My Hero Academia's darkest Deku plotline proves Horikoshi missed a major Garaki opportunity

Modified Dec 27, 2024 01:10 GMT

My Hero Academia had a great opportunity with Deku and Garaki (Image via Bones).

My Hero Academia is a series that doesn't get a lot of credit for its dark subplots, which is ironic considering how the story constantly tackles several disturbing ideas. Perhaps an underrated plotline that didn't get the attention it deserved from author Kohei Horikoshi was Izuku "Deku" Midoriya's connection with All For One's loyal ally, Dr. Garaki.

It was eventually revealed in the My Hero Academia manga that Garaki was the doctor who told Deku that he didn't have a Quirk and was also the grandfather of Tsubasa, the winged boy who was Katsuki Bakugo's childhood friend and one of Izuku's bullies, who was turned into a Nomu.

However, the protagonist never had the chance to interact with the evil doctor and come to terms with the fact that a person he knew as a child had turned into a monster.

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

Explaining why Deku should have interacted with Garaki in My Hero Academia

A young Tsubasa and Bakugo as seen in the anime (Image via Bones).

When the series started, Izuku Midoriya received news from a doctor that he wasn't going to get a Quirk and that shaped a lot of his character at the beginning of the story.

It was eventually revealed that this doctor was Garaki, one of All For One's underlings, and also the grandfather of one of Deku's bullies, Tsubasa, who was turned into a Nomu by him.

However, while author Kohei Horikoshi explained in the extra material of volume 7 of the manga, he was planning to make this a plot point and even had Nomu-Tsubasa attack Deku during the Stain arc, with the titular villain saving him in the process.

The author, however, missed the opportunity and fans didn't get to see Deku interact with Garaki or find out about what happened to his childhood bully.

This could have been an interesting situation since it could have provided more reasons to stop All For One, connect Katsuki Bakugo and Deku with the main villain of the series, and simply have a very compelling narrative moment.

It would have been interesting to see the two characters dealing with the fact that a person they knew was turned into a monster.

More reasons for this

Tsubasa was the Winged Nomu who attacked Deku in the anime (Image via Bones).

There is also the fact that Garaki is a rather minor character in My Hero Academia and elements such as the Tsubasa experiment would have given him a lot more personality.

The fact that he was pulling to turn his own grandson into a Nomu could have been a very interesting decision for Horikoshi to explore instead of leaving it as bonus content for the seventh volume.

It would have also given Deku time for more development and perhaps look back at the years he suffered abuse, which was mostly ignored after the first third of the story.

This could have worked by connecting Bakugo into this plot and perhaps addressing the issue of bullying in a more natural manner.

Final thoughts

The Tsubasa-Garaki subplot could have been one of the darkest in My Hero Academia and could have been quite meaningful to both Deku and Bakugo. It would have given both characters more development and also make the conflict against the villains even more personal.

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Edited by Prem Deshpande