My Hero Academia: New Order’s Limitations, Explained

Key Takeaways

• New Order has a limit – Star and Stripe can only keep two rules active at a time.
• The target’s sense of self must be clear to activate New Order – posing a challenge.
• New Order requires immediate contact – revealing a short-range disadvantage.

My Hero Academia continues to introduce new, all-powerful quirks into the mix as the series progresses in its latter half. The latest addition to My Hero Academia’s quirk lineup is New Order, a god-like quirk possessed by Star and Stripe, America’s No. 1 Hero. With the power to set a rule on any object, whether living or nonliving, Star and Stripe can bend nature itself to her will.

Despite seeming like a broken quirk with little to no counters, New Order still has plenty of limitations and drawbacks, and Star and Stripe’s battle against Shigaraki reveals these weaknesses in detail. Her eventual defeat at the hands of the villain is another testament to the many limitations New Order accompanies. While these drawbacks certainly don’t diminish New Order’s godly nature, they still serve as proof of My Hero Academia’s solid power balancing.

New Order’s Limited Number of Rules

Star and Stripe Can Only Keep Two Rules Active At a Time

The foremost limitation of New Order is its limit on the number of rules Star and Stripe can have active at a given moment. With New Order’s limit of two rules being placed at a time, Star and Stripe is forced to release a previous rule to implement a new one. This drawback severely limits New Order’s applications, since Star and Stripe has one rule perpetually applied on her own body, which essentially grants her superhuman strength.

This limitation became apparent during Star and Stripe’s battle against Shigaraki in My Hero Academia’s season 7. Since she could only apply two rules at a time, she was forced to let go of the lasers pinning Shigaraki down to apply another rule on the missiles aiming for the villain. This split-second opening allowed Shigaraki to use Decay to burrow deep underground, which allowed him to survive the blast of a missile akin to a weapon of mass destruction.

The Target’s Sense of Self Must be Clear to the User

Star and Stripe Must Have a Solid Understanding of the Target’s Identity

For Star and Stripe to use New Order, she must call out the target’s name, be it living or nonliving. The case of human beings is rather complex, as Star and Stripe must have an understanding of the target’s sense of self. This usually entails knowing the target’s name. However, for a person undergoing an identity crisis, such as Tomura Shigaraki, who couldn’t tell his consciousness apart from All For One, New Order ceases to function.

When she calls someone with a sense of self by their name, they have to identify as that person.

This also explains why the effects of New Order are much more potent on inanimate objects, as Star and Stripe’s own understanding of the object’s sense of self is enough for the quirk to activate. However, human beings are complex creatures whose sense of self can be rather intricate to discern, and for those undergoing inner turmoil, New Order’s effects further weaken.

New Order’s Rules Are Not Omnipotent

New Order’s Effects Have a Limit

In theory, New Order seems akin to the power of a god, since nature can and will bend to its rules. However, the events in My Hero Academia have shown that even a godly quirk like New Order has a power cap. Each rule that Star and Stripe places has a limit to which it is effective, and the primary example of this upper threshold is how much she can enhance her own physical strength. While New Order can grant Star and Stripe unprecedented strength that can rival even All Might, it cannot exceed a certain limit.

This limit is dictated by the maximum human potential of a person, since the quirk cannot change a person’s genetic make-up. The very same concept applies to the rest of New Order’s rules, though the limit differs on the target of her rule. If the target is an inanimate object, the potency of New Order’s effects is much greater. The contrary is true for animate objects, more specifically humans, as New Order’s effects greatly diminish on people, whether it’s herself or another person.

Your god-like quirk has rules of its own.

Star and Stripe Must Be In Direct Contact With the Target

New Order might have limitless applications, yet this godly power requires the user to be in immediate contact with the target. This might be a simple task for inanimate objects, though it can put her at a disadvantage when it comes to human beings. This aspect of New Order deems the quirk a short-ranged power, meaning Star and Stripe has to put herself in the line of fire to be able to activate the quirk on a human target.

This drawback proved to be fatal against Star and Stripe’s battle against Shigaraki, as it gave the quirk-stealing villain an opportunity to close the gap and even use Decay. While Star and Stripe’s eventual demise was not a result of this weakness, it still opened up several moments where Shigaraki could have possibly used the proximity to his advantage to Decay the American hero.

My Hero Academia is available to stream on Prime Video.