All for One, Your Time is Up!

My Hero Academia Final Season Ep 4 Review

In fiction, there are many different kinds of villains, but a lot of them can be broken up into one of two categories. There are villains who become evil because of things that happened to them, and villains who might have just been born naturally predisposed to evil. In the case of someone like All for One, though, I would say that he was born evil. From the minute he was conceived, he was going to end up being a menace to society for the next century. But despite all his attempts to become the ultimate villain who rules the world from the shadows, All for One’s story is about to come to an end. And I think the way that Horikoshi chooses to end his story is nothing short of poetic.

The First Quirks

At the beginning of My Hero Academia, we got an explanation at how mankind evolved to develop superpowers, or Quirks, as they came to call them. Officially, the first Quirk was the glowing baby in China. However, that was only the first recorded case. In reality, the first people to be born with Quirks might have All for One and his twin brother, Yoichi Shigaraki, as we see in a flashback to their origins.

The world might be comfortable with Quirks by the time of the series, but as this flashback shows, when Quirks first began emerging, the world acted in a very realistic manner. While some reveled in having superpowers, others were afraid and acted accordingly. It’s like looking at how Mutants are viewed in Marvel Comics: some celebrate them, while others fear and hate them. In a way, My Hero Academia is like looking at what the best future for the Marvel Universe could be. However, while many worked to help Quirks become accepted, there were plenty of those whose powers people should’ve been afraid of. And All for One was one such example

All for One was born a jerk!

From the moment All for One was born, he saw himself as better than everyone else alive. To him, everything existed to serve him, and those who wouldn’t would be punished. And despite claiming that he did love his younger brother, it’s clear that what he felt toward Yoichi wasn’t love, but possessiveness. The narrator even says that All for One only saw Yoichi as something that belonged to him. And despite Yoichi trying to steer his brother right, he just kept abusing him and abusing him until he gave him the Quirk that would combine with his to become One for All. Yet as we see through these video journals that Yoichi made, he still thought that his brother could do good.

And you know what? Yoichi was right!

As a Quirk, All for One is not inherently evil. As Yoichi himself points out, that kind of power could help those with unwanted Quirks and give Quirks to those who needed them. All for One could have changed the world for the better, but instead, he only cared about himself. That would lead to his brother’s death, One for All passing onto its second user, Kudo, and All for One devoting his existence to trying to get back what he saw as his. He even went as far as to wipe out the families of One for All’s users, until All Might defeated him. And now, the consequences of his life of sin have finally caught up to him in the form of Bakugo.

Bakugo Ain’t No Side Character!

After All for One first pointed out their resemblance, there was likely a fan theory that Bakugo was a descendant of Kudo, One for All’s second user. Sadly, the manga never confirmed nor denied this, and the anime seems to have taken the same route. In the end, though, I don’t think it matters. If anything, it’s more important that Bakugo isn’t related to Kudo, but is just someone who made it to where he was on his own merits. He’s a guy whose will and determination have driven him to become one of the best of his generation of budding heroes, yet All for One arrogantly considers him as a side character in the story. As we know by now, Bakugo is not a side character. He’s the co-protagonist of the series. And more importantly, he’s smarter than All for One gave him credit for.

Using his sweat as a delayed explosive implanted into the villain’s body was pure genius. It slowed down All for One long enough for Bakugo to get in close and give the Demon Lord one of the greatest beat downs in Shonen history. And the sight of All for One’s stolen Quirks turning on him from within was just the cherry on top. Absolute cinema!

Good Riddance to All for One!

By the time Bakugo is finished, All for One is reduced to being a baby, crawling around, unable to talk, unable to fight. The big bad of My Hero Academia who’s spent a century terrorizing the world with his evil is a helpless baby, unable to stop himself from fading out of existence. It’s the most pathetic that we’ve ever seen him be, and when I read it in the manga, I couldn’t help but feel how incredibly cathartic it was to see him meet his end like this. Even better, it’s fitting that he meets his end at the hands of someone he considered a side character. Like I said before, Bakugo ain’t a side character. He’s got main character energy written all over him, and he earned this win for himself!

The fight is not over yet, though. Izuku still needs to stop Shigaraki, and with everything else taken care of, our focus can fall solely on the clash that we’ve been waiting for. Bakugo already did it, but it’s time for Deku to go beyond, PLUS ULTRA!!!

I Give “Quirk: Explosion” a 5/5

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