There’ve been a lot of things happening in the pages of My Hero Academia over the last year. The war between the heroes and villains saw a fairly big change to its larger world that left Deku and the rest of the 1-A kids as basically the last real hope for Japan in the fight against All for One and Tomura Shigaraki. It’s understandable if you’ve forgotten some things that happened forever ago, which makes it all the weirder when it decides to bring up a plot point that honestly hasn’t been an issue in like, five years.
You may recall from the manga’s early days that after Class 1-A got attacked by the League of Villains at the USJ, the staff of UA came to the conclusion that there’s a mole inside the school. This was referenced again in Chapter 83 after the attack at the summer camp, which was allllllll the way back in 2016. (Or episode 45 in 2019, if you’re an anime watcher.) Since then, the manga hasn’t really called attention to that since other events have taken priority like Deku and Bakugo’s relationship, the secrets of the Todoroki family, and that aforementioned Hero v. Villain war. But now that things have relatively calmed down for the main players, this week’s Chapter 335 brings this plotline back into the spotlight.
Recent chapters have sidelined Deku and his classmates to show off the American hero Star and Stripe, another hero influenced by All Might after he saved her family when she was a child. With everything having gone to hell in Japan, she quickly showed up in the home country of her idol and tried to take on All for One (who hijacked Shigaraki’s body earlier this year), and it...didn’t go well. She died, but her quirk New Order, which allows her to set rules on a person or object, absolutely wrecked Shigaraki’s body and destroyed some of the Quirks that All for One acquired over the years.
At the end of Chapter 335, All for One briefly turns his gaze towards UA, which has become heavily fortified to protect the people of Japan in the month since the war. And the chapter ends on the reveal that Toru Hagakure, Class 1-A’s resident invisible girl, is another one of his agents. Depending on your view, this feels either stupidly obvious or a well crafted character turn, one that fans managed to realize long before this chapter hit.
Hagakure’s deception comes at a time as the kids and Heroes are forming a plan to hit Shigaraki while he’s still pretty weak and finally defeating One for All feels like a viable option. Given how strong the kids’ bonds to each other have become with each life threatening event they’ve survived, and how they’ve all rallied around Deku, it’s possible that Hagakure could have a change of heart at the last moment. But it’s equally likely that their classmate could end up as a bigger threat down the line and cut their knees out from right under them.
My Hero Academia can be read for free at Shonen Jump.
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