With 100+ characters in My Hero Academia, it’s no surprise that not all of them can have amazing, enviable quirks. In fact, with Horikoshi thinking of so many quirks over the course of the series, some of them are downright strange or off-putting. Maybe he ran out of ideas when resorting to some of these quirks, once he exhausted the usual list of superpowers.
Related
8 Anime Protagonists With The Most Unique Powers
From healing internal wounds just by breathing to controlling gravity, space, and time, here are the anime protagonists with the most unique powers.
These are the quirks that made us pause, take notice, and then go “Huh, that’s a weird one.” In a world of talking lizard people, cat-headed police officers wearing bells, and students who can turn people into meatballs, that’s quite the feat.
9 High Specs
Nezu
The quirk itself, which is an extremely high level of intelligence, isn’t what makes this quirk so bizarre. It’s that it’s an animal who has it. With this quirk, the president of UA, Nezu, can live as a “normal person” in a human society, and is, in fact, even smarter than those around him.
What it means that animals are capable of having quirks isn’t explored in the course of the story, but it does have troubling implications. After all, if animals can have quirks, can any living thing have a quirk? Has anyone looked into whether or not Kamui Woods is actually a sentient tree?
8 Shame
Teruo Hazukashi
A worse version of Rikiya Yotsubashi’s stress quirk, Hazukashi’s shame quirk gives him power based on how embarrassed he is. And while stress certainly isn’t good for your body, at least it can come off as dignified. But to use this quirk, we see Hazukashi stripping naked in public before Hawks takes him out.
It would suck to have a quirk that was directly correlated to embarrassing yourself in public, and it makes us wonder if this was the first time he’d ever tried using it. Or, at least, what already humiliating situation he discovered he had it during.
7 Telescopic
Tatami Nakagame
Picture the way a telescope can be pushed into itself, smaller and smaller cylinders stacking into a larger one, and you’ll have a picture of what this quirk does. Tatami can pull her head, body, and limbs into herself instantaneously, though the process of unfolding again takes a little longer.
Related
10 Most Iconic Anime Battles
From iconic scenes to beautiful animation and the edge-of-your-seat feeling you get, here are the best
Not only is this a strange quirk, but it’s difficult to see where it would be useful, even with the show giving us some examples. At best, she could probably hide herself in small spaces or dodge quickly. It’s no wonder she didn’t get into UA, but she must be pretty creative about it to be in a hero program at all.
6 Pop Off
Minoru Mineta
A member of class 1-A, Minoru’s quirk grows purple balls out of his head, which are so sticky they hold to any surface excluding Minoru himself. So, most of the strategy around this quirk involves pulling off sticky balls made of the (flesh?) of the wielder and throwing them at other people.
Even if this quirk can be versatile, strong enough to hold all sorts of villains in place, it doesn’t make it any less strange to be attacked by what looks like a child in a diaper, only to then be hit with sticky blobs he pulls off his head, possibly leading to him bleeding if overused.
5 Tape
Sero Hanta
Certainly not one of the best quirks in the series, Hanta’s tape ability lets him shoot tape out of his tape dispenser-shaped elbows, perhaps still warm from his body heat. In this case, it’s very easy to see the inspiration behind the quirk, one that was probably sitting next to Horikoshi when he designed Hanta.
While Hanta uses his quirk well, emulating Spiderman with his midair acrobatics and using it to catch people and debris, it remains very silly to be themed after a basic office supply. He has a sense of humor about this though, naming himself Cellophane and theming his helmet and shoulder pads off a tape dispenser.
4 Blade-Tooth
Moonfish
With a very memorable, and creepy, costume that leaves his mouth exposed, Moonfish is a villain with a quirk that lets him lengthen, sharpen, and manipulate all of his teeth. There doesn’t seem to be a limit on this tooth-based ability, either, as he’s able to project them long distances and use them to manipulate his otherwise bound body.
It’s unclear if this quirk has the side effect of making him crave flesh, or if that’s just something he’s into independently. At the very least, he’s an intimidating villain to look at, and one of the best of the lower-tier villains in the show for pure fear factor alone.
3 Cemedine
Kojiro Bondo
A student in UA’s class 1-B, Bondo’s quirk lets him spray a sticky glue that he has control over the drying speed of. While this isn’t the only sticky quirk, or the only attachment quirk, or the only liquid quirk, it’s unfortunate for Kojiro that his glue can only be shot out of the strange holes in his face.
Related
8 Best Shounen Anime Protagonists
From Ryuko to Goku, here are the best protagonists in shounen anime!
Not only does this seem like a quirk that shouldn’t have gotten him into UA, but it’s also combined with a strange appearance that leaves him a memorable (but not powerful) addition to 1-B. At the very least, it’s probably useful for crowd control.
2 Whiteline
Ending
An extremely specific quirk, Whiteline allows Ending to control any lane lines that have been painted on the road. Not control all paint; the quirk only controls lane lines.
What would Ending have done before the invention of lane lines? Would he think he was quirkless? How did he figure out he could control lane lines at all, was he drawn to them? Unfortunately for him, the answers to all of these questions promise to be ridiculous, and it’s no wonder he never made it as a villain.
1 Trap Flex
Habit Headgear
Though he’s an incredibly minor character, we do see Habit Headgear and his powerful trapezius multiple times. Both times we see his quirk in use: he can flex his trapezius to inhuman degrees, using them to protect his head.
Unsurprisingly, this villain is easily dispatched when he shows up, as the boost given to him by his larger size (somehow related to this trapezius ability) isn’t any match for a real pro hero. Hopefully, he doesn’t know that Muscular, a better and more intimidating version of his D-tier villainy, exists, or he might give up altogether.
Leave a Reply