Chapter Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 421 Discussion

[kkck]

In theory AFO as he is now should be the strongest we have seen. Shigaraki's body isn't in great condition but it's still a body that at base has physical strength in the realm of a full powered OFA user. On top of that you have AFO and AFO's mind in control without interference from the shigaraki persona or tenko. Shigaraki was of course a skilled fighter, before getting AFO he was up there with top heroes in terms of skill alone. But there's no reason to think any hero or villain around ever came close to AFO (or allmight) in terms of skill alone. The saving grace of this angle of the plot is that shigaraki's body is not in good condition and there's an army of heroes willing to face AFO. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more cowardly heroes who retired earlier also show up. I suppose that for the theme's sake what will win the day is ultimately deku reaching out to the depths of AFO and finding/freeing the tenko persona.

 

[Franz]

But hadn't Izuku passed the vestiges to damage the AFO?

 

[Griffithpt]

But hadn't Izuku passed the vestiges to damage the AFO?

The goal wasn't to damage AFO but to try to damage the core of Shigaraki's self, where he saw the crying Tenko. In a metaphorical, but real sense, he wanted to break down the barriers keeping Shigaraki from confronting himself, acknowledge him as a person and try to save him from AFO. Unfortunately that backfired when Tenko was confronted with his past and was at his weakest point, and AFO's vestige gained power when he felt tremendous anger at feeling his brother's presence disappear, it was the first time AFO lost something he felt truly mattered to him and with that and Tenko's mind in its weakest point, he was able to bury him by revealing that all the choices and everything that led Shigaraki down the path he had come was spurged on or commandeered by himself.

There was damage to Shigaraki, but not to AFO itself. The vessel was greatly weakened, leaving it in a sorrowful state, similar to how AFO was at the start of the story and with his real body gone, all that remains is a strong will. Ultimately it will come down to the students and Deku to beat the body down enough for Tenko regain control of himself long enough to understand that his existence is a threat to this world and he already, unwittingly, caused more harm than good. My guess is that he will end up sacrificing himself to stop AFO and finally bury him forever, to become a hero in his final moments.

Note: I'm not saying my prediction exunes Shigaraki from all the many, many wrongs he did or redeems him. Redemption doesn't happen in a blink of an eye there are steps to it but I do think it would be poetic for Tenko to bury AFO's legacy by taking control from him, just as AFO took control of Tenko from even before he was born.

 

[kkck]

hmmm, what AFO did to tenko is to pretty much break him apart bit by bit through extreme psychological trauma (and who knows what else). As far as I can tell "shigaraki" is barely a person, thing created by AFO. Meanwhile "tenko", the true self was pushed deeper and deeper without an opportunity to surface. A recurrint bit with shigaraki early in the manga was him putting on a hand as a mask. Which he said made him anger swell. I would argue that this was what kept the shigaraki persona on the surface and tenko in the depths his consciousness. With that in mind, with shigaraki being barely a person (imagine ever thinking BNHA villains ever had any depth to them or their ideals merit) but rather an anger based entity without any real thoughts of his own and the real tenko not being in control I would argue tenko is more of a victim here and not really responsible for what has happened. Of course, no one in universe should buy that or even have the evidence to comprehend this, only deku can possibly be aware of any of this and even not that much since he doesn't know the stuff us readers know. He'd have an idea at best and a difficult one to sell at that. "tenko" has no future and there's no reason to show him any mercy nor to let him live. Not that even if he got mercy and got to life he'd be able to do anything with said life anyways.