Tomura Shigaraki (born Tenko Shimura) is the main antagonist of the anime/manga series My Hero Academia. He is the leader of the League of Villains, and one of the two arch-nemeses of Izuku Midoriya (alongside All For One).
What makes him sympathetic?[]
- When he was born, he wanted to be a hero, however his father heavily abused him any time he mentioned heroes. This is shown to have affected him greatly as he is shown crying after the abuse given to him
- Making things worse, none of his family protected him from the abuse
- When his quirk, Decay manifested, it ended up resulting in him killing his dog, and entire family, only killing his father intentionally due to all the abuse he faced as a child, and destroying his entire childhood home.
- This would eventually lead to him deluding himself into believing he killed the rest of his family intentionally, which is played sympathetically.
- After said incident, he was forced to live on the streets, and no one in hero society ended up helping him, which explains why he hates hero society so much, and the only person to take him in was All For One.
- He ended up letting All For One mold him into the monster that he is today, with All for One showing no care for him and only caring about creating the next him.
- Eventually, it is revealed that All For One was responsible for orchestrating his entire life, from even before he was born, as it is revealed he convinced Kotaro to have a second child, stole Tenko's original quirk and gave him Decay, meaning Tomura never had a say in his life.
- His death, while not a redemption, is still very sympathetic. His grandmother's vestige saves him from destruction, and he helps Deku and the rest of the One For All users defeat All For One once and for all, and as he disintegrates from existence, asks Midoriya to comfort Spinner, telling him to do his best with a smile on his face, to which All Might reassures Midoriya that if he died with a smile on his face, he's already been saved.