My Hero Academia Chapter 418 Review – “Meek Spirits”

My Hero Academia Chapter 418 continues the exploration of Tomura Shigaraki. Where we last left things. Nana Shimura and Izuku Midoriya witnessed the origin story of what led to Tenko Shimura to become Tomura Shigaraki. Though they only both just started to witness the events that led Nana’s grandson to become the biggest villain of the My Hero Academia franchise. There is still more that Midoriya has not seen. With this exploration of Shigaraki’s history will we learn something previously unseen? Let’s find out with My Hero Academia Chapter 418, titled “Meek Spirits.”

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer & Artist: Kohei Horikoshi

SYNOPSIS

Inside Tomura Shigaraki’s Vestige World, Izuku Midoriya is unable to stop Tenko Shimura from killing Mon but is able to get in the way of Tenko killing Hana. Tenko uses his Decay Quirk to reject Midoriya’s spirit. Remembering everyone that helped him Midoriya is able to hold his ground and hold Tenko’s hand. Tenko eventually let’s go with Midoriya’s spirit surviving.

Tenko suddenly transforms into Tomura Shigaraki. With the manifestations of his League of Villains allies behind him, Shigaraki states that “The villains need a hero of their own.”

Across Japan several individuals are shown secretly rooting for Shigaraki to kill Midoriya.

Back in Shigaraki’s Vestige World, Shigaraki suddenly gets a rush of memories that he does not recognize. From a first-person perspective Shigaraki sees someone approaching his father and asking if Tenko has developed his Quirk yet.

Before learning more a monstrous version of All For One manifest inside Shigaraki’s Vestige World. All For One mocks Shigaraki for thinking he ever made a choice of his own. The giant All For One then consumes Shigaraki with Midoriya watching in horror. End of chapter.

REVIEW

Proving to be the cockroach that he is we should’ve known that All For One was gone for good. It goes to show how well Kohei Horikoshi handled the defeat of All For One at the hands of Bakugo that the villain no longer seemed to be a factor. But given all of his planning All For One’s appearance in My Hero Academia Chapter 418 felt inevitable as soon as he appeared.

Before the All For One reveal, My Hero Academia Chapter 418 continued to do a great job at handling how we are exploring Tomura Shigaraki’s origin story. We’ve already seen how these events went down from previous flashbacks. Horikoshi made sure to frame this retelling to not be about rewriting what happened. Those events can never be forgotten. But that wasn’t the point.

As we saw with the previous chapter, this was about accepting what happened and how now it is up to Midoriya to do what his friends did for him. Going back to the call back of Class 1-A saving him during the Dark Deku arc was a good use of a callback. It is a reminder of how Midoriya was going down a dark road.

While not as dark as Shigaraki, what we see is that Shigaraki didn’t really have anyone that was there for him like Midoriya had the entire time. Killing his family was the last we saw of Tenko Shimura. This makes Midoriya’s struggle to prove that he does honestly want to be there for Shigaraki so powerful. Midoriya knows how important it is for someone to reach out to walk alongside you is.

Though given how Shigaraki has been shaped not just by this one event but by years of living this life it is not so easy to change with one gesture of not letting go of his hand. Shigaraki is the physical manifestation of what pure hatred does to someone. The line of “villains need a hero of their own” very much sums up who Shigaraki represents in My Hero Academia. That being followed up by several people secretly rooting for Shigaraki’s from the shadows plays into this narrative.

Because of all of this it made the return of All For One be an even bigger surprise. Horikoshi fully had us in the moment of seeing how Shigaraki vs Midoriya one-on-one fight would end. But as he has proven many times in the past, All For One will just not go away. He is the person who shaped how the story in My Hero Academia has turned out so of course he would factor into this final fight.

In the process Horikoshi confirms that All For One had a much greater hand at how Shigaraki became who he is. While only teased, the brief flashback to with Kotaro Shimura does lean into confirming that All For One is responsible for Tenko gaining his Decay Quirk. While not fully confirmed, there is an indication that, like Midoriya, Tenko was likely Quirkless and that All For One had Dr. Kyudai Garaki transfer the Decay Quirk when he was still Tenko. Given how All For One has planned everything out to this point it is a theory that Horikoshi may lean towards confirming.

This all creates an even greater question as to how Midoriya and the heroes can defeat All For One and Shigaraki. With this latest development this endgame has gotten even worse for the world. It certainly makes things much more interesting as we are left in this state of unknown with how the story will shape out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My Hero Academia Chapter 418 certainly delivered on the surprises with the dramatic return of All For One. That made the latest developments around the Izuku Midoriya vs Tomura Shigaraki fight gain even more momentum.

Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8.5 Night Girls out of 10

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