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Tomura Shigaraki (in Japanese: 信楽 戸村, Shigaraki Tomura), formerly known as Tenko Shimura (志村てん子, Shimura Tenko), is the main antagonist of the My Hero Academia franchise. He is the archenemy of Izuku Midoriya.
He is the leader of the League of Villains and grand commander of the Paranormal Liberation Front whose overall goal is to become Japan's next greatest villain and destroy everything or anyone who gets in his way. At the start of the series, Tomura has no clear conviction and relies on All For One to provide every resource he requires. His initial objective was to destroy the society of heroes, specifically All Might, for whom he held great hatred for.
Ever since All For One's imprisonment however, Tomura has slowly begun to learn and develop into a more independent villain and formed the conviction to destroy everything he despises, ultimately wanting to bring down the world as a whole. Upon defeating Re-Destro and his Meta Liberation Army, Re-Destro submitted to his commands and made Tomura the grand commander of the Paranormal Liberation Front.
Why He Rocks
- He's an example of a villain with a tragic past done right, as in his childhood (born as Tenko Shimura) he always wanted to be a hero but his father Kotaro often abused him whenever he mentions the word "Heroes", later one day he reads a letter from his late Grandmother, Nana Shimura (who was a hero) to his dad, meanwhile Kotaro find it and abuses him which leads to Tenko suddenly admitting to hating everyone and awakening his quirk which accidentally kills his family (Although he did killed his dad on purpose), and after being abandoned he was later picked up by All for One.
- His backstory of accidentally killing his family, but intentionally murdering his father for all his abuse is heartbreaking due to being filled with so much hate for a young age. Right when Tenko was all alone with no home or family, no one helped him and ignored him right when he needed a hero the most in a superhero society, which is where he gets the motivation to destroy hero society and expose its corruption.
- Unlike most villains whose motives are set in stone from the get-go, Shigaraki progressively learns from his mistakes from failing to kill All Might, and recruiting Stain from joining the League of Villains, his encounter with Izuku and forcibly makes him give advice on how to be a better villain leader and he realizes his true motive and ideology to not only destroy All Might, but his legacy and everything he stands for, which is realistic development, and a refreshing take on a villain.
- Despite him being a villain he gets major Character development in the My Villain Academia arc going from a stereotypical villain in the USJ arc where he wanted to kill All Might to destroy society all together rather than reshape it.
- He is a well-written dark parallel to Izuku Midoriya:
- Izuku is an aspiring hero-in-training under the guidance of All Might to become the next symbol of peace while Tomura is an aspiring villain training under All For One to become the next symbol of evil.
- When they both overexert their quirks, their limbs will break.
- Both Kōki Uchiyama (Japanese) and Eric Vale (English) did great jobs voicing him.
- As he improved himself throughout the story, he became a more menacing, dangerous and deadlier villain than he was before.
- His quotes such as:
- "Heroes and villains both thrive on violence, but we're still categorized. You're good, you're evil. That's how it is!! Symbol of peace? Hah!! In the end you're just a tool for violence, made to keep us down! And violence only breeds more violence."
- "It's all because of All Might!"
- "Destruction is all that awaits you."
- As each arc progress he improves himself as a villain.
- His decay quirk is pretty unique.
- He is one of the popular villains in the My Hero Academia Community, along with Dabi and Stain.
Bad Qualities
- He can be a sore loser in the earlier seasons, after Nomu's defeat by All Might, Shigaraki claims that he cheated which led to All Might calling Shigaraki a man child.
- As previously mentioned he was basically a generic villain prior to the My Villain Academia arc.
- He's a bit of a hypocrite as he criticizes heroes for committing violence yet does the same thing.
Trivia
- Tomura was initially designed to be creepier, having empty, black eyes and mouth. Aside from those specific features, this design was not very different from his final one. His prototype codename was Sazanka (沙サ惨ザン禍カ? lit. "Sand Calamity").
- Tomura's surname contains the kanji for "death" (死 shi?), "handle, grip" (柄 gara?) and "tree" (木 ki?), and his first name contains "funerals" (弔 tomura?). Additionally, his birth name contains the kanji for "intention" (志 shi?), "village" (村 mura?), "revolve" (転 ten?) and "arc" (弧 ko?).
- He share the same Japanese voice actor as Toge Inumaki and Izumi Miyamura (Koki Uchiyama).
- Tomura's rankings in the Popularity Polls are as follows:
- Tomura ranked 19th in the First Popularity Poll.
- Ranked 16th in the Second Popularity Poll
- Ranked 15th in the Third Popularity Poll.
- Ranked 24th in the Fourth Popularity Poll.
- Ranked 6th place in the Fifth Popularity Poll.
- Ranked 10th place in the Sixth Popularity Poll.
- Horikoshi revealed that he found drawing inexpressive hands extremely difficult. He stated that he was on the verge of tears every week due to having to draw a particular character which we are left to assume is Tomura.
- Horikoshi revealed that Tomura is based on the protagonist of his first oneshot from 2007 titled “Tenko”, starring the eponymous boy during war time in feudal Japan.
- Both share the same first name (Tomura's real name is Tenko Shimura).
- Both share the same power to disintegrate anything they touch with their hands.
- Both are orphans, having accidentally killed loved ones with their powers.
- Both are driven by a deep hate for the world and a very intense goal to destroy something in it. For Tomura, it's All Might and the world of heroes, and for Tenko, he wants to destroy all the swords in the world.
- The design and appearance of Tomura when he is young is similar to Tenko's, only with shorter hair.
- He shares his birthday with Naomasa Tsukauchi, Chiyo Shuzenji and Kesagiriman.
- The severed hands that Tomura wears across his body are remnants of the first people he ever killed.
- The hands around his neck came from his mother.
- The hands on his upper arms came from his maternal grandfather.
- The hands on his elbows came from his maternal grandmother.
- The hands on his wrists came from his older sister.
- The hands on his shoulders and sides came from two random men who made Tomura angry.
- The hand that he wears on his face came from his father.
- The hand he wears on the back of his head is a replacement given to him by All For One after he used his Quirk to destroy his father's other hand, later to be revealed as Nana's.
- Tomura can be considered as a dark parallel to Izuku Midoriya. Although My Hero Academia tells the story of how Izuku became the greatest hero, it also focuses on how Tomura will possibly become the greatest villain. Like Izuku, Tomura starts off being rather naïve and insecure of his position and power due to his tragic backstory, but he gradually begins to become more mature and confident as the story continues.
- Tomura is one of the few people who are revealed to be descendants of one of the 3 most infamous villains: All For One, Destro, and Oji Harima. In Tomura's case, he is the successor of All For One.
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