As strong as some heroes quirks are, these villains have them beat. These have proven to be the best villain quirks.
Next, during the Overhaul Arc, Aizawa introduced the concept of a “Quirk Factor” that directly controls each Quirk. Now, in the upcoming Season 5, some more Quirk Concepts are about to pop up, this time in relation to the villains of the series. So, without going too much into spoilers (hopefully), let’s take the time to look at some of the strongest villain Quirks in the series and rank them.
Updated June 29th, 2021 by Jacob Buchalter: My Hero Academia is still going strong. The anime is in its fifth season and is about to jump right into one of the darkest (but best) arcs in the story, while the manga has revealed a ton about the story as a whole, and has taken some drastic turns. And, along the way, a lot more villains have been introduced, each with their own absurdly powerful abilities. So, let's take another look, pick out the strongest, and rank them here as the most powerful villain Quirks in all of MHA.
The first Quirk up is one held by a villain you probably forgot about, Soramitsu Tabe. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was one of the three villains Suneater went up against in the Shie Hassaikai Raid arc, and all three of them were part of the group's "Eight Bullets". Tabe’s Quirk is called “Food” and it basically means that Tabe can eat anything he wants, seemingly with no repercussions. Sounds simple, right? But, there are three primary factors of this Quirk that make it particularly strong:
It's one of the more vague villain Quirks in MHA, but it's still pretty fearsome.
Next up is another villain Quirk held by someone that was insanely strong, but Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow sort of blew the guy away before he could show his Quirk off to the fullest. It's Blade-Tooth, the Quirk used by Moonfish, a villain that shows up early in the series as part of the Forest Training Camp Arc villains. And, with his Quirk, Moonfish could control the growth of his teeth to absurd levels, essentially using them as limbs or tendrils. But, what really made this Quirk unpredictable and powerful was:
Basically, it was a Quirk that was only limited by Moonfish's imagination, which is deadly when the Quirk wielder is imaginative in all the wrong ways.
Honestly, out of all the Quirks out there, Rifle seems like one of the most specialized. Sure, people with electricity-type Quirks are probably good for a lot of jobs in the power industry, but Lady Nagant's Quirk feels like her own DNA was telling her to become a sniper. Her Rifle ability is pretty simple, stored inside her arm, coming out from her elbow, is an organic sniper-like weapon. Now, this sniper has everything a sniper usually has, including:
But that's not all! Nagant's Quirk also has to do with her hair, as taking some strands out and twisting them together creates the ammo she uses. This hair hardens and becomes just as durable as standard ammo. And, depending on what ratio she mixes the different colored strands of her hair, Lady Nagant can make bullets that act like hollow points, armor-piercing, or even bullets that can curve. All-in-all, it’s an incredibly deadly Quirk for a villain to have, especially one as skilled as Lady Nagant.
Chojuro Kon is a unique case, as he's a villain from one of the MHA movies, particularly My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. Now, because this film is canon, so is Kon, and so is his Quirk called Chimera. Quite honestly, this Quirk is never fully explained in the movie, but from what fans have pieced together, Chojuro is able to endow himself with the abilities of multiple animals at once, which is incredibly similar to Suneater's Manifest Quirk. Just in his brief appearance in the movie, Kon:
Seriously, Chojuro feels like a monster that deserves his own spinoff Kaiju Movie or something.
Talking about Kurogiri as a character in regards to their backstory is difficult since a lot of his story is spoiler potential, but at the very least fans should know that Warp Gate is insanely strong in the right hands. Teleportation Quirks in MHA are exceedingly rare, and Warp Gate is much more versatile than Kurogiri displays.
Basically, AfO and Shigaraki use him as a teleportation Uber, but Warp Gate could easily be used in some truly horrifying ways if Kurogiri so desired, such as:
And those are just a few easy examples, there's so much more Kurogiri could do. Thankfully, he's not used as much more than a tool, and he can't create a gate anywhere he doesn't see currently, know of, or has coordinates for, but that's still pretty versatile for something as overpowered as this.
While MHA did its best to paint Stain AKA Chizome Akaguro as a vigilante whose insane physical skills and obsessive dedication to his ideals compensated for his lackluster Quirk, that just simply isn’t true. Bloodcurdle is honestly one of the most powerful Quirks out there, shown by how hard Deku, Ilda, and Todoroki had to fight to beat him. But, to be more specific:
If Chizome only had more unique support items that helped him steal blood easier, as Himiko Toga does, he could have easily become a top-three contender for the strongest villain in the franchise. At the very least, he's one of the coolest inclusions in the spinoff Vigilantes series.
By default, Toga's Quirk is almost too powerful in terms of assassination or espionage, but as far as a combat Quirk, it's not great. Himiko's Quirk is called Transform, and it allows her to fully morph into whoever's blood she drinks. Now, the amount of time Toga can stay transformed ranges depending on how much blood she drinks, but she needs a full cup to last a day or so. But after a certain something happens (which has yet to happen in the anime), Toga's Quirk develops a bit.
Spoilers ahead for Himiko Toga specifically in Season 5 of the MHA anime
But season 5 has a lot of new developments. For example, in it, Toga's Quirk "awakens" and she's now able to mimic the Quirk of the person she's transformed into as well. So what was previously a very lackluster Quirk in terms of combat, just became a lot stronger. Think about it:
With all that in mind, there's no question that Toga has the potential to rival some of the strongest heroes and villains out there, but her eccentric nature and personality usually leads to her trying to Transform into people she likes, rather than ones with true power.
Geten is one of the only examples of a side character in MHA whose Quirk (which is currently unnamed but is tentatively called Ice Manipulation) has undergone the “Awakening” that Shigaraki’s and Toga's went through. By default, Ice Manipulation allows Geten, AKA "Iceman", to:
After awakening this Quirk, Geten is now able to freeze liquids around him, giving him more ice to manipulate. Imagine if he learns to control his Quirk even more, couldn't he potentially freeze all the water within the human body? This ability was powerful even before its awakening, but now it's just downright overpowered. That said, if there's no liquid nearby at all, Geten is pretty much Quirkless, so at least that's one weakness.
Spoilers: Dabi's identity and backstory have been revealed in the manga, and it's talked about below.
Let’s talk about Dabi’s Cremation Quirk. Unlike Endeavor's Hellflame Quirk, Toya "Dabi" Todoroki can’t control the shape of his flames almost at all, and he can’t really get too creative with it as well. But, in return, his flames are naturally much hotter than either Todoroki’s Half-Hot-Half-Cold or Hellflame's which is why they're blue. This allows Dabi to:
That said, the time Dabi can use his Quirk in comparison to his brother or father is laughable, as his flames start to sear and damage his own body over time and cause him to go numb. That said, Cremation is still an unimaginably destructive Quirk, even if it isn't as versatile as any of the other fire-based Quirks seen in the series.
Rikiya Yotsubashi is a character anime-only people haven’t quite met yet (but they're about to) so talking about his Quirk is impossible without giving it away.
So, for those who want to stay completely fresh for the second half of S5, move on to the next entry.
Moving on, Rikiya’s Quirk is Stress, which is the ability to convert frustration, anger, and of course the emotion of stress into raw power. Now, this isn’t just normal super strength conversion similar to how Rikido Sato's Sugar Rush works. No, Yosubashi, can:
Essentially, Rikiya is the Hulk but with full control of his state of mind, size, strength, and output. That said, if Rikiya isn't able to stockpile enough Stress for a battle, he's basically Quirkless as well.
There are a couple of reasons why Double, the Quirk used by Jin Bubaigawa, otherwise known as "Twice", is shockingly powerful. For one, it allows him to create a perfect copy of anything or anyone as long as he knows their exact measurements. And two, the clone has their own free will, memories, personality, and a copy of the Quirk of the original. Now, the main downside is that Jin can only clone a person one at a time, and the clone has relatively low durability, turning into this mud-like substance after taking any sizeable amount of damage.
Once again, spoilers below for some "Twice" characterization and Quirk changes in the upcoming second half of MHA Season 5.
But remember, Jin can create infinite clones of himself since every clone would be able to create another in an endless loop. The only reason he doesn't is because of his mental trauma, but he gets over that trauma in an incredible way during the final section of the "Meta Liberation Army Arc". This development lets Jin:
The only weakness this Quirk has is that Double can only copy other people a maximum of twice, but two Shigaraki's instead of one is still a huge difference.
Here’s another one of the movie villains (sadly not from the Two Heroes film), Nine, from the Heroes Rising movie. Now, in the film, Nine is "technically" part of the League of Villains and was gifted by their own specialist with a couple of Quirks, such as:
However, the one he was born with was Weather Manipulation. Think of it like Storm’s Mutant power in the X-Men series. It allows Nine to create tornadoes, high winds that allow him to essentially fly, summon lightning, storms, and any other type of “weather”. It is by far one of the most widely destructive Quirks seen in the series to date, with the only drawback being the Cellular Degeneration it causes the user with extended use of the Quirk.
Quite honestly, Chisaki's Quirk Overhaul is an upgrade to Tomura’s Decay in almost every way, at least in the beginning. Think about it:
The only downside is Chisaki's germaphobia. Truly, no one expected the stereotypical anime Yakuza character to be such a clean freak. Now, it’s a bit unfair to Tomura, but the villain known as Overhaul really has him beat in most departments until the events of the "Meta Liberation Army Arc" that is. After that, Chisaki's Quirk suddenly found itself quite a bit weaker in terms of power than Shigaraki's.
Obviously, Tomura Shigaraki, the leader of the League of Villains, was going to be somewhere on here. His Quirk, Decay, allows him:
That alone is a terrifying ability, for sure, but that's not all.
Final spoilers below for the second half of Season 5.
As it was stated earlier, Shigaraki's Quirk also goes through an awakening during the "Meta Liberation Army Arc" (one of the best arcs in the series), which let his Quirk spread from what he originally touches to any objects that were touching what decays. But his instance of awakening was different from the others. To put it simply, it wasn't an awakening, but rather Shigaraki remembered a repressed memory that told him he always had his ability, so it became unlocked once again. Even before Tomura unlocked the "domino effect" of his Quirk, it was still one of the scariest in all of MHA. And after he upgraded it, it finally became truly horrifying.
Was there any other choice but this one? AfO with his Quirk All for One is the only criminal who:
At the end of the day, All for One is the Quirk that beats every other Quirk out there, simply because it technically is every other Quirk out there. No matter the setting, the power to steal powers will always reign supreme.
My Hero Academia: The 15 Strongest Villain Quirks, Ranked View Story