One Quirk in My Hero Academia deserved more exploration, and it's not Dabi's

Modified Feb 15, 2025 11:30 GMT

My Hero Academia had one Quirk that deserved more exploration (Image via Bones).

My Hero Academia is a series where Quirks, the world's version of genetically-born superpowers, are of extreme importance, to the point several characters are defined by them. In that regard, Dabi's fire-based Quirk and the toll it takes on his body was heavily explored, but there is another involving Tomura Shigaraki and Neito Monoma that didn't get that degree of attention.

While Shigaraki's Decay Quirk was extremely chaotic and powerful, to the point that it killed his family in a My Hero Academia flashback, it was never confirmed whether it would destroy him if he touched himself with his five fingers. Moreover, if Neito Monoma copies his Quirk, it is never confirmed they could erase each other because the immunity to Decay was never stated either.

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

Explaining the unexplored lengths of Tomura Shigaraki's Quirk in My Hero Academia

Shigaraki as a kid and as an adult in the anime (Image via Bones).

While it is true that Tomura Shigaraki's Decay Quirk plays a major role in his journey throughout the series, being the power with which he killed his family and started his road to becoming a villain, some of the conditions that he has with this ability are not explained. The most obvious is whether he can erase himself by touching his body with the five fingers of one of his hands, which never happens in the series.

Some fans may point out that Shigaraki does scratch himself from time to time, but that never happens with his five fingers, meaning that the question is still up in the air. There is also the argument that he is immune to Decay because it is his own Quirk, but that is also disproven through the character of Toya Todoroki, also known as Dabi, whose fire Quirk took a massive toll on him.

Moreover, if someone like Neito Monoma, who has the ability to copy the Quirk of the person he touches, could take Shigaraki's Decay, there is no confirmation on whether he could erase the villain or not. The full extent of Tomura's power wasn't explored beyond sheer destructive power, which is something that could feel like a plothole.

The nature of Quirks in the series

Dabi's Quirk took a huge toll on him (Image via Bones).

The nature of Quirks in My Hero Academia might be one of the series' more inconsistent topics since it has been shown that some characters are not affected by the mechanics of their powers while others do. There is the aforementioned example of Dabi and his fire abilities while there is also the case of Izuku "Deku" Midoriya, who had to train for two years to get used to One For All.

Much like Dabi, his father Endeavor had a lesser toll on his body with his fire Quirk, but could get very heated if he exerted himself too much. Therefore, there was never a real metric or explanation as to why some people are affected greatly by their powers and others don't, although the most logical answer would be because of their biology.

Final thoughts

Shigaraki's Quirk was one of the most important in My Hero Academia in terms of plot revelance because of his origin story but was also explored in terms of his mechanics. This would have been interesting to determine if Monoma had copied his Quirk, but author Kohei Horikoshi didn't take that direction.

Related articles:

Edited by Madhur Dave