After 10 years of publication, Kohei Horikoshi’s shonen manga My Hero Academy Deku’s story has come to an end, and fans weren’t entirely satisfied with the conclusion. For one, Deku didn’t get romantically involved with anyone, not even Ochaco Uraraka, and he went back to being Quirkless. In the eyes of some fans, it seems like Deku went from zero to hero and back to zero again, unlike shonen stars like Ichigo Kurosaki and Naruto Uzumaki, who ended their stories at the top of their game. But there’s more to Izuku Midoriya’s life than his Quirk power.
It’s a shame that One For All is now gone, but Deku saved the world by making the necessary sacrifices to defeat Tomura Shigaraki forever. This means that Deku can now be comfortably Quirkless rather than feeling like he’s lost everything, and most importantly, Deku’s best traits aren’t even rooted in Quirks. It may sound silly, but the truth is that Deku’s heroic and inspiring heart is the only Quirk he needs, and it allowed him to end the manga on a strong note. This is the real key aspect of Deku’s conclusion that fans should remember for years to come.
Deku has always thought about what’s inside
Shonen superpowers are just a means to an end
It may be disappointing on some levels that Deku lost One For All and the Quirks built in by previous users, but while Deku made good use of One For All, that Quirk wasn’t his entire personality. Power levels aside, Deku was already a well-rounded shonen protagonist from the start, even when he was completely Quirkless. This is true both on a meta level and in My Hero Academythe universe of, which both fans and All Might can recognize.
On a meta level, it’s not a terrible thing that Deku lost his Quirk after saving the world from Tomura, because the identity of shonen heroes isn’t centered around their powers. A shonen hero’s weapons, martial arts skills, and superpowers are just tools to use and aren’t the basis of their entire personality. A shonen hero’s powers are the means by which they express their good heart and noble intentions, meaning that their powers allow them to fight as a good person, rather than those powers manufacturing a good character. A shonen hero can learn lessons about hard work and discipline after gaining powers like a zanpakuto, a quirk, or the Rasengan, but otherwise, such powers don’t change who a person is.
In-universe, this is especially true for Deku, who was chosen as the heir to All Might, the Symbol of Peace, based solely on his heroic heart. Deku was given a Quirk because he had the makings. Deku’s personal history was about learning to control and use a Quirk to tap into his existing potential, meaning Deku could afford to lose his Quirk and still retain almost everything that made him a worthy hero. Deku has two main assets inside: his kind heart and his intelligent mind, which combine to create an intangible “Quirk” that will be a perfect fit for him after losing One For All. In this state, Deku is the perfect person to inspire and train a new generation of pro heroes, like the young Dai, who debuted in Chapter 430. Deku has simply shifted gears as a heroic defender of society, without retiring or becoming obsolete, and it’s actually inspiring to see with the right perspective.
Deku has the best perspective on quirks and courage in the latest chapter
He’s the last person to take oddities for granted.
It’s not just My Hero Academy Readers who can enjoy the final chapter with the proper perspective on Deku’s Quirkless state as an adult. Deku himself has always had the best perspective on Quirks of any named character in this series, as he never took any for granted. He was born completely Quirkless, which had the benefit of not only making One For All less stressful to use, but also making him think more critically about all the Quirks around him. This was a major part of Deku’s hero journal in the early episodes, analyzing and evaluating the many Quirks he saw in action and even thinking of uses or countermeasures for each one. Deku was still competing in the UA Sports Festival tournament, which Ochaco found both impressive and unsettling. Anyone born with a Quirk will be preoccupied with that Quirk and identify strongly with it, but not Deku. This is how Deku avoided tunnel vision about these supernatural gifts.
This all worked to Deku’s advantage throughout. My Hero Academybecause even after gaining One For All and the integrated Quirks, he kept his habit of analyzing Quirks, and he was no less intelligent for having One For All. It was easy for Deku to keep these mental gifts after losing One For All and continue to study Quirks and their relationships with their users, so with this perspective, Deku became the ideal teacher for future new students like Dai. Sure, Quirk-wielding teachers like Eraserhead and Midnight did a good job as teachers at UA, but there’s no doubt that Deku’s perspective makes him the best teacher possible. As a Quirk expert and teacher, that’s how Deku goes Plus Ultra, no Smash attacks needed. It’s true that Ochaco and Tsuyu walk around giving people advice on Quirks, but Deku can do it even better than them.
Being Quirkless at the beginning and end of the series also gave Deku perspective on not only how to study Quirks, but also how to be incredibly brave and resilient in the face of hardship of all kinds. Deku had to train for an entire year just to obtain One For All, and used his brains and tenacity to master it over time. He also knew what it was like to rush in and try to save the day with his sheer determination, as shown in Episode 1. If potential heroes with questionable Quirks need a role model who has truly gone from zero to hero, there is no one better than Izuku Midoriya. And that is why Deku ended the manga on a strong note, being the best possible role model for someone like Dai.
Deku’s Quirkless state sets him apart from his former classmates.
He’s always been a little different, and Chapter 430 proved it.
Even though the other 19 students of Class 1-A generally accepted Deku as one of them, the fact remains that throughout the entirety of My Hero AcademyIn Deku’s story, Deku was different from everyone else, especially his shonen-style rival Katsuki Bakugo. This was to be expected, as Izuku Midoriya was the protagonist and he couldn’t be interchangeable with his classmates. Heroes need to stand out, and other shonen anime series have found ways to do just that. Naruto Uzumaki was the only jinchuriki among the Konoha 11, Ichigo Kurosaki was a human fighting alongside the Soul Reapers, and Yuji Itadori has Ryomen Sukuna inside him while his fellow sorcerers have much more conventional powers. These unique powers also make the protagonist have distinct arcs with unique themes, Deku included.
Deku was meant to be different from Bakugo, Shoto, Ochaco, and Momo, and not just in how their respective Quirks worked. Deku was one of only two students in Class 1-A born without a Quirk, the other being Yuga Aoyama, and only Deku was able to sacrifice his Quirk to save the day when no one else could. Deku started out differently by being All Might’s Quirkless successor, then became roughly similar to his classmates midway through the story, then distanced himself from his classmates again by sacrificing One For All to defeat Tomura. As a result, Deku is the only Quirkless graduate of Class 1-A, needing a suit of power armor to take action alongside everyone else—including Hitoshi Shinso—as an equal.
More importantly, Deku isn’t different just for the sake of being different in the midst of it all. He went from Quirkless to One For All as All Might’s heir to becoming a Quirkless teacher, and it fit his arc perfectly. It also allowed Deku to stand out in the narrative of Chapter 430 in very meaningful ways, and it wasn’t a gimmick. His classmates were all pretty much the same as usual, aside from being eight years older, and they would need a gimmick or last-minute plot twist to stand out. But Deku didn’t need one. By returning to his Quirkless state, Deku accomplished a lot in the latest chapter, the most obvious being his status as the most special and unusual graduate of Class 1-A. It’s an effective way for Deku to leave a powerful and lasting impression.
My Hero Academy
- First film
- My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
- Latest movie
- My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission
- First TV show
- My Hero Academia (2016)
- First episode air date
- April 3, 2016
- Casting
- Daiki Yamashita, Justin Briner, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Clifford Chapin, Ayane Sakura, Yûki Kaji