Okay, look, if you think MHA’s final showdown setup is as simple as
Izuku vs Tomura
Ochako vs Himiko
Shouto vs Dabi
and idk maybe something like All Might vs AFO and Shouji vs Spinner
I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. And yes, I will be naming names.
(No, I’m not about to tell you to look forward to Katsuki vs Katsuki although that doesn’t mean it’s off the table.)
There has been some weird discourse lately about final battles in MHA that I can’t help but snicker at in an extremely condescending fashion. For whatever reason, the whole “Who is Katsuki Bakugou’s villain counterpart?” debate is back. What’s hilarious about this to me is the manga has been telling us the exact answer for many weeks now pretty blatantly.
I understand why people have missed it. It’s tropes. You’re used to your tropes. If you look back on the shounen manga/anime that serve as MHA’s predecessors, it makes sense for so many people to expect some clear-cut 1v1 final boss action at the end. MHA has to address these tropes to be a proper commentary on the genre, right?
Well, it is, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
To be clear, yes, all the main hero characters in MHA have a villain counterpart, and I shall name them in just a moment. I just have to explain one key point before I do so.
My Hero Academia: Don’t go it alone
One of the major lessons of MHA is the virtue of teamwork. All Might is hailed as the greatest hero and the symbol of peace, but the hubris of his solitary way is what leads to the destruction of hero society in the end. And the story makes it clear what must be done to rebuild a new, better society.
The theme of teamwork, of complementary personalities and strengths coming together to make up for each other’s weaknesses, has always been a long-running undercurrent of the story. It’s made very explicit by the developing friendship between Izuku and Katsuki, but it’s always been there in many ways with many of the friendships showcased in the story.
The point I’m trying to make is: MHA was never going to end with 1v1 battles.
We’re looking at 2v1s.
Uravity and Froppy vs Himiko Toga
Ochako Uraraka’s villain counterpart is Himiko Toga, but Toga is also counterpart to Tsuyu Asui.
I’m not cheating when I write that. I’m deadly serious. Tsuyu isn’t there for show, or to be a sidekick to Ochako. The promise of a 1v1 of Ochako vs Toga was a misdirect.
I won’t waste your time explaining how Toga has been set up as Ochako’s counterpart. The intro of this post should be enough to show that most people expected certain match-ups already. What I needs must explain are the sudden interlopers you all weren’t necessarily expecting, so here goes.
The ways in which Toga has been set up as Tsuyu’s villain counterpart:
Toga wants to live in a world doing whatever she likes. She loves things. She loves people. She does as she sees fit, and that is her “normal.” She is happy for living this way.
Tsuyu says whatever’s on her mind when it hits her, and she cares about her friends, the people she loves. In these ways, she is similar to Toga. But she has also learned to be harsh with people, and she is wary of hurting her loved ones.
Tsuyu respects people’s social and emotional boundaries.
Whereas Toga is not so considerate of others’ feelings.
Tsuyu represents the platonic pillar of emotional support Toga has never been. And Toga’s feelings threaten Tsuyu’s friends (both Izuku and Ochako) as well as herself.
In many ways, Tsuyu is the answer to the question of emotional intimacy Ochako and Toga battle over philosophically throughout the series. She is not there to say “friendship before romance” necessarily. She is just there to show what it means to truly love and support another person in a selfless way.
That is why Tsuyu is set to face Toga.
Shouto and Ingenium vs Dabi
Shouto Todoroki’s villain counterpart is Dabi, but Dabi is also counterpart to Tenya Iida.
Shouto is going into his fight with Dabi as a parallel to the sports festival. He faces the same question: “When is the right time to use maximum firepower?” Initially, this question was explored through Izuku and Katsuki. The question of saving versus winning became the heart of the issue in the sports festival. This is the story’s duality of heroism.
If Dabi represents Shouto’s fight with Katsuki, then who is Shouto’s Izuku?
Tenya Iida has been growing into a hero inspired by Izuku’s example of rescuing others since the entrance exam.
But Tenya couldn’t put that inspiration into practice for a while. He had to get past some of his fixations that led him down a rogue path. And Tenya’s resentment over what happened to his older brother looked something familiar to Shouto.
Not only does Tenya have the same revenge arc as Shouto and Dabi, this arc also doubles as his vigilante arc that Izuku later riffs off of. In many ways, Tenya is the crossover point between Izuku and Shouto.
So yes, the sports festival arc will come back as a parallel in the final battle with Dabi, but the fight with Stain will also be paralleled here. It already has been.
Because Dabi is inspired by Stain.
Without facing off again with Stain directly, Tenya’s best rematch to prove how he has changed must be against Dabi. Tenya’s staunch insistence on prioritizing rescue ever since his fight with Stain leads to this. After all, now that we know Dabi’s backstory, it seems Ingenium has another lost child to reach.
Endeavor and Hawks vs All For One
Stay with me on this one. Enji Todoroki’s villain counterpart is All For One, but AFO is also counterpart to Keigo Takami.
To be clear, I’m not saying AFO doesn’t serve as the villainous counterpart to other characters, such as, let’s say, All Might. But All Might’s partner in this ordeal is Tsukauchi, and his role for once is that of background support. It’s not the same as a showdown (because, well, he already had his showdown with AFO at Kamino and won). His story culminates in passing the torch to the next generation of heroes, so he doesn’t need to jump in and get his hands dirty like he used to. Not for this fight at least.
On the flip-side, I can imagine a lot of people balking at the idea that AFO’s final fight is with Endeavor. But I promise it works a lot better than you think. That said, if you’re someone who is entirely opposed to any form of atonement achieved by Endeavor in MHA…I don’t know what to tell you. The writing has been on the wall for a long time regarding that. I’m not here to tell you what to think, just what I think is about to happen.
Both give up on “reigning supreme” and entrust the future to a successor, but in a weird, vicarious, live-through-them (quite literally in AFO’s case) kind of way. They begin obsessed with strength and quirks and finding the right combination of quirks. And they both have figurative resurrections via AFO’s faceless form as he returns from the brink after six or seven years and Endeavor’s phoenix imagery versus Hood when he is made Number One. And they both have to face the menaces they created in their lust for power via Dabi and Tomura (give it time, AFO will get his comeuppance there). Hell, AFO fashions himself a Demon King while Endeavor runs around playing hero with his “Hellfire” quirk. Starservant even refers to him as an agent of the underworld at some point in the Endeavor Agency Arc. We basically have lords of the dead locked in a brawl here.
Speaking of Dabi, Hawks serves as an interesting parallel there now, given chapter 350. Hawks and Dabi essentially went through coercive programs that made them each a conscripted hero and villain respectively, and their inspiration down both paths was Endeavor. Now you may wonder why that doesn’t make Hawks’ final battle one against Dabi, but think about what I just said. AFO represents the villain version of the HPSC program Hawks was put through as a child. If Hawks is meant to tear down this corrupted society where heroes and villains have become institutions, AFO is an important piece of that tower to topple.
But most importantly, Hawks’ age puts him awkwardly in-between the primary generations of professional heroes and hero students we see in the story. Endeavor and Hawks are both the same generation and different generations at the same time. AFO, the villain who has inserted himself into every generation in an effort to live forever, violates the order of life and spits in the face of the story’s themes of legacy merely by existing. If AFO is going to fall, it will be at the hands of multiple generations, not just “the next one.”
Deku and Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight vs Tomura Shigaraki
Finally, Izuku Midoriya’s villain counterpart is Tomura Shigaraki, but Tomura is also counterpart to Katsuki Bakugou.
Honestly, I feel like I don’t need to go into this. If you’re still not convinced the villains serve as counterparts to at least two heroes each, I don’t think you’re here to be convinced. Because if any MHA villain has two hero counterparts, it’s Mr. Butterfly Man Tomura Shigaraki.
This was a planned match-up by the heroes from the beginning. It’s only the most foreshadowed fight in the whole damn series. All you have to do is consider every encounter these three have had in any combination and you’ll realize it’s true. Even chronic fourth-wall-breaker Katsuki spells it out for us at one point.
It’s just not allowed to be that straightforward because…come on, you know it’s the main event. They gotta drag it out so it’s the last thing that happens and throws a bunch of neat plot twists at us.
Whatever it turns out to be, you know it’s all gonna come back to the ways in which these three are all the same person and all the most opposite people who ever lived. Two sides of the same coin. Pure good and pure evil. Victory and self-sacrifice. Symbols of peace and fear. Aspiring, misguided heroes and lost, unsavable victims. Little baby boy men. Cool shit cool shit.
I love all the villains in MHA, like Shigaraki, All For One, Kurogiri, Toga, Spinner, Mr. Compress, and… [looks at smudged writing on hand]Nega-Kacchan.
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