Society in MHA is rooted with discrimination and judgement based on someone’s quirk. It is shown immediately in the beginning, when the main protagonist Deku is bullied for being quirkless and gets called “useless”. But power hierarchy is a double-edged sword; even those with awesome quirks fall victim to tragedy.
What is Quirk Trafficking?
It is a form of human trafficking in the world of MHA, especially Japan. People get sold or taken and used for their powers. Quirks that are deemed valuable and potentially powerful are often sought after in these crime rings. Examples include healing, psychic, or money-making quirks.
We watch several characters suffer traumatic backstories as a result of it, and many more are made into villains. It’s become a new form of crime in a powered society, and may be rooted in deeper than the heroes realize.
Quirk Marriages
Now taboo and illegal in MHA, arranged marriages were used to breed strong quirks and keep passing them down in generations. Exactly what people were wanting to do with powerful children, it is not explained. However, families born of greed can never be a good thing.
We get a glimpse of the toxicity of quirk marriages through the Todoroki family. Endeavor, the #2 hero in Japan, wanted to raise a child that was strong enough to be the top hero in the next generation. He married a woman with an ice quirk, opposite to his fire one. He believed that the two extreme-temperature quirks combined would balance out in a child who can use them without backlash. This happened in his youngest son, Shoto.
Endeavor was more power-hungry than heroic, and this blinded him as he mistreated his family. Shoto was isolated from his siblings and overworked from quirk training. Endeavor didn’t pay much attention to his kids with ice quirks. He had instilled his “powerful-hero” obsession into his oldest son Toya, who could not let it go even after his father told him to and started neglecting him. Instead of being the father his kids needed, he put all the burden on his wife and punished her for failing.
As a result, in the past 2 seasons he’s had to “wake up” and face the consequences of the pained family he made. Dabi publicly reveals himself as his supposed dead eldest son, come back to get revenge. People were already wary of Endeavor, but now this destroys his reputation! There is no more pretending that heroes are perfect personalities.
Quirk Experiments
While others were experimenting with genetics and manufacturing families, some mad scientists were fishing for children to subject to their inhumane experiments. They wanted to use other’s quirks to aid in their goals of mass destruction to the world.
Eri’s Rescue Arc
Eri was born with the unique quirk Rewind, which can turn someone’s body back into a previous state. On one hand, this quirk is a powerful healer, but it can also be destructive. Upon her first manifestation of her quirk, she rewound her father out of existence. After her terrified mother ran away from the family, her grandpa handed her over to his adopted son’s care. This was a big mistake!
Overhaul used her body to create a drug that can erase quirks permanently. The anime shows him slicing up her skin with a surgical knife, and even hinting at him using his disintegration & reintegration quirk on her to physically pull her apart and back together! Horrific, I know!
This weaponized drug almost cost multiple heroes their careers! Meanwhile, villains used opposite drugs to enhance their dangerous powers. If this evil plan was allowed to continue into its completion, the fall of society in upcoming seasons would be even more devastating!
Nomu Creation
All For One’s sidekick is a mad scientist with a regeneration quirk, which helped the both of them to live past their natural lifespans. They also used this power to revive dead bodies and give their monsters an advantage when fighting even the most powerful heroes.
The two of them had tabs on various people and their quirks in order to make the perfect Nomus. True, they were trafficking dead people; the fact that being dead doesn’t even stop you from being used for your power is pure evil!
Child Slavery and Villain Grooming
The Hero Public Safety Commission is responsible for doing quirk trafficking, too. Their goal was to have a puppet hero that doubles as an assassin when they felt it neccessary. Despite the “no kill, no harm” hero law, the government agency not only made exceptions, but they handed them out unjustly and in secret.
Lady Nagant
To accomplish this, they had to find someone with a dangerous quirk and admiration for heroes. Their first project was turning a teenage girl named Kaina Tsutsumi into popular hero Lady Nagant. The anime hasn’t gone in depth about Lady Nagant’s childhood, so it’s not known what happened to her family once she devoted herself to government service. She had the quirk to turn her arm into a rifle and her hair into bullets, making her the perfect candidate for assassin work.
Eventually she broke out of their brainwashing and tried to speak against them. She had a mental snap and killed the president, but wasn’t able to escape. Under the accusation of hero murder, she was forced to waste 10 years in jail. This proved it almost impossible to escape from the HPSC’s control, especially if you were already in deep!
Hawks
The HPSC immediately came after Keigo Takami upon hearing that he saved people at 6 years old. To them, he was like winning a lottery ticket: strong quirk that can be used to save and kill, intelligent, yet easy to manipulate due to his age and trauma. Having been called useless and unwanted by his parents, it made being valuable to the HPSC that much preferable! Thus, they bought him from his homeless mother and isolated him from other influence.
Both Hawks and Nagant were groomed into their anti-hero positions, doing bad for the “greater good”. More soldier than hero, they were used as pawns in the game of violent justice.
Shigaraki
Speaking of grooming, we can’t forget All For One on the villains side. According to Shigaraki’s child backstory, AFO took him in from off the streets when no one else offered help. He was a lonely little boy with a destructive quirk that killed his whole family when it manifested. AFO nurtured his fear into hatred, raising Shigaraki to be a bigger monster than him. Unlike Eri, the boy never got saved or shown how to use his powers for good.
With AFO’s near infinite collection of quirks in his body, it’s likely that he’s done the same thing to many other lost children throughout quirk history–that’s how he got such a huge group of supporters. He always has the right quirk to hand to those who serve him! AFO is masterful in collecting background info on people, knowing too much about his victims or opponents. He uses that to manipulate everyone around him and bring them down. To him, other people were tools or toys that could easily be disposed.
I feel the manga could’ve explored deeper the gray, mixed morality of hero society. There is so much more to be told in between the storylines! The concept of AFO and the HPSC being the bigger villains in a game of “good vs evil”, raising children as tools in their power-hungry agenda. How will hero society rebuild itself after season 7?
Diving into the darker themes of two-faced morals and dangerous powers would make MHA a more tragic story. Trust in heroes may be completely destroyed and society would have to start all over. Granted, there will always be people slipping through the cracks of the community, as the world is just imperfect. What matters is how they learn from these failures and if they can prevent them from happening again!
