My Hero Academia is a shonen superhero anime that has a plethora of sympathetic villains. As most fans will attest, there are only a small handful of characters that can be considered pure evil on the show. Most of the villains have something that makes the audience like them: a quirk, a personality, or a backstory.
Whether it’s the abuse Dabi endured that made him who he is, Tomura killing his entire family, or the magnitude of bad luck that Twice ran into, each of the villains encourages some form of pity from the audience. This list will showcase 10 of My Hero Academia’s most sympathetic villains.
Disclaimer: This article will contain My Hero Academia spoilers, up to and including the latest manga chapter 391 and My Vigilante Academia as well. The opinions included are strictly those of the author.
Twice, Toga, and 8 more My Hero Academia villains tug at the audience’s heartstrings
1) Magne (Kenji Hikiishi)
Starting off with the first transgender character in My Hero Academia, the other being Tiger of the Wild, Wild Pussycats, and unfortunately, the first character to die onscreen. Magne was a career criminal. She had already committed nine armed robberies, three murders, and twenty-nine attempted murders when she premiered.
What made her sympathetic was that she was in the League of Villains and fighting to live in a world that accepted her for who she was. Fighting against systemic bigotry is a sympathetic goal, no matter who goes for it. In addition, she was one who refused to bow to Yakuza trash like the Shie Hassaikai.
Although she resisted Overhaul, she was no match for him and was killed for her defiance. The League of Villains rendering Overhaul Quirkless by managing to disintegrate both of his arms was considered karmic justice.
2) Spinner (Shuichi Iguchi)
Another victim of societal discrimination and arguably one of the last villains to have any kind of justifiable point about society, Spinner has been with the League of Villains since their first appearance in the Hero Training Camp arc in My Hero Academia.
His entire motive was that society had discriminated against heteromorphs; he was a victim of that and was following Stain’s ideology of the Heroes and the Hero Society being corrupt. The only reason Spinner stuck around after the Paranormal Liberation War was out of support for Tomura and the “better world”they would build.
For that misplaced loyalty, Spinner got used as a pawn in All for One’s schemes by making him into a massive, hulking, and mindless kaiju. Spinner lost any credibility with the heteromorph army he had by killing doctors and nurses who were trying to save patients from his rampage, freeing Kurogiri but getting captured.
3) Kurogiri (Oboro Shirakumo)
Getting forcibly transformed into a Nomu is a horrible fate, especially when you are clinically dead. That’s what happened to Oboro Shirakumo, the hero in training formerly known as Loud Cloud. It happened in the My Hero Academia Vigilantes manga, where Oboro died saving a bunch of kids from a villain.
All for One stole Oboro’s body and gave the corpse to Doctor Kyudai Garaki, who then resurrected and brainwashed Oboro into becoming the Nomu Kurogiri. Kurogiri was Tomura Shigaraki’s main bodyguard for years, likewise being All for One’s bodyguard. Oboro’s personality began awakening during the Paranormal Liberation War.
In the Final War arc, Kurogiri was reawakened but kept destabilizing, glitching, and disobeying All for One. As of now, he has saved his former friends President Mic and Aizawa and teleported them and himself to an unknown location. Time will tell what becomes of him.
4) Tomura Shigaraki (Tenko Shimura)
Killing your family with your quirk manifesting is bound to drive anyone insane. Doing so when you’re barely a child doubles that trauma and pain. Nobody helping you either, despite you needing it, is another reason why main My Hero Academia villain Tomura Shigaraki comes to be on this list.
The series makes it a point to showcase just how badly Shigaraki was molded and groomed by All for One to be his instrument of destruction by showing his downward spiral with his quirk from childhood to adulthood. His actions and number of kills in the name of destroying the world are catastrophic in nature.
That said, he finally realized just how much All for One was using him when he was possessed and used like a marionette during My Hero Academia’s Paranormal Liberation War. After finally breaking free in the Final War arc, Tomura and Izuku Midoriya have started their final showdown.
5) Dabi (Toya Todoroki)
The flames of hatred blazed like an inferno inside Toya Todoroki during his training with his father, Enji Todoroki, aka the Number 2 Pro Hero Endeavor. Endeavor’s demands placed upon him were far too much, and Toya received far too little help from the family to cope. He also believed Shoto meant he’d be cast aside.
When Toya immolated himself by accident, he thought he was dead. He was revived after three years by All for One, only to find that his family had already moved on. He rechristened himself Dabi and kept the hatred burning. This hatred forms his motivation.
The abuse he went through absolutely makes him sympathetic. His insane actions that followed, including mass murder and not caring about his teammates, ultimately landed him in the villain role. As of now in the My Hero Academia manga, Dabi is barely alive after nearly nuking the entire battlefield.
6) Twice (Jin Bubaigawara)
Onto a more pitiable case, arguably the most if some My Hero Academia fans have anything to say about it, is Twice. He was a victim of bad luck, from being orphaned as a kid by a villain attack to a motorcycle accident that caused his firing and eviction, which wasn’t even his fault.
When his Quirk, Double, manifested, he at first used it to help him make friends. Then he was forced into using it for armed robbery. Then it turned into murder and a psychotic break that almost had all of them kill each other. Twice’s whole thing was that he felt the League of Villains was the only place that really accepted him.
So, imagine how that felt when Hawks infiltrated the League of Villains and tried to befriend Twice, only to get caught up in his mission. Twice died, but later had his blood used by Toga for a new Sad Man Parade. His death was further used as propaganda by Dabi to ensure the downfall of the Hero Society.
7) Himiko Toga
A controversial example, depending on which My Hero Academia fan views the series, Himiko Toga is the youngest member of the League of Villains at only 17 as of the current time. Toga’s sympathy started out in her backstory, where she started showing an interest in blood as a child.
The sympathy evoked for Toga comes in two forms:
- Her backstory, wherein she was a kid forced to repress herself and never actually received any real therapeutic help or sympathy from her parents or society. This resulted in her snapping and her own parents calling her a demon after she assaulted a classmate.
- Her friendship with Twice further broke her sanity when he died, causing her to lash out at Ochaco and others for his death. Likewise, nobody except maybe Ochaco, Tsuyu, and Izuku put any effort into trying to communicate with or understand her. Even Dabi helped by burning her parents home down.
As of now, Toga is still going with the Sad Man Parade in My Hero Academia’s Final War. Fully believing the heroes only think of themselves and the people they save as “real people”, she and Ochaco are poised to fight. Though Toga appears to be breaking down, many are worried she might kill Ochaco in this fight.
8) Lady Nagant (Kaina Tsutsumi)
Skill and precision with firearms can still be heroic, as many gun-using heroes show. Even in My Hero Academia, characters like Snipe and others use guns to take down villains. The problem with Lady Nagant, then, is how she was used by the Hero Public Safety Commission.
She was used as an assassin, killing villains and corrupt heroes without hesitation. The problem was that this took a toll on her psyche, resulting in her simply questioning the then-President about the act or her orders. The President then threatened to kill her, which made her kill him. Lady Nagant was sentenced to Tartarus to prevent her execution and make her a scapegoat.
During the Dark Hero Arc, she nearly captured Deku but was defeated and nearly killed when All for One betrayed her. During the Final War, she shot Tomura’s arms off and allowed Deku a chance to recover while saving many lives.
9) La Brava and Gentle (Danjuro Tobita and Manami Aiba)
An odd duo of thieves, La Brava and Gentle Criminal, were both given raw deals in their youth. Gentle especially wanted to become a hero but had terrible grades and failed the Provisional Hero License Exam four times. Plus, he tried doing a good deed but unfortunately ended up accidentally causing a man to hit the ground when trying to save him from falling.
Gentle was cast out of society after that: he was expelled from school, his parents landed in debt, and he was disowned by his family. La Brava had her faith in everything crushed when she was rejected by a classmate she liked and was bullied all the way through middle school. The two met after she helped him on one of his heists as a villain.
The two weren’t horrible people to begin with, at least when not compared to others on this list. After surrendering against Deku during My Hero Academia’s U.A. school festival, the two are given chances to change. They proved themselves by saving UA and a ton of civilians during the Final War, via Gentle keeping UA in the air and La Brava keeping Skeptic out of their systems.
10) Destro (Chikara Yotsubashi)
My Hero Academia’s Meta Liberation Army originated from Destro. To some, he was a terrorist who caused havoc and got innocents hurt. To others, he was a maverick whose words should never be forgetten. Whichever he was, Destro’s history absolutely allots him vast degrees of sympathy in My Hero Academia.
Destro was born in a time when meta abilities were strongly opposed. His mother was murdered by more than a few people who saw them as freaks. The government sought to regulate Quirk use, even coming up with the term. Destro believed a controlling system to be antithetical to the idea of metal abilities, arguing that free use of Quirks was a basic human right.
Though Destro felt his cause was righteous, he was defeated, and his original Meta Liberation Army was crushed. Although he committed suicide in prison, Destro’s words in his autobiographical book The Meta Liberation War would inspire many, including such people as The Peerless Thief, Oji Harima, Gentle Criminal, and All for One, to follow in his footsteps.
As a closing thought, a brief word on villains in My Hero Academia. Many of the villains, such as those listed here, were driven to their villainy not out of a genuine desire to do evil but by a neglectful public, laws, and citizenry. Truth be told, society was bad before Quirks ever entered the picture in My Hero Academia.
While My Hero Academia’s Pro Heroes and students of the various schools,are portrayed as the good guys and genuinely good people, the fact remains that these sympathetic villains demonstrate how society treats the marginalized and misunderstood.
If any readers have a favorite sympathetic villain that’s absent, such as Stain for example, they can mention them in the comments below.
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