A fate even worse than being Quirkless exists in My Hero Academia

Modified Mar 08, 2025 09:30 GMT

My Hero Academia has a fate worse than Quirkless in the series (Image via Bones).

My Hero Academia puts a lot of emphasis on social commentary as far as hero society goes and the ramifications of Quirks in the status of a lot of people. It was shown that the protagonist, Izuku "Deku" Midoriya, suffered bullying because of him being Quirkless, but there is a worse fate, and that is a mutant without powers.

It may sound contradictory, but it has been shown in the My Hero Academia universe that a person's mutation is the Quirk itself, but his or her biology and abilities remain the same as a normal human beyond physical changes. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, that person's Quirk is mostly superficial, which combines the worst of both worlds when it comes to heteromorphs and Quirkless people.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda.

Explaining how a mutant, in a way, is a worse fate than My Hero Academia

Spinner as seen in the anime (Image via Bones).

It was established from the very beginning of the series that Quirkless people were mistreated for not having special powers, as evidenced by the treatment of Katsuki Bakugo toward Deku. Later on, during the battle between Shoji and Spinner, it is revealed that heteromorphs also receive a lot of prejudice, but the worse fate would be a combination of both.

As mentioned earlier, there are cases of heteromorphs who don't gain any special abilities because of their physical changes, which is something that could be considered the worst of both worlds. Not having a Quirk and having the kind of appearance that could cause rejection from society is a recipe for disaster for any kind of person.

When considering what characters like Deku, Shoji, and Spinner went through in the series, it is very clear that this combination of attributes would be quite awful for a lot of people. It also highlights some of the issues the society of this series was going through, to the point that simply defeating the villains wasn't going to change it.

The issue with the racism topic in the series

Shoji as seen in the anime (Image via Bones).

The concept of heteromorphs suffering prejudice in My Hero Academia makes sense, but author Kohei Horikoshi took a long time to explore this idea, fully blooming during the battle between Spinner and Shoji during the final war arc. They are probably the two characters best suited for this clash of ideals, but the problem is that there was very little setup when compared to other battles in this moment of the series.

Furthermore, while Mezo Shoji's appearance and backstory were perfectly suited to be the main foil of this member of the League of Villains, he had very little development and attention in the story prior to this confrontation. It ends up making the battle feel a bit surface-level, even if the character's performance and resolution were quite good and delivered an uplifting message.

Final thoughts

My Hero Academia has shown that there are some people who benefit from having Quirks and others from simply not having the worst ones, but a heteromorph with no special abilities would have the most difficult fate from the get-go. It is something that should be highlighted and a very peculiar situation that the series should have explored even more.

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Edited by Somava