My Hero Academia 235-238 Review: Decay: Year Zero

My Hero Academia, Chapter 235-236: Shimura Tenko: The Origin; Chapter 237: Shigaraki Tomura: The Origin; Chapter 238: Liberation

Well, shit, this was supposed to go up a couple of weeks ago, but apparently there was a bit of a mix-up with my date schedule system.

And we continue with one of the more... hard-to-read two-parter of My Hero Academia. You'd think years of being a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fan would make me be somewhat numb to graphic dog deaths in manga, but nope, it never gets any less comfortable. Even moreso in this case when the dog death was completely accidental but no less brutal. 

I do really love the little running theme of the chapter titles, too, with 235 and 236 being titled "Shimura Tenko: The Origin" while 237 is "Shigaraki Tomura: The Origin". Shedding off your identity for a new one is another very superhero topic, and I definitely approve how it's utilized here. 235 starts off with Shigaraki fighting against Re-Destro and his massive rage-muscle-knight-man form, and, again, while conceptually Re-Destro is a pretty interesting character, I do feel like the author didn't give us too much in terms of personality, because the true focus of this arc is Shigaraki's backstory. Shigaraki's kinda-sorta portrayed as a nihilist in the early parts of the chapter, talking about his true desire is to destroy and how he doesn't really give two shits about any future.

And then we get to the flashback. Little Tenko is a boy that liked to play hero, despite seemingly not having powers. And while the parallels to Midoriya is pretty dang obvious, I do like that it doesn't shove it down our throat, unlike certain other shonen mangas. And instead of a well-meaning and supportive mother like Midoriya, Tenko's family is... a lot more abusive. His dad beats him for dreaming to be a hero, and while we don't exactly learn what goes on that causes Tenko's dad to be so disillusioned with his mother Nana (and who knows, it might very well be), it's still no excuse for him to abuse his kid. Leaving him outside of the house and not giving him dinner until he apologizes... yeah, he's a dick.

We also get a bunch of showcases that Tenko keeps scratching his face because he's apparently allergic to something, but as readers we know it's just an early manifestation of his Decay quirk... and the fact that it only shows up when he's at home, and the implication that it's the stress of the pressure his family's putting on him... yeah. And, well, as a young five-year-old child, being basically denied his dream by everyone around him, while being a hero and helping other kids is something that brought Tenko joy and validation... I do also like the acknowledgement, that Tenko's mother and grandparents are trying to comfort him, but he sort of tunes the grandparents out. The only one that gives Tenko any sort of validation was his big sister Hana, who found out a picture of their grandmother Nana, and basically gave Tenko words of encouragement that, yeah, they could totally be heroes, right?

Except Tenko's shitty dad goes berserk and on a warpath when he finds out that Tenko saw the picture, and this is where any goodwill or sympathy I might have for him disappears. Sure, he might have legitimate reasons for not wanting Tenko to be a hero. They might even be good reasons, too! But whatever they are, it does not excuse Mr. Shitbag Dad from beating the shit out of Tenko and scaring the hell out of the rest of his family. It's an ugly situation for everyone involved, with Hana (who's also a scared child) panicking and yelling that she only showed the photograph because Tenko wanted to. "Children can be surprisingly self-centered and straightforward" indeed.

And, well, Tenko being absolutely scared when, in his little five-year-old brain, everyone there is just watching and not helping him... yeah. All the while, Tenko's dad is just talking shit about how Nana was "a demon that threw away her own children", and how heroes "hurt their own family for the sake of helping others"... juxtaposed with Tenko's dad doing arguably worse to his kid. I'm not sure if it's the full picture or not, but the later scene of Tenko's dad reminiscing about Nana who left him to fight bad guys... again, childhood abandonment is another tricky subject, and we could go on a long, long tangent on whether sacrificing one's family for the greater good is a heroic thing to do. And I don't even begrudge Tenko's father for hating his mother when he was a kid. But to beat up your own son over it? Yeah.

And as Tenko cries outside his house at night while his parents argue, his only friend is the absolutely good boy Mon-chan, who is just comforting him because Mon-chan is a good boy... and, of course, as Tenko mumbles about how he hates everyone, his Quirk activates, and at the beginning of chapter 236 Mon-chan shivers and dies in a puddle of terrifying gore. Poor doggy!

And it's kind of a shame, too, because if Tenko hasn't been traumatized so much, if he didn't have such a huge reaction to this last piece of abuse, things might work out. Tenko's mother is putting her foot down. Hana is about to apologize. Although, then again, for all I know, in this abusive family, this "might work out" could've been a scene that played over and over again in the past. Tenko, desperate and not sure what's going on, ends up grabbing the running-away Hana, disintegrating her as well. And then it's his mother and grandparents, as Tenko desperately reaches for the ground and causes a massive disintegration wave.

I do really like the sheer ambiguity of it all. This is a messy situation with emotions flaring everywhere. Confusion, anger, fear, hatred... and while the artwork and the scenes shown to us does lead me into seeing Tenko as someone who's afraid and just not comprehending what he's doing, Adult Shigaraki's monologue does lend another interpretation -- at the very least, when little Tenko unleashed the wave that took out his mother and grandparents, whether consciously or subconsciously, he "understood it", that all the little things, all the times that the other members of his family took his father's side and only told him to stop crying... they all added up.

And, of course, we get the amazing and horrifically drawn scene of Tenko's mother disintegrating in one last attempt to embrace him, followed by Tenko eventually facing off against his father, who is the only person in this story that he unambiguously attacked with the intent to kill. Your mileage may vary on how much of the previous events are, and I don't think Tenko/Shigaraki himself knows, but he definitely grew completely psychotic when he attacked his father, jumping, touching his face and shouting DIE DIE DIE DIE. And we get that final scene of Tenko standing like a crazed ghoul above the ruined house.

A very sympathetic backstory for sure, and it sparked a whole lot of debate online about whether this makes Shigaraki redeemable or not... and I dunno. Let events play out, y'know? Not every villain has to go through the Naruto/Fairy Tail method of being redeemed, and certainly not every sympathetic villain has to be redeemed. I honestly could go on and on in discussing this potential topic and just how people are viewing Shigaraki in light of this story, but I'm not going to. This is an amazing backstory, and the vagueness on just how deliberate Tenko is when he snapped in that house is part of what makes Shigaraki end up going from "some emo dude that got manipulated by All For One" into a character with a genuinely interesting backstory.

237 starts off with Tenko wandering around the streets, with people not really helping him while he's sort of desperate for help. And the artwork is amazing at making little Tenko look so fucking creepy with those eyes and smile. Tenko also sort of twists it into his own depiction of the world, because, y'know, self-centered kid and everything, that it ends up being kind of a slight criticism on the hero society. Of course, it's All For One that ends up lending Tenko a hand, and... well, All For One ends up becoming kind of a dark mentor that twists all the conflicting emotions in Tenko's heart and basically turns him even more evil.

And I do like it, y'know? Sure, Tenko did a pretty horrifying thing throughout 235-236, but he could've had therapy or a lot of help at this point, perhaps, since arguably, the people he deliberately murdered was his abusive father, and one could argue that the rest of his family died due to an accidental activation of his quirk, something that likewise happened to Eri's parents. But, of course, he ends up meeting All For One, who ends up telling him to basically 'feed' the itch and not to let himself be held back by all these morals and ethics, and All For One tells Tenko to basically do whatever you want. Which, in the case of this chapter, to beat up the two random punks who conveniently kicked him around earlier.


And it's All For One that ends up taking the hands from the bodies recovered from Tenko's house and crafted the creepy handy-man look, in order to make Tenko remember about the memories of his family. I'm definitely not a fan of All For One and the doctor's handwave that all the hands are 'restraining' Tenko's emotions and make him sort of block out his backstory, something that honestly is a bit of a complication that really didn't add much to Shigaraki's character. I guess it explains his more man-child qualities during his first couple of appearances? I dunno. Thanks to All For One's many speeches, he's basically kind of an anarchist, he wants to do whatever he wants to do (destroy and kill!) and he doesn't have to feel bad about it. And that's what All For One implanted in him, the fact that "oh, you don't have to feel bad about killing your family. You wanted to." Whatever the truth of the intentions racing through young Tenko's mind, All For One implanted the notion that he knew what he was doing (and, again, arguably, the only one Tenko was trying to kill was douchedad), and as such, why even feel guilt?

We also learn that this was when Tenko got his new name. Shigaraki Tomura, where Tomura means "to mourn", while Shigaraki was All For One's own name.

And we flash-forward to the present day. Gigantomachia is beating the shit out of the random revolutionaries, while Shigaraki breaks apart the hand in his face, noting that "I don't need any of this shit", throwing away his past, I guess?  We get a lot of explosions, and a lot of new power displays from Shigaraki, whose decay powers now can reach from a range. We get a lot of cool splash pages of huge explosions and whatnot, and Re-Destro equips some sort of Iron Man Gundam suit to make him even stronger, but, of course, it's really no use. There's also Geten, the fake Captain Cold. He was kind of pointless, isn't he?

We also get a fun conversation between Doctor and Mr. Compress. Compress wants the Villain Alliance to be evacuated, and after Doctor's hilarious "nah, John will get tonsillitis" non-sequitur of an excuse, it appears that Doctor's intentionally pushing Shigaraki into a position where he will be cornered and lash out.

And that's where the chapter ends, with Re-Destro's stress somehow receding as he accepts his death or something, while Shigaraki basically unlocks a much, much more powerful version of his quirk. And honestly.... I won't lie, I wasn't very invested in the present-day stuff. It's Shigaraki getting a flashback-powerup, breaking through the mental blocks he has on his powers, and just basically doing a darker version of the same sort of 'Plus Ultra' second wind that people like Midoriya, Todoroki or Iida had earlier in the series. And when taken in that regard, it's sort of a climax that isn't super exciting. But I definitely did like learning so much more about Shigaraki's past and backstory. It took a relatively long time, which is perhaps where this "My Villain Academia" arc suffers a bit -- it was paced a bit long, and Re-Destro and company felt like such a non-entity as far as antagonists go. It was still a damn fine read, though, and I really do like that we're actually contextualizing at least half of our recurring villains instead of just making them a bunch of funky collection of character quirks and superpowers. This arc isn't the perfect arc, and one that's proven fairly controversial on the internet, but I'm definitely a huge fan!