My Hero Academia Season Five, Episode Twenty-Four, Tomura Shigaraki: Origin Review: Rise of the Demon King.

If I’m honest, The My Villain Academia Arc has not exactly been handled well in this fifth season of My Hero Academia. 
It’s pretty obvious that Studio Bones just prioritized the heroes development over the villains here, with them rearranging the arc and giving it less time to be fleshed out because of filler episodes and moments beforehand, most of which were to hype up a non-canon movie.
This has made the My Villain Academia storyline a disappointing adaptation, which is extremely unfortunate when you compare it to the greatness of the manga.
You know something went wrong when plenty of people think that the Joint Training Arc was adapted better than the My Villain Academia Arc.
Well, at least I can say that Studio Bones finished the arc well.
The last half of Tenko Shimura: Origin did a fantastic job of adapting Shigaraki’s backstory and, now, Tomoura Shigaraki: Origin has continued this by ending the storyline with even better quality.
I wish the rest of the My Villain Academia Arc had been adapted as well as it was in this episode.
Picking up from the reveal of how Tenko Shimura “accidentally” murdered his family in the previous episode, we see the poor boy walking the crowded streets, filthy and bloody.
Surely someone helps him, right?
Wrong, because as soon as anyone gets a good look at his frightening face they naturally assume a hero can deal with it and abandon the child.
This perfectly points out the flaws in My Hero Academia’s hero society.
The civilian population is so complacent with the system that they full-heartedly believe a hero can solve any problem, and they don’t need to do anything, so they leave a child begging to be saved alone.
Unfortunately for Tenko, and the world at large, the only one with an interest in saving him, for undoubtedly nefarious reasons, is All For One, who stretches out a hand to Tenko, just as All Might did for Izuku at the beginning of the story.
The parralels between our hero and villain are greatly portrayed here.
While Izuku had someone to help him down the path to be a hero, Tenko had someone to manipulate him down the path of a villain.
Tenko did not spend a long time in All For One’s care before the criminal mastermind had convinced him to kill two street thugs who he had restrained himself from killing previously after they harassed him.
This leads to All For One also convincing Tenko to wear the hands of his dead family, now dubbing him Tomura Shigaraki, Tomoura meaning mourning, and Shigaraki being All For One’s own last name.
Now remembering everything about his past, in his present fight with Redestro, Shigaraki reflects on how, in his eyes, what happened was no tragedy.
All of this leads to his awakening, as he crushes the supposed last hand of his dead family, declaring he doesn’t need it anymore, before unlocking his Quirk’s full potential, just as Gigantomachia arrives on the scene.
Redestro’s efforts in using a mecha suit to up his stress does no good, as Shigaraki unleashes a seemingly unending wave of decay in some fantastic animation that really highlights the danger he will pose going forward.
Destroying much of Deika city, Shigaraki leaves Redestro crippled, after the Meta Liberation Army commander is forced to amputate his own legs to stop the decay from killing him when his feet touched the ground.
Although this clearly has an effect on Shigaraki himself, given how his own skin cracks and his hair turns almost a glowing white.
Yet, this destruction is still enough to leave Gigantomachia in a state of shock and cause him to finally submit after seeing how Shigaraki’s liberated and terryifying strength then causes Redestro to sign over leadership of the Meta Liberation Army.
It is here where one of my issues of the episode comes in because, when Redestro submits to Shigaraki’s leadership, Shigaraki says that because he is the CEO of Deternat he must have money to give them, since the League was down on their luck before this moment.
However, because the anime adaptation cut out the beginning of the My Villain Academia Arc, including Redestro’s entire introduction, this information feels very forced and shoved in.
Oh, and Spinner also gets more of his character arc cut.
Seriously, you really have to feel bad for Spinner since this is the arc that turned him from a very forgettable character into a relatable and somewhat interesting one.
Along with this, his character arc shows Shigaraki’s growth through how Spinner starts off questioning his leadership of the League yet by the end of the storyline he is fully devoted to Shigaraki.
Cutting all of this not only makes Spinner a much weaker character, but will also make his actions in the next arc when we get Season Six mean a lot less.
But, hey, not like I expected this episode to actually give Spinner anything, given how much they cut from him before.
Other than these issues though, Tomura Shigaraki: Origin is still a great episode.
Following Redestro’s surrender, we then cut to the League and Shigaraki being touted as the new leaders of the Meta Liberation Army, now named the Paranormal Liberation Front.
Redestro is now fully devoted to Shigaraki, along with Gigantomachia, there is a funny gag about Toga’s clone, Twice’s split personality is still in place, Shigaraki has one of the dead hands left, and Dr Ujiko prepares to experiment on Shigaraki to give him an even bigger upgrade.
And all of this is happening while Izuku is definitley beginning to unlock his own Quirk’s potential, through learning how he will inherit all of the Quirk’s from the previous holders of One For All.
This should make for an interesting fight between Deku and Shigaraki when the two finally face off.
I just hope that such a fight will not get the same treatment as the My Villain Academia Arc.
While I can say that this storyline has been good in the anime, there were so many cuts and it went by so fast that it just does not have the same impact as the manga.
I just hope the next season takes the arc following this seriously because it is by far the best storyline in the entire manga, in my own personal opinion.
Despite my feelings about the My Villain Academia Arc as a whole though, I cannot deny that Studio Bones at least ended it well, with Tomura Shigaraki: Origin being a great finisher for it.