The narrative decay of Shigaraki’s quirk
Title is both a bad pun and the way I feel about how the series had progressed in regards to the way Shigaraki’s Decay quirk was handled.
I’m in the rather small minority of fans that actually really disliked the now-canon theory of AFO being the one to give Shigaraki his decay quirk.
My issue boils down to three main dilemmas that are central to a good story. Character development, narrative development, and character agency.
For me, one of the best aspects about Shigaraki was his character development and the way he progressed throughout the series (up until the war arcs). I think it’s reasonable to say that the core of what MHA presented itself as, in the beginning, was the growth of our two main characters. The hero, Izuku, and the villain, Tomura.
Unlike Izuku, Tomura really got only a couple of chapters to shine until the MVA arc. But the way you could see his character development through the few chapters he did have made all of his appearances so good. That’s why I personally love the MVA arc.
Not only do we get into the core of who Tomura is as a person, but we get to see that he isn’t just some emotionless, manipulative villain who treats the league as pawns. He promises not to destroy the things Toga loves, he helps rescue Giran because Giran is important to Twice, and he even remembers Compress’s wish to have sushi. Why? Because he cares about them!
Season/volume one Shigaraki would not have done any of those things. But season five Shigaraki did. That’s whats so important to me. And it’s not like it came out of nowhere. Even during the summer camp arc, he expressed the sentiment that the league members are valuable players and how he hopes they succeed. It’s a natural progression of his character, and a show of how close the league has become.
Another core part of MVA for Tomura was him remembering his past and overcoming it, especially in regards to his quirk. No longer was he the same scared kid who was afraid of his own power. Instead, he was now a leader in his own right, with the same destructive power that killed his family being used to actively help out and make a place for the people he now cared about, the league.
In many ways, Shigaraki made decay his own quirk, something that no one could take away from him.
And the implications of Shigaraki, the grandson of a hero, becoming a villain with his mutated destructive power, were great. It directly tied into one of the newer plot points introduced, which was the Quirk Singularity theory.
While we’re introduced to the concept through Eri, Ujiko and the kids Todoroki and Bakugou face during their hero licensing lessons really hammer down the complications of such a thing happening.
Quirks are getting stronger, stranger, and becoming uncontrollable. Parents can’t handle their dangerous kids anymore. How does society deal with that? What do you do in the face of such a phenomenon?
And in my opinion, if this had really been the case with to Tenko/Tomura, then I think it would’ve been a lot more impactful than AFO just messing around. The reason being that something like this just can’t be stopped or controlled.
Which is also what the story of MHA had been building up to. Tomura’s character had been established as the antithesis to hero society. Nobody helped him! People saw a child covered in blood and refused to offer further help because he looked scary and dangerous.
The grandson of the hero who mentored All Might becoming this insanely dangerous villain, all because civil society ignored him, and because the only person who bothered to reach out to him was also a villain, could have been such an incredible critique on society, and how only the “good ones” are saved.
Except that’s not what happens. Which brings me to my points of narrative development and character agency. The main problems? AFO and Horikoshi’s writing itself.
Just why is AFO involved in so many characters? Seriously, why?
The second I saw Dabi’s chapter, when he wakes up from his coma, I had to take a break and just pause. Because at that point, it had been established that AFO only cared about OFA and his brother. There was literally no reason to go after Touya.
I found the whole “orphanages/seedbeds of hatred to be potential replacements for Shigaraki” to be such a copout. If there really was a concern that something might happen to Tomura, then AFO would have acted concerned!
Instead AFO just sat there, without speaking until feeling the need to speak, when Shigaraki came back from the USJ with several gunshot wounds. Or when Stain straight up had Shigaraki stabbed and pinned to the ground. Even Kurogiri was more concerned than AFO.
Not only is Touya’s story cheapened, it cheapens AFO’s character too. This post is mainly about Tomura, but something that would have made Touya’s story a lot more impactful (for me at least) was if Endeavor had found his body at Sekoto Peak and then kept it a secret from the rest of the family.
Not for anything malicious or whatever, but because of the possibility that Touya would potentially die while in his coma. Him surviving could be explained away by quirk science/medical advancements. Touya, being kept away in a facility for his “own good” with Endeavor not visiting much like how he did not visit Rei, could have been such a great parallel to his mom.
Touya, who upon learning this, escapes from wherever he is kept and then returning home only to see that nothing has changed and then never looking back. Endeavor, being the only one to have known this and keeping it hidden because of not wanting to ruin his reputation/live with the guilt.
Not only would this have shown the darker side of heroics (which is what Endeavor as a character was meant to represent in the first place) but it also would have been incredibly damning if it had reached the public. That would have been such a better handling of Touya’s story, to me at least, but nope. Touya is actually just a pawn in AFO’s master plan.
Even the orphanages AFO/Ujiko kept funded were so bizarre. Replacements for Tomura? Seriously?
They could have very easily been explained as future bodies for nomu or kids Ujiko experimented on for quirk science, but no, that’s not what happened.
Like the Quirk Singularity theory, this plot point is left as a rather looming background decoration that just ends up being ignored. What happened to those kids? What about the Quirk Singularity? No discussion of those things ever again.
The agency and drive of every character is stripped away to present AFO as a mastermind. Which would be fine, if this was meant to be AFO’s story. But this isn’t meant to be AFO’s story. It’s meant to be Shigaraki’s villain story.
Which is me segueing into another topic, which is how Horikoshi has this thing about trying to downplay his abusive male figures, especially when it comes to Endeavor and Shigaraki’s father, which honestly pisses me off.
Unironically writing that AFO convinced Kotaro to be more abusive, as if that somehow makes Shigaraki’s family life less worse, is insane to me. A grown adult should know better than to drag his kids around, scream at them, keep them locked outside while denying them food, and most of all, hitting them so hard they are knocked to the ground from the sheer force behind those hits. Those were choices that Kotaro actively chose to make.
And don’t forget the scene where five year old Tenko had to ask his mother why his father hated him. That’s actually all AFO’s fault.
Again, why I dislike AFO being the one to give Shigaraki his decay quirk. Any and all agency Shigaraki had in his life was near retconned in the end. The critiques his character was meant to represent, the forces that made him the way he is, the dangers of a society that focuses on heroic figures instead of help and change—all gone, because Horikoshi just had to make AFO the ultimate villain.
Even the origin of Shigaraki’s decay quirk was just strange to me. A modified form of Overhaul? Really? AFO had to have a hand in Overhaul’s backstory too?
The problem here lies in the fact that the more Horikoshi tries to expand his worlding building, the smaller and more suffocating his world feels. Everything is connected. All the charcters know each other. No one exists in their own sense of self.
There are many ways to show a character struggling with a lack of agency. This is not one of the ways to do it. Especially not the character who was meant to parallel your MC.
I think what I dislike most about Shigaraki having been given decay is that the had another Quirk that was taken from him. It would have been so easy to have Shigaraki been originally Quirkless.
The parallel with Izuku is right there! Two quirkless boys who wanted to become heroes, with strong powers being given to them, and ultimately becoming heroes in their own way. This could have been such an easy and great similarity to showcase.
Instead, we have Tomura/Tenko being born with a quirk that lets him fly. And not even an established quirk like Air Walk! A quirk given to a hero who became disillusioned with the system, who under AFO’s orders tried to kill Izuku, and in the end had her heart/conscience reach out to by him. Instead, we have a new and unnamed quirk with a narrative importance of zero.
Wow, he had a quirk just like his hero grandma. While AFO took away Shigaraki’s agency in the worst way possible, so did the main storyline itself. What tipped me off to this was the animators portraying pre-decay massacre Tenko with gray eyes.
Like…why? It doesn’t even make sense. Why would Tenko’s eye color have changed when he activated his decay quirk? I can understand his hair changing color due to shock/stress/Marie Antoinette syndrome. But his eyes?
It was obviously done to make Tenko look as similar to Nana Shimura as possible (who doesn’t even care about him in any way and also advocated for killing him, because that became a plot point). His hair, his eyes, even his original quirk.
For some reason, the narrative just can’t let Shigaraki be his own person. As if there is some divide between good and kind and heroic Tenko, and evil Tomura who took over Tenko’s body.
It almost makes me uncomfortable in the sense that this seems to emphasize that yes, your lineage does matter into who you are as a person/who you could have become. Because this is obviously untrue. A character like Tomura just simply cannot be his own person, either by the narrative or by the actions of another.
If I had my way, then Decay would have been Shigaraki’s original quirk, with no interference from AFO whatsoever.
The family massacre would happened, and Tenko would have been walking on the streets, hoping to be saved. AFO would have taken notice (as nice civilian homes don’t just get destroyed), done his research due to the family name (as Shimura is an uncommon surname) and then tracked Tenko down upon realizing he was related to Nana Shimura.
Is AFO still evil and scummy? Yes. Does Shigaraki actually get some agency in what should be his own story? Also yes.
It’s just seriously disappointing to me, that such obvious themes and parallels were being built up in this story, only to just end up being ignored. And it’s a shame, because it’s not like you can really do anything about it either way.
