MHA Ch. 273: Endeavor vs. Shigaraki Tomura, Who would win?

My Hero Academia introduced a major plot point in the ongoing battle that turned the tides in favor of the villains.

Chapter 270 revealed that Dr. Ujiko has successfully transferred All for One’s quirk to Shigaraki Tomura, making him the new Symbol of Terror. In chapter 273, we saw the destructive capabilities of Shigaraki’s decay quirk after he received All for One’s quirk.

Amidst the chaos, chapter 273 of My Hero Academia ended with a ray of hope. Endeavor avoided being decayed and made his way to Shigaraki to start a fight. This brings up the question — Endeavor vs. Shigaraki: Who would win?

To debate about who would win, we need to recap all the pieces at play here.

Endeavor is the current #1 Hero and has the power to create and control fire. He can use it to fly, and he can use it to burn things.

Endeavor’s body has human limits and cannot tolerate heat for too long. He is physically strong, but that doesn’t matter here as any physical attacks leave him open to being decayed by Shigaraki.

Shigaraki, on the other hand, is a bit harder to scale. We saw the destructive power of his decay quirk at a large scale in the last chapter, but is it enough to beat Endeavor?

Shigaraki’s quirk has a major limitation — It can only decay things that are in direct or indirect contact with his hand. He cannot decay things that are flying without touching them. So Endeavor can easily just fly and not get caught by his decay, right?

It’s not that simple, we also have to consider that other quirks might be at play here. Shigaraki’s decay range has gone up exponentially after he received All for One’s quirk. Also, we don’t know if he inherited other quirks or not. All for One had been collecting quirks for a very long time and had made himself virtually indestructible, but were these quirks (or at least some of them) passed down to Shigaraki? If they were, there is a high chance that Endeavor is completely trashed by Shigaraki in a one-on-one.

So far, in fights we have seen Shigaraki undergo, he hasn’t been spectacularly agile. He underwent training while trying to defeat Gigantomachia. He dodged Gigantomachia’s attacks to survive. But he has never shown a fighting style where he maneuvers himself in the air to target people.

Unless Shigaraki’s physical abilities have also received an upgrade, his attacks should not be able to reach Endeavor and Endeavor can just toast him from a distance.

Regardless of how this fight goes, Shigaraki will not be defeated here. He has been set up as the series’ biggest villain and will be in play till the end. Despite being surrounded by many heroes, Shigaraki can hold his ground, and his reinforcements are on the way.

About My Hero Academia

My Hero Academia is a Japanese superhero manga series written and illustrated by Kōhei Horikoshi. It has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump since July 2014, with its chapters additionally collected in 24 tankōbon volumes as of August 2019.

It follows a quirkless boy Izuku Midoriya and how he backed the greatest Hero alive. Midoriya, a boy who has been admiring heroes and their ventures since the day he was born, came into this world without a quirk.

On one fateful day, he meets All Might the greatest Hero of all time and discovers that he was quirkless as well. With his diligent attitude and unwavering spirit about being a hero, Midoriya manages to impress All Might. He is chosen to be the heir to the power of One for All.