The 20 Best ‘My Hero Academia’ Fights, Ranked

Note: This article contains spoilers for the final season of My Hero Academia.Since the release of My Hero Academia, it’s become one of the most popular anime out there. It’s taken over Western culture, and a huge reason for that is because of how absolutely awesome the fight sequences can get. The animation from Studio Bones is typically really well done and has resulted in some of the best-looking anime action scenes in the last few years.

Not only do the visuals of My Hero Academia aid the fight scenes’ quality, but the emotional and story stakes within them as well. Because if there’s anything about the series that people truly fall in love with, it’s the characters and how well they’re written. Everyone has their favorite member from Class 1-A, and each member of Class 1-A has an incredible fight under their belt.

20

Deku vs. Muscular: Round 2

Image via Studio Bones

The first Deku (Daiki Yamashita and Justin Briner) vs. Muscular (Kosuke Takaguchi and Jim Foronda) fight is one for the books (more on that later), so when the two of them get to have a bit of a rematch in the latter half of the series—My Hero Academia Season 6, Episode 19, “Full Power!” in particular—fans were quite excited. With how much of a struggle Deku faced last time they battled, the contrast between the past and present was absurd.

What better way to power scale this more experienced Deku than to put him up against one of his toughest foes of all time… and have him absolutely wipe the floor with him? No joke, the young hero takes down Muscular in borderline one hit. It’s a short fight, but an incredible one. It truly shows how far he’s come since the beginning of the show and sets the stage for how strong Deku is going to be moving forward—and power-scales how tough his upcoming villains are, too.

19

Deku and All Might vs. Wolfram

Image via Studio Bones

Something so special about the My Hero Academia movies is how much effort is placed into making them true spectacles that live up to, and sometimes even surpass, that of the main series. One of the hallmark examples of this is the fight of Deku and All Might (Kenta Miyake and Christopher Sabat) vs. Wolfram (Rikiya Koyama and Keith Silverstein) at the end of My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.

Up until this point in the series, no one really got to see the previous wielder of One For All and the current one actually team up. The final fight of My Hero Academia: Two Heroes rectifies that. Seeing the two heroes (pun intended) go up against such a gargantuan villain is a visual marvel, especially because of how well it is animated.

18

Armored All Might vs. All For One

Image via Studio Bones

After All Might lost his powers in his previous fight with All For One (Akio Otsuka and John Swasey), everyone thought that he was out of the game when it came to action. So, audiences were surprised in the best way when he decided to take on All For One for one last battle, using Hercules to armor up and become Armored All Might. Of course, All For One could not pass up this opportunity.

For a good portion of the battle, All Might actually serves All For One quite a beating, lowering his age (which was depleting from energy spent). However, even with the eventual help of Stain (Go Inoue and Robert McCollum), he eventually gets his butt handed to him and almost dies at the hands of his former nemesis. Regardless, though, seeing these two arch-nemeses face off one last time is a special treat.

17

Deku vs. Lady Nagant

Image via Crunchyroll

It’s safe to say that fans and critics loved My Hero Academia‘s Dark Hero Arc. To get to see Deku go off on his own and down a pretty dark path was unique and thrilling. Especially with how great that costume looked. But the standout moment of the Dark Hero Arc was his breathtaking fight against Lady Nagant (Atsumi Tanezaki and Erica Lindbeck).

Not only was this the debut of another great character with a unique quirk, but it was another moment in which Deku got to show off just how absurdly powerful he was becoming at the time. Combining one of his new quirks, Fa Jin, with One For All at 45%, Deku traveled at speeds he’d never gone at before to save Kai Chisaki (Kenjiro Tsuda and Kellen Goff). Aside from this, it was the first time Deku had actually been truly challenged during this arc.

16

Overlay Deku vs. Shigaraki

Image via Studio Bones

Overlay Deku—unofficially known by fans as “Carnage Deku”—is one of Deku’s cooler and scarier forms in the series. Calling back to his vigilante era not too long ago, the young man has to take on this scarier form not to instill fear in Shigaraki, because he knows he can’t, but to force his body to move via Blackwhip. Due to how broken his body is at the time of the fight, he literally had to puppet his own body by wrapping himself in Blackwhip, which creates this terrifying new look.

What makes this fight interesting is not only the fact that Izuku has to do this, but also that, at this point, he’s lost his Danger Sense quirk, meaning he doesn’t have his little “Spidey Sense”-like power to warn him of danger, with Shigaraki now having it. This forces Izuku to use his smarts (something he’s always been best at) to work around the warning-based power that his enemy now holds. He’s also got a very unique goal in this battle, which is to transfer One For All to him to take his enemy out from the inside.

15

Deku vs. Overhaul

Image via Studio Bones

The conclusion to the Shie Hassaikai Arc in My Hero Academia Season 4 was the first time fans truly got to see Deku use One For All at a controlled 100%. That is, of course, thanks to the help of Eri (Seiran Kobayashi) and her Rewind quirk. After Lemillion (Tarusuke Shingaki) gave his everything to keep Eri out of Overhaul’s hands, it was up to Deku to reach out to her and give her one last chance to escape the evildoer’s clutches.

But it’s after this emotional moment that things get serious. Deku finally gets to go all-out to face a newly upgraded Overhaul and puts on a display of power unlike anything viewers had seen before this moment in the show. With the young hero’s potential fully unlocked, Overhaul comes to regret all he did to young Eri.

14

Deku, Shoto Todoroki, and Tenya Iida vs. Stain

Image via Crunchyroll

There is no villain in the anime series like Stain, the Hero Killer. When the young and vengeful hero, Tenya Iida (Kaito Ishikawa and J. Michael Tatum), seeks to take down the serial killer who put his brother in the hospital, he needs saving from classmates Deku and Shoto Todoroki (Yuki Kaji and David Matranga). This incites a three-on-one fight between the young heroes and this blood-licking villain, which ended up being one of the best team-up fights in the series.

The fight served as a big moment for most of the characters here, too. Deku had just learned to truly control his powers (thanks to Gran Torino (Kenichi Ogata and Charles Campbell), Iida learns a lesson on heroism that changes how he makes decisions for the rest of the show, Todoroki begins to finally use his flames out in the field, and Stain shows that he approves of Deku by saving him from a Nomu.

13

Shoto Todoroki vs. Dabi

Image via Studio Bones

The Final War Arc easily has the greatest fight match-ups in the entire show. Everyone gets paired with characters that perfectly suit them or the character arc they’re in the midst of. Todoroki gets one of the best of the arc when he’s set up to face his long-lost brother, Toya Todoroki (Hiro Shimono and Ernesto Jason Liebrecht), aka Dabi. It’s the debut of Todoroki’s new ultimate move, Flashfire Fist: Phosphor. An ability that allows the cold and hot factors of his Half-Cold Half-Hot quirk into one ability.

This new way to regulate his body temperature sets off what is considered a “cold fire”, which both burns and freezes his enemies at once. The fight seems to end with Todoroki besting his brother after an intense battle of cold and hot. What proceeds, though, is Dabi making an escape after copying the Phosphor ability for himself, giving him a chilling new look.

12

Bakugo vs. Shigaraki

Image via Studio Bones

Before Katsuki Bakugo’s (Nobuhiko Okamoto and Clifford Chapin) heartbreaking death in Season 7, he actually had one of the coolest moments in the series as he had what the canon considers a “Quirk Awakening,” in which a hero upgrades their quirk via intense and near-death means. When this brash and hard-headed hero does so, he shows off his excellent battle sense by analyzing Shigaraki’s (Koki Uchiyama and Eric Vale) patterns in battle and using that knowledge to outpace him and predict his movements.

Bakugo gives one of the most surprising beat-downs in the entire season, dodging the villain at every move, and reaching a speed unlike anything people had seen him accomplish prior. He whoops Shiggy’s butt all across The Coffin in the Sky (a soon-to-be ironic name), and gives one of the most moving quotes in the series, “Hey Izuku, can I still catch up to you?” before his own heart explodes from the exertion.

11

Deku vs. Shoto Todoroki

Image via Crunchyroll

One of the most popular fights in the entire series takes place while the students of U.A. High go head-to-head tournament-style. Deku and Todoroki face each other, and the moment that is born within the fight is one of, if not the most, popular scenes of the entire series. The standoff between the two young aspiring heroes features the green-haired student pushing his peer to move past his mental limits and dissociate the fire side of his quirk from his father, Endeavor (Tetsu Inada and Patrick Seitz).

He continues to pester Todoroki, saying he’s not giving the fight his all and not trying harder. This culminates in one of the best and most famous quotes from the show, where Deku screams (one of the best My Hero Academia quotes), “It’s yours! Your quirk! Not his!” The moment that follows, of the flames finally emerging from Todoroki, is chill-inducing and forces a smile onto anyone watching.