My Hero Academia has been making its way through its final arc for over 30 chapters now, and there still isn’t even a sign of things slowing down. The heroes and villains have entered into an all out war across several locations, bringing together enemies old and new.
Among the many battles taking place simultaneously in this arc, heroes and villains alike have been pushed past their limits, forcing them to awaken their quirks and reach new heights of power. Some of these have been long hinted-at upgrades, and others fresh surprises. Whatever their origin, these are the most impactful boosts pulled out so far.
8 Monster Spinner
It’s always been known that All for One could give people some of his stored up quirks, but due to the mental penalty more than one quirk usually incurs, he’s never attempted it on his allies. Until now.
In preparation for the final battle, AFO decided to buff up Spinner’s lackluster combat abilities by giving him more quirks. One grew him to a monstrous size, while the other allowed him to grow hardened scales. While this upgrade makes him much more of a physical threat, the loss of brain power it causes ends up removing most of Spinner’s actual character.
7 Koji’s Horns
Koji often gets talked down as one of the more irrelevant members of class 1-A. Truthfully, the series has neglected to give him much to do, but his new powerup is a big boost to his potential as a character and a hero. He developed it in order to save Shoji during the heteremorph battle.
With the growth of his horn, Koji has achieved the ability to control animals without directly speaking to them. This means his commands are now completely unpredictable. This doesn’t put him in the same league as the series’ powerhouses, but does do wonders for his skill set, and the horns also make his design significantly cooler.
6 Shoto’s Phosphor
The potential of Shoto Todoroki’s ‘half-cold/half-hot’ quirk has taken a while to be truly explored. While he’s used each individual side quite well, he’s rarely combined them in significant ways. That all changes with his new power up.
Phosphor is a full combination of Shoto’s 2 sides, using his heart as a conduit to cycle hot and cold blood in unison around his body. Using this, he can unleash ‘cold fire’, which is capable of burning and freezing simultaneously, and even extinguishing anyone else’s fire abilities.
5 Dabi’s Phosphor
Owing to his tenacity as a villain, Dabi was not to be outclassed by Shoto so easily. He has used a few of Endeavour’s own attacks before, but in his battle with Shoto he was able to even copy the phosphor power up.
For Dabi, phosphor is more a way to strengthen and invigorate his flames than combine it with anything else. He manages to use this boost to avoid being frozen by Shoto’s cold fire, keeping him in the fight. It’s unknown just how much phosphor benefits Dabi, but if it’s anything like Shoto, he will likely be far more resistant to temperature-based attacks.
4 Awakened Shigaraki
It feels almost wrong for Shigaraki to have a power up when his quirks are being suppressed. However, it appears that the modifications his body received in order to reach its current state have manifested in unpredicted ways.
Despite having no use of his quirks at the moment, Shigaraki’s body has started to grow and mutate, forming millions of hands and fingers in a globular mass, and even making him a mask of fingers. This has not only made him stronger and more durable, but also allowed him to easily deal with several opponents at once.
3 Boosted Bakugo
Since the beginning of MHA, fans have often wondered why Bakugo’s explosions were limited only to his hands. It was a useful narrative limitation on his abilities, but the potential of letting him detonate his whole body was always lingering in the air.
Due to his training and the stress of fighting Shigaraki, he was finally able to unlock this ability, now being able to detonate sweat all over his body. This should’ve been a triumphant moment, but it was rather short-lived, as he was unceremoniously taken out by Shigaraki immediately afterwards.
2 Gearshift Deku
The reveal of Deku’s multiple quirks was made over 100 chapters ago in the manga, and only recently has the final quirk been fully revealed. The quirk provided to him by One For All’s second user is ‘gearshift’, which allows him to change the velocity of anything he touches.
On one hand this means that when he hits Shigaraki he can send him flying at absurd speeds, but thanks to Deku’s mind for strategy, he can also spontaneously slow and speed himself up to remain unpredictable. This even helps him charge his ‘fa-jin’ quirk, allowing him even more power for his attacks.
1 Prime All For One
While he has his issues as a villain, it’s hard to deny that AFO is a terrifying threat. Just when it seemed like he was on the backburner, he pulls out a reverse-engineered and upgraded deleter bullet, using Eri’s power to begin rewinding his own body.
While this move will eventually kill him, AFO has lived so long that he has a lot of time before he is rewound out of existence. In that time, he has access to his uninjured body, meaning he is in the state he was in when he managed to seriously injure a prime All Might. And with all the quirks he can steal on the battlefield, he could become even more powerful than he ever was.
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