Aoyama's betrayal whilst luring him to an isolated area away from any possible help, and then summoning every single villain force on his side sole to target the young boy with an overwhelming amount of force that not even the strength of One For All alone could overcome. By the final segment of the battle, this state of affairs is what's happened to him. Thanks to his own actions and determination, he's left the last remaining villainous opponent standing after all the individual battlegrounds have been resolved, allowing what combat-capable heroes are left to use Kurogiri's portals to assemble against him together, his "perfected Demon lord" self has sustained unhealable damage from Izuku and the Vestiges' hail-mary tactic of exploiting the Psychic Link with Tomura to damage him, and the same tactic resulted in Yoichi's Vestige being destroyed for good. Realising this leaves All For One a hollowed-out shell emotionally, with him continuing the battle against the heroes out of mere obligation to the reputation of the Demon lord he holds so dear, and seething fury against Izuku for dealing him a loss he cannot deny.
• The Big Bad Shuffle: Both All For One and Shigaraki take turns one upping each other as the main villains of the arc. Initially the arc starts with All For One in complete control as the leader of the villain army whose vestige has taken over Shigaraki's body. However, after being separated from each other the All For One vestige inside of Shigaraki begins losing a battle of wills against him culminating in Shigaraki tearing himself out of the vestige and regaining control of his body. Meanwhile All For One, using a rewind drug to reverse his body's damage at the cost of his age, begins tearing his way across the battlefield to reach Shigaraki and take over his body, leading to a Big Bad Ensemble between the two. Then with the death of All For One's original body in chapter 410 it seems to set Shigaraki as the sole Big Bad whose battle with Deku will determine the fate of the world. Then after engaging in a battle of wills in Shigaraki's mindscape, the vestige of All For One regains control after Shigaraki's hatred dissipates, wherein he shatters his protege's remaining willpower by revealing his life to be a hollow lie, thus leading to All For One taking back control of Shigaraki's body for one final bout against Midoriya — albeit, it's made clear that he's still a massively downgraded threat compared to his Superior Sucessor. Overall, the narrative portrays Tomura as the more sincerely dangerous threat overall, but All For One's petty and spiteful refusal to ceed the position of Big Bad means that he continually handicaps his own chances at victory rather than admit he's no longer the main villain of the narrative.
• Cain and Abel: Despite his alleged love for his brother, it turned out All For One didn't hesitate in killing him when Kudo, the second wielder of One For All, attempted to rescue him. Though it was established that it was less out of "love" and more about "possession", and Yorichi already had qualms about his brother terrorizing the world.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The tall heteromorph woman that Midoriya rescued was last seen talking to Shoji before he left with his students for the battle ahead. It is revealed that the woman received a message that Spinner is leading other downtrodden heteromorphs to riot in Tokyo City, which just happens to be where the Central Hospital that's holding Kurogiri is located. Understanding the anger from being prejudiced for simply looking different, Shoji, joined by Koda, requests to join other heroes there in hopes of stopping the riot.
• Climax Boss: Being what amounts to a Final Battle of the series, many characters are given decisive battles that conclude their stories:
  • The Todoroki family has their battle with Dabi/Toya where they finally have to confront not only their failure to him but also their destructive family live and the underlining problems, they've ignored up to know. Ultimately while Shoto's new ultimate move Phospher, the culmination of him finally fully embracing both halves of his family and Quirk, is what finally overpowers Dabi it wouldn't have been possible if the other members of the Todoroki family hadn't been there to power it up.
  • Uraraka has her battle with Toga where she has to overcome the villain's desire to destroy the heroes she blames for suppressing her and killing Twice. Ultimately Uraraka has to come to terms with the feelings she has suppressed for some time in order to be able to have a heart to heart with Toga that convinces the other girl to stand down.
  • For Bakugo it's his battle against All For One wherein he gets the chance to alleviate his guilt for inadvertently leading to All Might's retirement by taking down the man responsible for ending the Symbol of Peace's carrier. Not only does this battle allow Bakugo to prove his worth to the world at last by defeating Japan's former Shadow Dictator but through the fight Bakugo is able to let go of his insecurities for Midoriya, admit his rival is better than him, and decides he will no longer stand in his way of becoming the world's greatest hero.
  • And finally, for Midoriya it's his long-awaited rematch with Shigaraki to decide the fate of the world. This proves to be the toughest fight for Midoriya in the series, not only because Shigaraki is easily the most powerful foe he's ever faced, but because it's the ultimate test of Midoriya's ideals as a hero as he goes against the advice everyone has given him to try and find a way to save his Arch-Enemy without killing him, with the possibility that he may lose his Quirk in the process.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Defeating All For One is already a herculean task, even with Endeavor and over seasoned heroes in battle, but it becomes borderline impossible when he returns to his prime thanks to absorbing Eri's Rewind Quirk from one of the Quirk erasing bullets. Despite this the heroes band together to push back against the villain, realising that All For One's body becomes increasingly younger with each injury Rewind needs to heal. As such, they continue delivering blow after blow, even when more heroes are kicked to the curb and a handful lose their quirks, including Hawks. Even All Might eventually rejoins the fray wearing a robot suit to compensate for his lack of Quirk noting that he likely can't defeat All For One by himself but can wear him down as much as possible. In the end while Bakugo delivers the finishing blow that ends AFO for good it's noted that such a victory would not have been possible without every hero throwing themselves at the villain to wear him down.
• Divide and Conquer: This is the hero's strategy in order to separate the League from one another as they recognize that together they are too powerful to defeat, especially All For One and Shigaraki who if teamed up together would be unstoppable. After using Aoyama's status as The Mole to lure All For One out of hiding they count on the fact that he is such a narcissist that he wouldn't suspect that they've flipped his spy. Then, when All For One summons his army to his location in order to Zerg Rush Midoriya, the heroes use Monoma's Quirk to copy Kurogiri's powers in order to summon their forces to the battle and then use giant iron maidens to individually separate the villains and transport them to designated locations far away from each other so they can be taken down.
• The Dog Bites Back: All For One's decision to leave Gigantomachia behind after the Paramount Liberation War ends up costing him his strongest servant as being abandoned by his 'master' in spite of his years of faithful service causes the giant to turn against the Demon Lord, even fighting alongside the heroes without being brainwashed.
• Dramatic Unmask: Shoji loses his face mask while fighting the rioting heteromorphs, revealing a wide and badly scarred mouth. It is revealed in his backstory that he was attacked by racist humans in his old village just for saving someone, because they were paranoid that heteromorphs were "threatening the purity of their home".
• Fetus Terrible: All For One's origin sheds light on the fact that he was supposedly evil from the day he was born. He fed off nutrients from his mother to death while taking her quirk, leaving his brother weak, and grew up taking what he wanted and killing anyone in his way. It's not until he read his brother's comic books about superheroes that he truly started his career as a villain.
• Foreshadowing: In chapter 410, as All For One is deaging out of existence, he states that he can still turn things around as his vestige hasn't used his final trump card against Tomura. In chapter 419 it's revealed that this trump card was going to be All For One revealing to Tomura that he had engineered his entire life, from his childhood friends, his father's abuse, to even his Quirk, all so he could eventually steal his body, in order to shatter Tomura's willpower and cause him to pass the Despair Event Horizon so he would no longer be able to resist All For One's control. Though after doing so All For One admits that he intended to do so after Tomura had stolen One For All and that at this point it's a last resort to keep himself alive.
• Invincible Villain: Tomura's body has become so incredibly durable that breaking his skin is a herculean task. But even if you do, his super regeneration is working overtime to repair any and all damage done by the Heroes. Meaning that Deku can't just beat him in a fist fight anymore and has to seek a spiritual or psychological way to conquer his foe.
• Irony: After regaining control of his body Shigaraki tells Deku and All For One that he has no need for One For All and that he will destroy it along with everything else. Despite having no interest in the Quirk, the vestiges realise that the only hope Deku has to defeat Shigaraki is to transfer One For All into him; the very goal they've spend almost two centuries trying to avoid.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Gentle has been turning over a new leaf ever since he was defeated by Deku during the Culture Festive arc. The authorities found him stopping all of the villains in his prison from breaking out and they allow him to see La Brava again at his request. He later joins the heroes at UA to assist in the final battle against Shigaraki.
  • La Brava, meanwhile, helps the police turn the tables on and capture Skeptic of the MLA and his group.
  • Lady Negant was last seen defeated by Deku, but was blown up by All For One as a result. She barely survived and, having made a slow recovery so far, helps Deku from the hospital by shooting Shigaraki, a major distance from UA. While it doesn't leave any lasting damage, it causes the AFO in Shigaraki to lose his nerve while Shigaraki finally fights back from within.
• Hour of Power: Due to only having a small amount of Twice's blood to work with Toga can only become him for 30 minutes although even that small amount of time is enough to overwhelm the heroes and put them on the backfoot after Toga is transported to the main battlefield in Gunga.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Ironically Shigaraki does this to All For One after his master did this to him in the climax of the previous war arc. After having his body hijacked by All For One and left a prisoner in his own mind Shigaraki slowly begins taking control of his body again as the fight wears the All For One vestige down. Eventually, after All For One accumulates enough damage, Shigaraki is able to forcibly tear the vestige apart from the inside out giving him complete control of his body again. Once Shigaraki is defeated in a spiritual battle against Deku, however, he leaves All For One open to regain control of his body again.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: The second part of the heroes operation, after dividing the villains into various portals, is for the assembled heroes to split off into teams to face off with the villains in designated combat zones (Deku, Bakugo, Eraser Head and various other heroes fighting Shigaraki in UA, Endeavor, Hawks, Jirou, Tokoyami and others battling All For One at the Gunga Villa ruins, Shoto, Iida and others fighting Dabi in Kamino Ward, and Uraraka and Froppy fighting Toga on Okuto island). The plan hits an immediate snag however when Toga manages to drag Deku into her portal depriving the Shigaraki team of their most valuable player and forcing Deku to race to the battle without tiring himself out.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In order to fool All For One into coming out of hiding to attack Deku, whom they realize must have some sort of lie detector Quirk, the heroes use Shinso's Brainwashing to control Aoyama's parents and make them tell All For One that the plan is going smoothly. Since All For One can't detect any lies when they contact him he drops his guard allowing the heroes to set their trap for him.
  • Despite being dragged into a separate portal and then being attacked with a knife by Toga, Deku's Danger Sense Quirk doesn't go off around her. Deku and Shinomori realize that, because Toga equates violence with love, she doesn't give off any malicious intent when attacking someone she loves so Danger Sense didn't activate. Deku and Shinomori are stunned that someone like that could possibly exist.
  • Despite using Monoma to copy Aizawa's Erasure Quirk to neutralise Shigaraki the villain starts launching waves of fingers from his hand. As he reveals to the heroes this isn't actually a result of a Quirk, it's his body reacting to the Quirk Singularity now that he has so much raw power inside of him causing his body to morph to reach its ideal form. Therefore the Erasure Quirk has no effect on his growth which he weaponizes to attack the heroes.
  • During the battle with Shigaraki, Deku and the other vestiges realise that, thanks to the melding of All For One and One For All, Shigaraki can know perceive the vestiges. They realise, in combination with the fact that he was able to steal one of the Quirk factors without stealing the entirety of One For All, that the individual vestiges have their own live outside of One For All which can be perceived by Shigaraki's Search Quirk. Therefore, using a piece of blood on one of Deku's Blackwhips the contains Kudo's vestige, and En's Smokescreen to limit his visibility, they are able to confuse Shigaraki's Search long enough for Deku to land a blow on him and begin transferring the vestiges into his body.
• Love Confession: During her battle with Toga, Uraraka admits out loud for the first time that she is in love with Midoriya after being inspired by how Toga always admits her feelings out loud for the world to hear. Deku, having figured out what she was saying, was floored and didn't know what to make of it, but Froppy told him to deal with it later and focus on fighting the villains at the moment.
• Madness Mantra: After absorbing Twice's blood and reviving the Sad Man's Parade, the Toga-Twice clones all start chanting "All Heroes Must Die!".
• My God, What Have I Done?: While Tentacole and Anima defeat the instigators of the Heteromorph riot, they are unable to stop a monstrous Spinner from rampaging through the Central hospital. The moment other rioters see the carnage at hand, they finally stop and realize what their hatred has led to. They and the other heroes convince everyone else to stand down and find a better solution to their frustration and suffering.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After Aoyama supposedly draws Midoriya outside of UA's protection All For One arrives on the scene and proceeds to summon every member of his army to his location with his Glop Warp Quirk intending to wear Izuku down with sheer numbers and steal One For All. However the hero's were counting on this hoping that All For One's overconfidence would make him sloppy since he wouldn't predict anyone could outsmart him. Using Monoma to copy Kurogiri's Quirk the heroes are able to arrive on scene on mass and, using Iron Maidens buried in the ground, capture the individual members of the League and send them to different parts of the country thereby making the villains easier to defeat.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Bakugo and Midoriya are left dumbfounded when the latter is pulled into the portal leading to Toga's battle, which is happening over 200km from where he was supposed to be.
  • Hawks can only look on in shock and horror when two "Twice's" emerge from one of Kurogiri's portals, ready to begin the Sad Man's Parade. All For One even mocks Hawks noting that killing Twice was ultimately All for Nothing as Himiko's rage has allowed her to recreate the very technique Hawks was trying to avoid.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • The fight against All For One ends with the villain's physical form vanishing without a trace. All available heroes facing him had to force him to rely on his modified version of Eri's Rewind until he fully de-ages. However, many are rendered exhausted or Quirkless at least and injured or dead at worst.
  • The heroes at Tokyo City manage to stop the Heteromorph riot, but are unable to prevent Spinner from breaking into Central Hospital to free Kurogiri. Unfortunately, the biggest reason it ended at all was because some of the rioters behind Spinner saw how much damage they are actually causing after seeing an untold number of workers and patients harmed when Spinner gone through them, and they quickly convince the others to drop everything.
  • In chapter 419 All For One is able to shatter Tomura's mind by giving him a Breaking Speech so harsh it causes him to enter the Despair Event Horizon which destroys his vestige allowing All For One to assume complete control of Tomura's body. However, at this point All For One's original body is dead, Tomura's body has suffered massive physical damage due to the spiritual battle he had with Izuku, and One For All has been completely shattered, including Yoichi, thus forever denying All For One his chance to reclaim his brother. Even All For One seems to realize this and state that even his goal of world domination seems hollow without his brother by his side.
• The Reveal:
  • After All For One orchestrated the breakout on Tartarus prison, he send its escapees to break into seven additional ones. It is revealed that the prisoners in the seventh prison are still there because someone stood their ground and kept everyone from leaving with their Quirk. That someone was Danjuro Tobita, formerly known as Gentle Criminal, who simply wants to see La Brava again. When the police heed his request, they both join the heroes in final battle.
  • As it turned out, All For One had been manipulating Tomura's life long before they first met. He also discreetly stole Tomura's real Quirk before it manifested and replaced it with Decay, which is revealed to be an artificial Quirk reverse-engineered from Overhaul.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • While the plan to separate the villains from each other is mostly successful a major wrench is thrown in when Toga hooks Midoriya with one of her cables before he can enter his portal. Since Danger Sense only alerts Deku to threats from those who have malicious intend and Toga always kills people with love in her heart it doesn't go off, so Deku ends up dragged into her side of the battle leaving the Shigaraki team without their most valuable player. This forces Deku to race to the battlefield, across open ocean, during which time Shigaraki goes on a rampage that leaves most of the team severally injured and Bakugo near death.
  • Spinner turns out to be this for the villain's side. He isn't part of the group All For One summons to attack Deku at the start of the battle, because he is given the job of retrieving Kurogiri from Central Hospital. Thanks to several enhancement Quirk's and an army of Heteromorph supporters Spinner is able to break into the hospital and revive Kurogiri. Kurogiri is then able to instantly turn the tide of the battle to the villains favor by transporting Dabi and Toga (who has now become Twice) to All For One as backup, while a large number of Toga-Twice clones are able to overpower Aizawa allowing Shigaraki to access his Quirks and take back control of his body.
• Tailor-Made Prison: In order to combat Shigaraki, who is recognized as the most dangerous member of the villain's side, the heroes transport him to UA campus which has been converted into a battleground tailer made to incapacitate him as much as possible. First the entire structure has been made mobile and is flying through the air, both to keep Shigaraki as far from his allies as possible and to keep the people on the ground safe from his Decay wave. Various heroes are there that can focus on suppressing Shigaraki and, because the support course of UA is working underneath the dome, they can provide weapons and equipment when needed to help the heroes. In order to neutralize the threat of Decay the ground has been sequestered into sectors that can be launched into the air so that it doesn't spread. Thanks to Yaoyorozu they can replace any of the parts lost and so are able to create new sections of ground to replace Decayed ones. The entire battleground is supported by a barrier maintained by various students using electric based Quirks to empower it, with the platform they're on located outside the battlefield. Finally on a platform outside the barrier, and therefore outside of Shigaraki's reach, are Monoma and Aizawa who are using Erasure together, with Manuel providing support to keep them for blinking, in order to neutralize all of Shigaraki's Quirks.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: While Toga has always been a villain, she has rarely even been malicious in her actions, as demonstrated by Danger Sense not going off when she drags Deku to her fight. However, a combination of Twice's death and Uraraka's rejection of her has caused her to slowly lose what little innocence she had left. After Deku tells her he can't reciprocate her feelings for him and tells her she needs to be stopped, Toga gives up of her feelings for him and decides to kill anyone who will get in the way of her dream of an easier world. This is represented by Danger Sense going off and a later chapter's narration describing Toga as truly becoming a villain.
• Uncertain Doom: Dabi and Toga are defeated or surrendered, but it is unknown if they will live long enough to face their crimes.
• Villainous Rescue: After Spinner successfully revives Kurogiri the latter uses his portals to transport his allies to All For One at the Gunga Villa Ruins while sending various Toga-Twice's to overwhelm the heroes neutralizing Shigaraki's Quirks, instantly turning the tide of the battle to the villain's favor.