Highlights
- My Hero Academia has the highest number of characters with superpowers, called quirks, compared to other Shonen series.
- Suneater's quirk, Manifest, allows him to manifest any part of the things he consumes, giving him versatile powers.
- While Suneater's quirk is powerful, it has drawbacks such as requiring preparation time and not being permanent.
Compared to other Shonen series that revolved around superpowers or special abilities, My Hero Academia definitely has the highest number of characters that possess superpowers. After all, the overwhelming majority of the people in the world of My Hero Academia, heroes or not, have special abilities called quirks. Thanks to this, there is a huge selection of powers that appear throughout the series.
While there are some amazing quirks like Shouto Todoroki’s Half-Cold Half-Hot or Kai Chisaki’s Overhaul, there are also some strange ones like Minoru Mineta’s Pop Off Quirk or Edgeshot’s Foldabody. However, the strongest one of them all has to be a quirk that belongs to a hero named Suneater, which is called Manifest. So let’s use this chance to talk about the true nature of this quirk, how Suneater uses it in a fight, and what are some of its drawbacks.
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Suneater's Quirk: Manifest
Tamaki Amajiki, better known by his hero name “Suneater”, is a third-year student at UA High School. Together with Mirio Togata and Nejire Hado, they are considered the Big 3 of UA High. As mentioned earlier, he possesses a quirk known as Manifest. This quirk allows Tamaki to manifest any part of the things that he consumes. For example, if he eats a fried chicken, then Tamaki will be able to turn his feet into chicken’s talons or grow a wing on his back.
With Manifest, Tamaki can turn any part of his body into any part of the ingredients that he consumes. Furthermore, he can freely manipulate the size and the strength of those manifested parts. That means even if he just consumes a tiny chicken wing, Manifest allows him to create a big pair of wings on his back. Likewise, he can also use the strength of the chicken’s talons to subdue his opponents.
Thanks to years of rigorous training, Tamaki can Manifest multiple parts at the same time. He can either turn different parts of his limbs into different parts of the ingredients that he has just consumed, or he can also combine them all to create hybrid limbs that focus on certain attributes, such as strength, durability, speed, and many others. As if that’s not strangely fascinating enough, Tamaki can also consume objects generated by his enemy’s quirks, such as crystals, and manifest them in any part of his body. That’s why, despite its strange nature, Manifest is a truly versatile quirk.
The Way Suneater Uses Manifest in Battle Really Stands Out
Suneater always uses multiple manifestations during a fight. The most common combination that he would use is turning his left hand into octopus tentacles, his right hand into a clam, and his feet into chicken’s talons. This combination allows much greater flexibility during a real fight.
In most cases, Suneater uses the tentacle hand as a mid-range weapon to subdue or bind the opponent. The hard clam can be used both as a shield and also as a weapon to knock people out. The talon feet can restrict the opponent’s movement, knock them out, or even work as a close-range weapon that can provide piercing or slashing attacks.
This combination is more than enough to take down most villains. However, when the enemy proves to be stronger than expected, Suneater can consume other food or objects to manifest other kinds of weapons. If that’s not enough, he can also combine all the manifestations into a single weapon, a technique that he called Vast Hybrid. These are some of the combinations that have appeared in the story thus far:
- Kraken: Suneater manifests huge tentacles on both arms and coats each one with hardened crab shells. The combination of the tentacles’ fluid movements and the hard shells will easily knock multiple opponents around him in a matter of seconds.
- Centaur: Suneater turns his lower body into that of a horse and both of his arms into multiple stalks with hardened pineapples at the end of each stalk. This combination makes him look like the centaur from Greek mythology who whips multiple flails to crush nearby enemies.
- Plasma Cannon: Suneater combines more than ten different manifestations to create a giant plasma cannon and imbues it with Nejire’s spiral energy. The resulting blast can destroy anything to smithereens.
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There Are Some Major Drawbacks to Manifest
Suneater can manifest foods or objects that he has consumed to any part of his body. Since he can create multiple manifestations at the same time, there’s no limit to the variety and intensity of manifested powers that Suneater can produce. However, this also presents two major drawbacks to him.
The first drawback is that Suneater requires some hefty preparation time. After all, he needs to eat a considerable amount of food made from different ingredients before the fight. Because there’s realistically no time to consume different kinds of dishes in the heat of a battle. So he usually prepares a hearty meal in the morning from the ingredients that he thinks will be useful for the battle that may ensue throughout the day.
The second major drawback is the fact that these manifestations are not permanent. Suneater can continue to manifest what he consumes as long as the foods/objects are still within his digestive system. Once those foods are fully digested, he won’t be able to manifest it anymore. A meal usually lasts for about a day, so a drawn-out fight that takes longer than that will be extremely disadvantageous for Suneater.
To counter these drawbacks, Suneater always has something to eat wherever he goes. Moreover, he also trains every day to increase the duration of his manifestation. Considering that he is still far from his prime, it’s safe to assume that he will be able to overcome these limitations in the near future. While it’s true that his quirk is incredibly strange to behold, it doesn’t change the fact that it is one of the most versatile and powerful quirks in the series.
My Hero Academia is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
