Characters / My Hero Academia - Izuku Midoriya

My Hero Academia Main Character Index
U.A. High School Students: Class 1-A (1-10, 11-20, Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Shoto Todoroki, Ochaco Uraraka) | Class 1-B | Students From Other Classes
Pro Heroes: School Faculty and Staff (Shota Aizawa | All Might) | Other Heroes (Endeavor) | One For All and Its Torch Bearers
Villains: Known Villains [Stain] (League of Villains [All For One, Tomura Shigaraki, Dabi, Himiko Toga, Vanguard Action Squad, Artificial Humans], Shie Hassaikai [Overhaul], Meta Liberation Army, Paranormal Liberation Front, Villain Army)
Others: Police and Government Workers | Civilians (Main Characters' Families) | Other High Schools
Characters From Other My Hero Academia Media: Video Game Characters | Movie Characters
Vigilantes: Main Characters | Villain Factory | Supporting Characters
Team Up Mission

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Izuku Midoriya — Deku

"I have to work harder than anyone else to make it! I'll never catch up otherwise...! I want to be like you...! Like you. The strongest hero."

^{Click here to see Costume Epsilon, his Dark Hero outfit}

^{Click here to see him in uniform}

^{Click here to see Costume Alpha, his first hero costume}

Voiced by: Daiki Yamashita (Japanese), Akeno Watanabe (Japanese, Young), Justin Briner (English), Lara Woodhull (English, Young), Sebastián Gabriel Reggio (Latin American Spanish, TV series), Hector Mena (Latin American Spanish, Two Heroes and Heroes Rising), Derian Pérez (Latin American Spanish, young, Two Heroes and Heroes Rising), Adriel Cortez (Latin American Spanish, young, TV series)

Debut: Chapter 1 (Manga), Episode 1 (Anime)

Playable in: My Hero Academia: Battle for All, My Hero One's Justice, Jump Force, My Hero One's Justice 2, My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero, My Hero Academia: Ultra Impact, Fortnite

Quirk: One For All^*Officially registered as Super Power^*(Blackwhip (Formerly), Float (Formerly), Danger Sense (Formerly), Smokescreen (Formerly), Fa Jin (Formerly), Gearshift (Formerly) , Quirkless (Formerly)

"A smiling... dependable... cool hero... That's what I wanna be! That's why I'm giving it everything! For everyone!"

The series' main protagonist, a young man with a deep love for heroes. He wishes to become a great hero that inspires peace across the world, much like his idol, All Might. While that dream initially seemed impossible due to him being born without a Quirk, a chance meeting with his idol gives him a chance to make his dream a reality.

Midoriya's desire to be a hero began when he was very young, mainly being inspired by a video of All Might saving hundreds of people during his debut. Unfortunately, due to being born Quirkless, his dream seemed to be completely out of reach. Making things worse, his Quirklessness led to relentless bullying from his peers, especially by his childhood friend, Katsuki Bakugo. Despite all of this, though, Midoriya held tightly onto his dream, never going up hope that he could one day be a great hero. His persistence was eventually rewarded, as his chance encounter with All Might set off a chain of events that eventually lead to All Might taking the young boy on as his successor. The No. 1 hero grants Midoriya his Quirk, "One For All", and sets out to train the boy to be the next Symbol of Peace.

"One For All", the Quirk that All Might passed down to him, allows Midoriya to stockpile an enormous amount of raw power, allowing him to significantly enhance all of his physical abilities to a superhuman level. Unfortunately, his body can't handle the overwhelming power his Quirk gives him, so he can only use a small percentage of its power without hurting himself. He slowly adapts and becomes able to draw out more and more as the story goes along.

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• 11th-Hour Costume Change: Receives a final version of his suit modified by Mei before his final confrontation with All For One. This one combines elements from all of his different suits, now going with a dark green color scheme with gold accents, a belt with bigger pouches, the iron soles he's had since developing Shoot Style, the Air Force gloves combined with metal braces for his arms, the remains of Torino's yellow cape from his Dark Deku look, and the bottom half of his severely damaged respirator.
• 100% Heroism Rating: In little time after stepping through the doors of U.A., Midoriya swiftly gains the respect and approval of his classmates and teachers for having the determination, courage, and selflessness of a true hero. After the Sports Festival, random people on the train congratulate him for turning in an amazing performance. Even some villains like Stain, Spinner, Gentle Criminal, and Lady Nagant see him as the true example of what a hero should be. A huge turnaround from his middle school days when he was a Bully Magnet for being Quirkless.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Played for Laughs, he has become a platonic variation of this to Bakugo. While their relationship went from openly hostile to more healthy rivalry, Bakugo is still a jerk and gets annoyed by Deku's constant fanboying towards himself. Case in point, when Bakugo reveals his new winter costume, he dares Deku to insult it, but when he showers him with praise instead, he angrily tells him to stop praising him. Later, when he points out that the advice Endeavor is giving Shoto is similar to Bakugo's own Armour Piercing Shot move, he is creeped out and threatens to get a restraining order against Deku.
• Ability Mixing:
  • Chapter 315 introduces a new technique called Faux 100%, which stems from the combination of three Quirks: Blackwhip, Fa Jin, and One for All. Essentially, he uses Black Whip to launch himself, then amplifies his momentum by simultaneously releasing a burst of kinetic energy with Fa Jin and activating One for All at his current upper limit of 45%. This creates a colossal burst of speed and power that's ostensibly comparable to using One for All at 100%, but without the drawback of damaging his body upon impact.
  • Taken even further in Chapter 369 during his fight with Shigaraki. First, he uses Gearshift to slow himself down and Danger Sense to predict Shigaraki's next attack. He then uses Smokescreen to obsucre Shigaraki's vision and give himself cover as he uses Float to ascend into the air. He then uses Blackwhip to yank Shigaraki to him before delivering a devastating Destroit Smash empowered by both Fa Jin and Gearshift's Overdrive that destroys Shigaraki's Power Armor and puts a rather sizable hole in Shigaraki's chest.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: In the English dub, the characters pronounce his first name as "i-ZU-ku" with an emphasis on the second syllable over the first and third. The Japanese pronunciation stresses the first syllable, coming out as "I-zuku." Furthermore, his last name is pronounced "mih-DOR-i-yuh" in the dub, as opposed to the original "MI-do-RI-ya."
• Achilles' Heel: One for All explicitly does not come with Required Secondary Powers, so Izuku breaks his bones every time he uses it. As he becomes more and more accustomed to his Quirk, this weakness becomes less and less of a problem over time, however.
• Action Hero: A hero in training to one day take All Might's place.
• Aesop Amnesia: He has been told to not go overboard with his Quirk over and over. Despite this, Midoriya's standard move at the end of most arcs is to go overboard. In his defense, it's justified by the fact that he's often thrown into life-or-death situations where he has no choice but to go overboard.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Although "Deku" was originally a name Bakugo used to insult him, Uraraka begins using it as this, and later Midoriya makes it his hero name.
  • His mentor All Might calls him "Midoriya-shounen," which becomes "Young Midoriya" in English.
• All-Loving Hero: In contrast to Bakugo who Hates Everyone Equally by default, Izuku is friendly and welcoming, always expecting the best out of people. However, as time goes by, Izuku is becoming more and more reasonable about this and gradually develops a wary side. This eventually leads to him questioning the reason why villains turn to villainy and wondering how to address these issues before they turn evil, and his desire to save Shigaraki.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Due to his longstanding Quirkless status, Midoriya is frequently treated like an outsider by everyone else with with Katsuki Bakugo as the ringleader and Ochaco Uraraka as the noteworthy exception. Bakugo, in particular, doesn't even bother to hide his distrust for Midoriya. After inheriting One For All, however, he becomes one of the most popular students in his class for his warmhearted personality and many badass moments, being voted class representative to his shock. This is subverted after the U.A. Sports Festival, as people on the street and subway both recognize him and commend him for his hard work while encouraging him to succeed.
• All Your Powers Combined: It is later revealed that One For All has been stockpiling Quirks of previous users. The Quirks are then integrated into One For All's power source and remain dormant. In Midoriya's time, however, the core has become large enough to cause those Quirks to once more become functional and manifest within One For All's current user. What's more is all those extra Quirks are being augmented by One For All, making them several times stronger than before. However, Midoriya still needs to master One For All to naturally control those Quirks.
• Almighty Janitor: He's a high school dropout after the Paranormal Liberation War arc, but he's nonetheless the Big Good of the current war, and, when he reaches his full potential, will be the Worlds Greatest Warrior.
• The Aloner: All For One tries to manipulate him into this mindset by implying he'll kill everybody he's close to, making Izuku slowly push away all of his friends and family one by one. For a while, he does adopt this attitude full force, fighting off all of Japan's villains by himself. Class 1-A arrive just in the nick of time before All For One's goons can drag him off to his death, and remind Izuku he's not alone. It then fittingly becomes flipped on its head, as Izuku pretending that this mindset is still in effect with Aoyama's aid ends up being how the heroes finally manage to lure All For One into a trap.
• Alternate Character Reading: His hero name (and former nickname) "Deku" is an alternate reading of his first name "Izuku."
• Always Someone Better:
  • Despite gaining One For All, the strongest Quirk in the series, Bakugo still beats him in a straight up fight twice, even if Midoriya is holding back due to not actually wanting to hurt him.
  • Along with everyone else in his class, he gets curb-stomped by Mirio. Notable since both Bakugo and Todoroki were not fighting him due to being on House Arrest and failing the licensing exam respectively, making Midoriya the strongest present fighter. Justified, since Mirio was intended to be the true inheritor of One For All, if flashback dialogue between All Might, Sir Nighteye, and Nezu were an indication.
  • In the aftermath of the Internship Arc, Midoriya feels like an inferior choice for the next Symbol of Peace when compared to Mirio. Mirio mastered his extremely difficult Quirk after years of hard work, his upbeat attitude fits perfectly with what All Might feels a Hero should be, and some people who know the truth of One For All, like Nighteye, feel Midoriya is unfit to wield One For All. In the end of the arc it gets worse, as Midoriya's victory against Overhaul came not from his own skill (as he needed Eri to undo the destructive effects of One For All at 100% power), while Mirio was winning against Overhaul easily before he lost his Quirk. This is why he offers Mirio One For All, but Mirio shoots him down.^note Albeit without knowing anything about Deku possessing One For All, as Izuku uses indirect language.
  • With increasingly strong power-ups and later stages of his character arc, he eventually proves himself to be the strongest hero Japan has ever seen and averts this trope entirely. He also has his friends to keep him in check to curb his self-esteem issues even if they're not entirely gone.
  • Right before his death, Bakugo finally acknowledges Izuku himself as this to him. As he overtaxes his explosive Quirk by causing explosions all over his body due to a side effect of his Cluster technique, he begins to realize, this is what Izuku goes through all the time and acknowledges that he is the one trying to keep up with Izuku all along.
    Bakugo: My whole body hurts. Battling through the pain. Fighting while trying to spot the enemy’s tics and habits. That’s basically the path you had to walk, yeah? So, Izuku… Can I… still catch up to you?
• An Arm and a Leg: Ends up losing both of his arms after coming out of the vestige realm and confronting a revived All For One. Moments later, he regains his arms after Aizawa stabs him with Eri's broken horn.
• Angst Coma: Combined with injuries from his fight with Muscular. Midoriya was in and out of consciousness for nearly three days after Bakugo was kidnapped.
• Animal Motifs:
  • His costume's ears, his kick-based fighting style, his movement style in Full Cowl, and his Badass Adorable tendencies contribute to the image of a rabbit.
  • In extra art, Horikoshi tends to associate Midoriya with Caprinae, especially sheeps and rams. In a sketch of multiple characters as animals, Midoriya is drawn as a sheep, while in a popularity pool art where multiple characters are shown together with animals, he is shown by the side of a massive ram. This possibly comes from his poofy, messy hair resembling a sheep, as well as the fact that, once they've had the time to properly grow their horns in, Rams are very capable of messing a person up if they upset them, despite their normally docile demeanour.
  • After Izuku dons his "Dark Deku" costume, he starts generating about 4 or more Black Whip tendrils from his lower back, to use as extra appendages in traversal or a fight, adding to his overall creepy appearance. Combined with him using Black Whip more often as a binding or restraining tool to tie up his enemies, Izuku starts taking on a vaguely arachnid-like motif, furthering his similarities to the original spider-hero himself.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Deku" was originally meant to insult Midoriya, since it can be read to mean "weakling." Thanks to Uraraka, who told him that it can also be read as "never giving up," he ends up using it as his hero name.
• Arch-Enemy: An interesting case where he has two.
  • Tomura Shigaraki: As the successors of the previous greatest hero and villain respectively, the two have been fated to clash. A wrinkle is introduced after their battle in the sky during the Paranormal Liberation War arc: Tomura still has some of Tenko inside of him, alone and crying out for help. Finding out about this, Izuku expresses his wish to somehow save that innocent part of him locked away somewhere. He acknowledges there may be no other choice but to kill Tomura, and it's implied he'll become the final obstacle he will need to overcome in his journey to becoming the world's greatest hero. Yet even so, if he can find another way, he will.
    • Even when Tomura doubles down on being "[his] villain" and explains both he and Tenko share the same wish to destroy the world that allowed his abusive house to exist, Izuku still has the determination to say he can't ignore the part of him that was crying. Though at the same time, he establishes he'll do whatever it takes to stop Tomura from achieving that, taking the responsibility of dealing with him as his nemesis.
  • All For One: Ever since he found out Izuku was the last One For All user, All For One has set into motion an all-or-nothing plan to absolutely destroy Izuku mentally at the cost of thousands, potentially millions of lives. He doesn't care who he has to hurt or what he has to get rid of, he is laser focused on stripping Izuku down to nothing so he can finally steal One For All. Somewhat zigzagged in that he clearly has hang-ups from his previous bloody rivalry with All Might despite what he says, both to others and to himself. Yet he also acknowledges Izuku is his new nemesis and loves having a new target to torment. With this attitude and his increasingly personal blows to Izuku and his loved ones, there can be no denying Izuku has come to truly hate him more than anybody else he's encountered. Remember: this is Izuku we're talking about.
    • Towards the end of the series, it's implied All For One's come to despise Izuku more than anybody else as well since he's the one who drove Yoichi out of his grasp forever; something not even Kudo managed to do. His hollow, bitter attitude upon reasserting himself inside Shigaraki's body has none of his normal Evil Is Hammy behavior, showing the boy had managed to well and truly break the mad supervillain without even trying to.
• Art Shift: In peaceful situations, Izuku's features are usually drawn rounder and cuter. When it's time for action, his face becomes more detailed, sharper, and angular.
  • Taken to a whole new level later once Izuku drops out of school and his costume undergoes a redesign. It's now tattered and frayed, and as it grows dirtier and more damaged he begins to look truly monstrous as his desire to save everybody completely consumes him. Bakugo even lampshades he's drawn differently from everybody else. Sadly, this terrifying new appearance makes him appear more like a villain with an unseen character narrating that he's like a Nomu or even All For One himself when combined with his multiple Quirks.
• Ascended Fanboy: Deconstructed. Midoriya becomes the successor of his favorite hero. It works against him almost constantly; his admiration for All Might has skewed his expectations of both his hero and One For All, and when he's made to spar against All Might, he can't bring himself to fight since he sees All Might as utterly invincible in a straight battle, causing him to try to run away even though he has no hope against All Might's raw speed.
• Audience Surrogate: As he becomes more and more used to the world of Quirks, so does the audience.
• Awesome, but Impractical: One For All, initially. It allowed him to achieve some spectacular feats of strength, but at the cost of broken body parts. Part of the reason why was due to Midoriya's belief that One For All was a trump card, which caused his body to think of it the same way and was thus unable to adjust its power.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Midoriya has been observing his surroundings and taking notes on all the Quirk users he encounters. He can easily predict Bakugo's fighting style, which he uses to his advantage more than once. Later on, he replicates Gran Torino's movement pattern, after observing it for a few matches.
  • In his second fight with Bakugo the latter lampshades it, thinking to himself that he can't give Midoriya any time to think, and Midoriya's own inner monologue shows that it's working.
  • In Chapter 175, Midoriya manages to deduce Gentle's identity when he was disguised as well as his intentions in a few seconds, just from his voice, the name of a rare type of tea he heard about once that morning, and an off-hand throwaway line from Gentle in one of his videos.
  • In his fight against Gentle, after getting a handle on Gentle's power to make things elastic, Midoriya is able to precisely determine the locations of Gentle's air trampolines, which are effectively invisible, by observing Gentle's movements, even using them to his own advantage or outright turning them against Gentle on multiple occasions throughout the fight.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • His new Quirk Blackwhip is sinister-looking and tends to rampage around thanks to being turbocharged by One For All.
  • Bakugo notes that One For All is similar to All For One because they can hold multiple Quirks. Midoriya spends a while contemplating this until he comes to the conclusion that he's just going to have to fight to make something that's supposed to be evil into something good.
• Badass Adorable: Despite being a young boy who is constantly terrified, and who is rendered utterly speechless in the presence of a girl he likes, he's more than willing to put his life on the line to help others, and One For All makes him insanely powerful.
• Badass Boast: Not at first due to Midoriya's lack of self-esteem, but as his confidence grows he starts uttering a few of these. Notable examples are him telling off Bakugo and that he isn't gonna be his "little punching bag" anymore, telling his foes he'll beat them, and once when he hears a civillian talking about things heading back to normal, Izuku says "I'll make it so."
• Badass Bookworm: Midoriya is a very intelligent kid who is both near the top of his class and has documented near-encyclopedia level notes on various pro-heroes. He uses this knowledge to both create battle plans and exploit enemy weaknesses, all in the name of beating villains into submission.
• Badass and Child Duo:
  • With a then-5-year-old boy, Kota Izumi. During the attack of the League of Villains, Midoriya protects Kota while fighting Muscular.
  • With Eri while fighting Overhaul. Midoriya uses Eri's Quirk to rewind his injuries, temporarily negating One For All's drawbacks and effectively enabling him to use One For All: 100%. Midoriya straps Eri onto his back and uses Mirio's cape to secure the little girl. He proceeds to fight Overhaul. Well, "fight."
• Badass in Distress: He's at Shigaraki's mercy when the latter ambushes him in a shopping mall.
• Badass Normal: Even before receiving One For all, Midoriya had the heart of a hero, and after 10 months of Training from Hell with All Might, he bulked his weedy frame up to the near-pinnacle of what a baseline boy of his age could be. In situations where he can't use One For All (such as when he still can't regulate it well enough to use safely), he can still fall back on the fact that he's simply stronger and tougher than most other humans who don't have physical-enhancing quirks.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: His go-to fighting style where he mostly relies on using hand-to-hand combat but uses his fists most of the time. Later on, he grows to use more of a kick-based style so he can refrain from damaging his arms.
• Batman Gambit: Izuku uses one to sucessfully save Bakugo in the Hideout Raid Arc. Midoriya has known Katsuki for such a long time that he knows that he would never take help from someone he considered a rival (Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki), so he decides to send out Kirishima to extend his hand while counting on Bakugo accepting as Kirishima puts up with him the best. Fortunately, it works.
• Battle Cry: SMAAAAAASHHHHH!!!!!
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Midoriya always dreamed about becoming a superhero, something impossible as he was born Quirkless. After he meets All Might and grants him his Quirk, One For All, he discovers that his new Quirk isn't exactly helpful, as he leaves him with broken bones every time he uses. He has started to get a hold of it by now, but still…
• Berserk Button:
  • People he respects and/or views as being more skilled than him holding back for arbitrary reasons, or giving up instead of accepting help, is a recurring one for him. When he saw that Todoroki was purposely not using his Flame side during their fight, even though he was shivering from the cold and starting to lose the fight because of it, he began to get aggressive and even a bit angry, since it made it seem like Todoroki was trivializing everyone else who had to give their all to make it to the finals, while Todoroki coasted to it while being able to hold back. Another one is when Bakugo was not willing work with him against All Might during the final exams, since it meant Bakugo was willing to throw away his pride out of spite.
  • He does not like it when his knowledge and expertise on a hero's given Quirk is invalidated. He gives a particularly wild-eyed look when Ida uses a previously unrevealed ability to give his team an advantage in the Cavalry Game.
• The Berserker: An unusual example: while Midoriya is kind and heroic outside of fights, he can go to extreme, brutal lengths to defeat his opponents, such as breaking his fingers and arms with little concern for his own well-being. During the Paranormal Liberation War Arc, he gets consumed by rage while fighting Shigaraki, going so far as to bite him savagely in his fury.
• Best Served Cold: A meta-example. Midoriya never sought to exact revenge on Bakugo for bullying him all these years. Yet, the fact that their mutual role model (All Might) chose him as his successor instead of Bakugo utterly pulverized Bakugo's massive ego to smithereens.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's sweet and awkward to the point of being downright adorable, selfless to a fault, and is a huge fanboy for all of the world's heroes. His dream is to simply be the best hero he can be and help others with a smile. He's also armed with the Quirk of the world's greatest hero, and will kick your ass if you deserve it. In fact, it's unadvisable to infuriate Midoriya, unless you wish to end up like Stain, Overhaul or even Gentle and La Brava.
  • After his 'ascension', Tomura shows no fear or trepidation at fighting a small army of heroes all by himself during the hospital raid, a combination of his overwhelming power and nigh-suicidal mindset making him pretty glib and mocking towards the heroes' attempts to stop him, regardless of how battered and maimed his body gradually becomes once his Healing Factor is shut off. However, when Midoriya hits his Rage Breaking Point after Bakugou takes a hit for him from an All For One possessed Tomura, who then mocks his sacrifice, he proceeds to lose it against Tomura and attacks him in a feral anger, causing Tomura to actually show fear for the first time from his opponent's unexpected ferocity.
• Beyond the Impossible: Midoriya's specialty is making his insane plans work. Most prominent is the fact that he bends the otherwise impossible to turn predictions of Sir Nighteye, something the hero stated to be impossible and that his visions were final. He predicted that Eri would not be saved while he himself and Midoriya would die fighting Chisaki. Midoriya manages to combine his own power with Eri's and comes out unscratched of K.O.-ing Chisaki's One-Winged Angel while Sir Nighteye is being taken to the hospital, with Eri safe in their hands.
• Big Brother Instinct: Feels this need towards both Kota and Eri, being especially protective of both of them and immediately trying to help them overcome their issues and past trauma from the moment he meets them.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In the Entrance Exam, he jumps in to save Ochako from the Zero Pointer with his first Smash.
  • In Chapter 51, Midoriya punches Stain right in the face, just in time to save Iida from being stabbed to death.
  • In chapter 74, he saves Kota from being hit by Muscular. Later in 76 he grabs Kota from falling with his TEETH. Hell, the whole battle with Muscular counts as this towards his saving Kota.
  • In the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc, he saves Shindou from Todoroki's flames by jumping and grabbing him before the flames could reach him.
  • In Chapter 153, he busts in to help Mirio fight Overhaul at just the right moment, as Mirio had just been depowered and Overhaul was just about to use his Quirk on him.
  • In Chapter 276, he and Bakugo leap in to rescue Aizawa from Shigaraki.
  • In Chapter 366, he finally arrives at the battle against Shigaraki by slingshotting himself and delivering a SMASH! strong enough to send him flying.
• Big Good: After the Paranormal Liberation War arc, Midoriya strikes out on his own dropping out of UA and has teamed up with All Might, Endeavor, Hawks and Best Jeanist to locate Shigaraki and All for One. Jeanist even says in a flashback he'll become the focal point of their counteroffensive, with Midoriya immediately recapturing Muscular after he tries to kill Shindo and Tatami. Given this, he finally begins ascending to the role of Japan's main protector.
• Big Man on Campus: Midoriya is one of the most popular kids in Class 1-A, beloved for his kind personality and looked up to for demonstrating the courage, strength, and determination of a true hero. Outside of U.A., he received praise from the public for his awesome performance in the Sports Festival. Even a few villains like Stain, Gentle Criminal, and La Brava respect his strength, unfailing kindness, and unwavering determination to become a hero.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: In the Winter Internship arc, he is the Brunette to Bakugo's Blonde and Todoroki's Redhead.
• Blood Knight: In moments of desperation and excitement, Izuku gains an extreme desire to win while fighting that surpasses his will to be a hero and starts to gain a more confident persona. If that sounds like a familiar Hot-Blooded bully... yup. While fighting Bakugou, Izuku even lampshades this realization about himself.
• Blow You Away:
  • One of the powers of One For All is the ability to hit the air with enough force to direct it as a powerful gust of wind. Midoriya first used it with Delaware Smash to cause a rapid reaction in water when the villains attack, but this still breaks his fingers. All Might actually notes this and says he wasn't going to start training Midoriya to use this until he got the hang of 15% of this power.
  • Hatsume later presents Midoriya with some special gloves that will allow him to more efficiently create powerful air blasts with One For All while limiting the damage done. Midoriya was still fully able to use his hands while breaking them in and the audience first sees them in action when he fights Gentle Criminal.
• Body Horror:
  • Using 100% of One For All's power shatters the bones in Midoriya's limbs and causes massive internal bleeding in the body part he uses. In the anime, the first time he does it, his limbs flop around like empty gloves afterwards, as if his bones have shattered to splinters.
  • When the Blackwhip Quirk first manifests within Midoriya, it causes a scary spectacle. Fortunately, after Midoriya properly learns of this ability, it is no longer dangerous.
• Boring, but Practical: One For All: Full Cowl doesn't have the explosive power of a 100% Smash, and only makes him slightly superhuman, but it gives him a dose of its power without destroying his limbs. Also, as he improves throughout the series, he's able to tap into more of its power, going from 5%, to 8%, to 20%, to currently 30% (though he can briefly tap into 45%) of its power.
• Born Unlucky: Literally. 80% of humans in the setting are born with a Quirk. He's one of the unlucky 20% who aren't. After receiving One For All, he begins considering himself Born Lucky for getting the chance of a lifetime.
  • Becomes Born Lucky in chapter 304; The One for All predecessors reveal that they all suffered shortened life spans because due to already having Quirks of their own, combining them with One for All wrecked havok on their bodies. The user who had it the second-longest only held onto it for 18 years before passing it on, and died at the age of 40 because of premature old age. All Might on the other hand was able to hold onto One for All for forty years explicitly because he was Quirkless. With the powers of One for All fully manifesting, and Quirkless people becoming an increasing rarity, the vestiges of One for All conclude that Midoriya was fated to receive One for All, and will be the last holder in the chain of succession.
• Breath Weapon: In Chapter 293, He saves Todoroki from Dabi by firing Black Whip from his mouth much like how Froppy uses her tongue.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: A deconstruction of his Determinator mindset. As a result of overusing One For All, his hand has become permanently disfigured. Worse still, the doctors say that both of his arms will be rendered completely useless if he keeps using his Quirk in this way, basically leaving him a cripple and cutting his dreams short even after he's survived yet another life-or-death situation. It's implied that his ligaments will heal fully in time if he doesn't exert them nearly as much, but that doesn't diminish the incentive to avoid breaking them again.
• Bully and Wimp Pairing: His "friendship" with Bakugo in a nutshell. Bakugo is, to put it lightly, a gigantic asshole, but Midoriya puts up with him, even using an Affectionate Nickname for him.
• Bully Magnet: It's established at the very beginning that he was bullied for ten years straight by his classmates (with their ringleader Bakugo being the most relentless) because he is Quirkless and the teachers allowed it because of Fantastic Ableism. Once he got a Quirk and made it to U.A., this disappeared.
• Busman's Holiday: Midoriya frequently runs into villains on days that are either supposed to be fun and relaxing or at least harmless training exercises, the first of these being the attack at USJ. He's later held hostage at the mall by Shigaraki, attacked by villains at the training camp, and encounters Gentle and La Brava while running to get supplies for the U.A. Cultural Festival.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • A large portion of the manga's Slapstick is aimed squarely at him. Whether it's getting caught in sudden, random explosions, getting hit with an unprovoked Groin Attack, or repeatedly slamming into a wall while trying to get the hang of One For All, the poor kid has it rough even when he isn't fighting villains. In Smash!!, Bakugo is also prone to hurting him for comical effect, going so far as to put him in a full-body cast in the second OVA.
  • He isn't even exempt in the outro endings. In the second ending of Season 2, the Fantasy AU story opens with Midoriya stepping out the door and waving goodbye to his mom. A few seconds later, his foot hits a rock in the road and he falls flat on his face, spilling everything in his bag.

C - E

• Calling Your Attacks: He picks it up from All Might, right down to some of his moves ending with "smash".
• The Cameo: In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, his face appears as a sticker on a billboard advertising a high school anime club.
• Cannot Talk to Women:
  • Downplayed at first. He had hardly talked to girls before making friends with Ochaco, so he was awkward when interacting with her at first. Later on, he becomes more confident and can talk to other women just fine for as long as he's not in a compromising position. But he's left sputtering after Mei lands on top of him after an explosion, placing her boobs right in front of his face. He's also mortified when she starts feeling him up to take his measurements.
  • Averted entirely towards the end. Izuku matures to the point where he readily goes up to Ochaco and tells her how pretty her hair is, as well as taking another of Mei's falls on top of him in stride even with her breasts smushed right up against his nose.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Midoriya lacks a good sense of humor beyond making absurdly detailed All Might facial impressions. He's just too darn timid to compose himself to be funny.
• Cassandra Truth: Midoriya tells All Might that he wasn't the one who moved his fingers and activated his Quirk during his brainwashing at the U.A. Sports Festival. All Might doesn't buy it at all, and tells Midoriya that the vestiges merely inspired his own willpower. Midoriya changes his mind and and accepts All Might's explanation. Over a hundred chapters later, All Might gets proven wrong when Midoriya has an interactive dream and his Quirk turns on by itself. The seven deceased wielders really did break his fingers in that match.
• Cast from Hit Points: He learns One For All the hard way, by releasing explosive blasts through his limbs; the physical backlash is like setting off firecrackers in his arms. This is carried out to its logical conclusion repeatedly, considering that his self-destructive powers limit his capacity for heroics in the long term.
• Casting a Shadow: One of Deku's Quirks is Blackwhip, which can produce strong tentacles of black energy to catch or grapple.
• Catchphrase: Doesn't nearly say it as much as All Might says "I AM HERE!," but in the English dub, Midoriya tends to say "Holy whoa!" when shocked or surprised.
• Centipede's Dilemma: While learning under Gran Torino, Midoriya comes to understand that much of his control issues with One For All stem from his thinking of it like a special power, something to unleash only as needed, when even the most unusual of Quirks are ultimately just another bodily function. From then on, he takes to the idea that he has to get used to using One For All as naturally as he breathes.
• Character Development:
  • He has a very quick development. Starting as a timid wimp in Chapter 1, he develops a muscular build in Chapter 2 and stops being concerned about Bakugo's bullying between Chapters 4 and 5. The list goes on. The story as a whole can essentially serve as a Coming of Age Story for Midoriya. As he becomes increasingly courageous, he gets increasingly closer to the image of heroism All Might projected. Additionally, as he grows in confidence, he slowly grows from a scared and timid kid to assuming an unofficial position of leadership within his class. Aizawa comments in Chapter 106 that his presence along with Bakugo's affects their whole class whether they know it or not.
  • The Joint Training Arc shows that his relationship with Bakugo has improved that he no longer flinches when being verbally attacked by him and actually acts along as if it was friendly banter. He's also very confident in his role as a leader to him team and about being the main target of the enemy, unlike him quickly crumbling from the pressure when he became the target of the Cavalry Battle. This is even lampshaded by Mineta:
    Mineta: You never used to be so steadfast. You behaved more strangely before.
  • At the beginning of the series, he's a timid and skittish young boy whose lack of self-confidence stems from his initial Quirklessness and being bullied and belittled all through his childhood due to it. His journey to becoming more self-assured and unyielding is a huge plot point throughout the series and, comes the War Arc, he's among the top players thanks to his gradual mastery of the One For All.
  • The aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War leaves him much more focused and serious in how he conducts himself as a hero. While he is no less kind or helpful to the people that need his assistance, the double whammy of learning that he's most likely the last user of One For All and that he may need to kill Shigaraki if it comes down to it, combined with the sheer carnage he's witnessed as a result of the Paranormal Liberation Front's assault on Japan sees a fair amount of the eager optimism he once had leave his eyes as he begins to near exclusively focus on his quest to find and stop AFO and Shigaraki before they can harm anyone else.
• Character Tics:
  • Has a tendency to mumble when he's overthinking. As a Running Gag, it tends to creep people out who don't know him and haven't seen him do it before. Those who are familiar tend to shrug it off as an amusing eccentricity.
  • There's the nervous, quivery smile he cracks during a tense situation, trying to mimic All Might's near-perpetual smile so that he can encourage those around him and reassure himself of his willpower.
  • He can't tie a tie at all. The knot is always too big and the tail is bunched up too short.
  • He sweats profusely. His character profile notes his sweat glands never get a day off. It's so bad that he can somehow sweat inside his own brain when he gets intimidated by one of the people sharing his body.
• Characterization Marches On: In his introduction, Midoriya was shown to be unable to talk with girls, even freezing up instead of being able to talk to Uraraka and curling up when faced with the inevitability of having to interact with her. This is likely due to few if any girls having any interest in him as a child. He does get accustomed to it and is able to interact with his female classmates amicably though he can still end up in a nervous position. His potential feelings toward Uraraka have also gone unaddressed for a long while due to various other events going on for the time being.
• Character Narrator: The entire series is Midoriya's story on how he became a hero, and is narrated by his future self.
• Charged Attack: The Third User's original Quirk, Fa Jin, allows Deku to store up kinetic energy with repeated movements and then unleash it all at once for a devastating burst of power and speed. His very first application of it is squatting repeatedly to store energy in his legs and then launching off like a rocket at blinding speed to ambush Lady Nagant, ultimately traversing the length of a skyscraper in an instant. While its application is similar to just using One For All at higher percentages, Fa Jin seems to take more time to prepare but comes without the drawback of instantly breaking his limbs.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: While it's rarely brought up due to him usually having his Quirk to rely on, Midoriya is far stronger and more durable than any normal person could be even without using One For All. At 166cm in height (5'5"), he can lift the 255kg (560lbs) All Might on his shoulders and can withstand the blowback of One For All with just broken limbs, even after firing multiple punches. While his broken limbs may seem bad, this is actually very impressive because any regular person's arms would be blown clean off if they tried using One For All even once according to All Might.
• Cheap Costume: His Alpha Costume is homemade and is made with much cheaper materials and equipment (compared to a professionally made one that includes high-tech gadgets). His second (but not official), hero costume is also one as it is a school-provided PE Uniform fitted with assorted protective padding and equipment.
• Cheerful Child: As a 4-year old, he was one hyperactive little bugger. His experiences with bullying and never developing a Quirk unfortunately put a big stunt on this part of personality by the present day at the start of the story, leaving him timid. Thankfully, his newfound friends and life as a hero causes him to slowly regain his confidence and cheerfulness as the story progresses.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: His first hero costume had a translucent mask with a pattern that invokes a wide, toothy smile like All Might's. After it was repaired, it was replaced with a metal mouthguard designed to evoke a similar feeling.
• Child-Like Voice: Despite being sixteen years old, Midoriya still looks like a small boy. That appearance is well-complemented by a very child-like tenor, both in Japanese and the English dub.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome:
  • One of the main reasons the heroes are impressed by Midoriya is his will to help people, regardless of how powerful or powerless they are. This is later proven to be detrimental to his body and is cause for concern for the people who care for him. He even had to be restrained by Ida from acting on his heroic impulses when All For One just wiped out a squad of pro heroes in front of their eyes.
  • In Chapter 193, even though Midoriya knows he is watching visions of the past, he instinctively reaches out to save Yoichi Shigaraki when All For One was forcing the stockpiling Quirk on him.
  • Once he unlocks all the predecessor's Quirks after the Paranormal Liberation War, it practically becomes an actual medical condition, with him going around trying to save everyone by himself without taking a moment's rest.
• The Chosen One: Chosen by All Might to be the next bearer of One For All. Bakugo even mentions this by name once he realizes All Might and Midoriya's true relationship. The vestiges of the past users of One For All later bring it up again after it's revealed that only the Quirkless can properly wield One For All. All of them note that the chances of All Might meeting a Quirkless individual who fit the exact personality profile he wanted in a successor, right before the Quirk itself was about to hit the Singularity and become too powerful for anyone to control, and right before the final leg of their war with All For One, were astronomically low. They conclude that it can't be anything but an act of fate that allowed his meeting with Izuku to happen and set them upon the path they're on now, and that Izuku truly was destined to wield One For All all along.
• Clark Kent Outfit: It's not obvious but after his training with All Might, Midoriya is ripped, though it doesn't ever really show through his everyday clothes or his form-fitting hero costume. Clothing Damage from fighting and using One For All usually reminds readers that he is◊ in fact◊ buff.◊ This is lampshaded by Mei while she's feeling him up:
  Hatsume: Yes, yes... you're built a lot stronger than you look.
• Classical Anti-Hero: A Quirkless, shy boy gets the chance to become a hero. He still isn't all that confident in himself, but it's improving. Despite his growth as a hero, the story calls into question whether or not he can become someone who can be compared to All Might or if he truly is someone worthy of inheriting One For All in light of potentially more capable candidates. The answer ends up being yes: he can be someone better than All Might by having his friends by his side supporting him, and he proves himself entirely worthy of keeping One For All.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Using One For All at full power, especially in normal civilian or gym clothes, tends to obliterate his sleeves or pantlegs from the Chunky Updraft before he even launches his attacks.
  • In the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation Front's war with the heroes, Midoriya's Costume Gamma is in tatters, with the sleeves and gloves completely destroyed, his hood raggedy, and even his face mask is cracked and worn. He retrofits it into Costume Epsilon with the Mid Gauntlets ordered overseas from Melissa, but the fighting means all his equipment only becomes more damaged as time goes on. Even his iron soles are worn to the point that they resemble a beast's claws, becoming a terrifying rather than reassuring sight. Eventually, after 1-A screw his head back on straight, he has to get an entirely new outfit dubbed "Costume Zeta", while still carrying over most of the previous design sans the hood and different color scheme.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Downplayed. He only manages to attract the likes of Uraraka and Toga along with a few others such as Hatsume and Melissa. Though due to his less than stellar social experience with others, he's unable to notice.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Izuku has a passion for analyzing Quirks, but struggles terribly with using his own, and needs intervention from Gran Torino to learn how to start using One For All properly. Justified since he was not born with it and One For All is incredibly different from other Quirks.
• Color Motif: Green. The "Midori" in his last name means Green in Japanese, his hair and eyes are Green, and his hero costume is also Green (and so many of his other outfits.)
• Combat Parkour: With Full Cowl and his analytic skills, he starts moving like Bakugo when he is fighting. This is lampshaded by his classmates.
• Combat Pragmatist: While not exactly a dirty fighter, he will exploit enemy weaknesses when he can. Such examples include he attempts to sneak up on and blindside Overhaul with a rock in hand, using a cape to dupe Lady Nagant, and biting Shigaraki’s Combat Tentacles.
• Combat Tentacles: He manifests a Quirk named Blackwhip, which allows him to produce long tentacles of dark energy from his hands. It's primarily useful for capturing objects, restraining villains, or to move around in the air by attaching to surfaces, Spider-Man style. However, it's also got some of the most offensive potential of the Quirks residing in One For All, as Deku demonstrates by using it to catch and then body slam Muscular right out of the air. It was the original Quirk of Daigoro Banjo, the fifth user of One For All.
• Combination Attack:
  • When he discovers the true nature of Eri's Quirk, Midoriya synchronizes their Quirks, allowing him to temporarily access One For All: 100% without any repercussions. He proceeds to fight Overhaul.
  • In his ultimate confrontation with All For One, he and the manifested vestiges of the predecessors work together to lay a hard smack down on him and terminate his and Shigaraki's merger. All of his Quirks work together in tandem, trained and boosted by One For All, with a panel even dedicated to showing each user with their fist cocked back to land their blows and get some revenge.
• Combo Platter Powers: Midoriya discovers that he has six Quirks stored within One For All, each Quirk belonging to a different One For All predecessor. So far, Midoriya can use Blackwhip (which belonged to Daigoro Banjo), Float (Nana Shimura's Quirk), Danger Sense (Hikage Shinomori's Quirk), Smokescreen (En's Quirk), Fa Jin (Third User's Quirk) and Gearshift (Kudo's Quirk).
• Costume Evolution: Midoriya's hero costume goes through a number of upgrades over the course of his career that reflect Midoriya himself. It starts out as a cheap, light green and white jumpsuit that broke apart under stress as easily as its wearer did while using One For All, which is justified as it was a congratulations gift from her mother rather than a professionally-made one from UA High's sources. It is later repaired with more rugged, darker material while the white stripes have been replaced with black and the clear face mask replaced with a metal one. He received this costume after he had gained a great deal of experience, with a "white belt to black belt" sort of motif, as well as when he began to master One For All: Full Cowl, which eliminated his constant need to harm himself except in the direst of situations. His current costume, Version Gamma, is outfitted with additional protection as well as special leg armor designed to match his new fighting style and minimize the potential damage his Chronic Hero Syndrome has done to him in the past. He also used to wear the actual cowl of his costume when he was starting out, but has seldom worn it since the Hero vs. Villains exercise.
• Covered in Scars: His right arm is covered in scars because of the sheer amount of abuse he puts it through when using One For All. Because of this, he switched to a more kick-based style so as to keep his arms' mobility.
• Cowardly Lion: How he starts off. But even without a Quirk, he won't watch someone die if he can do something to try and stop it. This is what inspires All Might to make Midoriya his apprentice; All Might notes that Midoriya may be scared out of his mind, but acts in spite of his fear. As he slowly learns how to use his powers, he becomes much more confident.
• Creepy Good: During the Dark Hero arc Midoriya spends most of the time wearing a ragged-up and messy costume, his face covered in a cowl similar to horns, and later his gloves and shoes also become sharp just like demon claws. After his fight against Nagant he starts to walk around the streets with three pairs of Blackwhip coming out of his back, making him look more like a mix between Batman and Spawn.
• Crush Blush: While Midoriya is very easily flustered when any girl comes close to him, only Uraraka can make his whole face go red, cluing in that he likes her more than the other girls.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • He gives one to a highly empowered Overhaul when Midoriya enters his Super Mode. Overhaul had no chance to land a blow on Midoriya. What makes it more awesome is that Midoriya was able to defeat Overhaul while considerably minimizing collateral damage.
  • After All For One had launched attacks and mind games on him and his allies for well over a year, Izuku gets to truly give him what for by beating him up so severely in Shigaraki's body he has no opportunity to fight back. His extra Quirks let him use One For All at 120%, with their combined effects having him easily outstrip his nemesis, triggering a Villainous Breakdown and leaving him scrambling for some way to not die.
• Cursed with Awesome: Izuku was bullied and ostracized in his childhood for being Quirkless. It turned out to be a blessing because it prevents Izuku's life force from being consumed by One For All, allowing him to wield it safely compared to most of his predecessors.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Midoriya has green hair and green eyes.
• Cute and Psycho: Midoriya is an adorable little cinnamon roll but when pushed too far he has a habit to absolutely lose it. He also has some Blood Knight tendencies which he himself lampshades.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Midoriya really had it rough growing up. He and Bakugo were initially good friends, but when Bakugo's Quirk manifested and Midoriya's did not, this led Bakugo to see him as inferior and bully him. To make it worse, when Bakugo accidentally fell into a river and Midoriya offered him help, Bakugo saw this gesture of kindness as pity and believed Midoriya looked down on him. This only made Bakugo's bullying of Midoriya worse, doing whatever he could to make his life a living hell, especially since no one ever corrected Bakugo's behavior. Almost no one, not even his own mother, expressed faith in him and quickly branded him as a failure. The bullying and ostracization was so horrible that it's heavily implied that Midoriya developed Imposter Syndrome.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • His Blackwhip Quirk looks terrifying, but it's still Midoriya using it.
  • Following the Paranormal Liberation Arc, Midoriya's vigilante costume is a darker, more disheveled version of his regular suit, causing him to look even more intimidating than ever before. It becomes increasingly worn down and outright terrifying to look at◊ as the arc continues, even scaring a bunch of kids he rescues because of his new appearance.
• Deadly Upgrade:
  • In the final battle against Chisaki, Midoriya discovers that Eri's Quirk is to "rewind" the state of anyone she touches. As a result, she was able to rewind Midoriya's broken legs back to their original state after he accidentally used One For All 100%. However, she doesn't know how to stop her Quirk, thus it will eventually erase Midoriya from existence like it did her father. However, Midoriya realizes that if he keeps breaking his limbs with One For All 100%, Eri's Quirk will rewind those first. Thus, he has technically gained unlimited use of One For All at 100%, albeit he has to keep using it to keep himself from being rewound out of existence.
  • The 2nd's Quirk: Gear Shift, is this. It enables Midoriya to alter the speed of any set target he chooses up to 4 stages, 2nd, 3rd, Top Gear, and Gear Shift: Overdrive, enabling Midoriya's punches to gain increased velocity and break the sound barrier — as the 2nd puts it, bringing Midoriya's current performance up to unleashing 120% attacks — but it comes with a time limitation with the 2nd's vestige warning Midoriya to finish his fight within 5 minutes once he starts using it or he will certainly lose, and the war will be lost with him. As Midoriya starts to hit his limit, it's clarified that extended use without proper rest presents Midoriya's cells from transporting oxygen around his body, forcing him to suffer oxygen deprivation the longer he remains in this state.
• Death Glare:
  • He's capable of dealing them out every now and then when he gets serious. When he finds out the true extent of Overhaul's crimes, the expression of pure fury on Midoriya's face is enough to give even Bakugo a serious run for his money. It takes on a new level when Midoriya uses One For All: 100%.
  • He sports a rather terrifying look when confronting Shigaraki during the Paranormal Liberation arc.
  • Whilst operating under his 'Dark Deku' look, his default appearance is this, as he's manifesting the Black Eyes of Crazy that All Might sported when getting particularly serious in a fight.
  • When utterly pisssed off, his eyes start emitting One For All's energy as it flares up in response to his emotional state, making him look particularly demonic or intimidating.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Before his fight with Muscular, he promises to Kota that he'll protect him no matter what.
  • The Season 4 anime opening, "Polaris", is his and Mirio's promise to protect Eri.
  Push aside these tears the best as I can
  I'll give you everything that I have
  So please don't give up on me and disappear
  On that day I promised to protect you,
  That promise still remains in my heart...
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: As the story progresses and Midoriya underoges Character Development, it starts to deconstruct several of Midoriya's Stock Shōnen Hero traits, especially during the Dark Hero Arc.
  • The All-Loving Hero. Midoriya's kindness and empathy are his greatest strengths and it was these very traits that made All Might recognize him as his successor. The Dark Hero Arc shows that while these are great traits to have, they can be used against him. A major plot point his him wrestling with the possibility that he may have to kill Tomura Shigaraki even though he views him as a victim of All For One. During his rematch with Muscular, he tries to understand why Muscular is the way he is only to learn the hard way that not everyone can be reasoned with. Not long after that, All For One sends in Lady Nagant, a Hitman with a Heart who has a Dark and Troubled Past to capture him and has her explode right in front of him, knowing full well that Midoriya would try to reach out and try to redeem her.
  • The Ascended Fanboy. Midoriya has always admired All Might even before receiving his Quirk from him. However, at the beginning of the series, his idolization of All Might severely held him back as he tried too hard to mimic All Might's style. It's only after developing Full Cowl and later Shoot Style does he start to move away from imitating All Might and becoming his own hero. Then this trope rears its ugly head again during the Dark Hero Arc where his relentless drive to stop All For One causes him to isolate himself from everyone, including All Might and the Pro Heroes working alongside him, which is what All Might himself did during his run as the Symbol of Peace. It takes Midoriya's friends reminding him that he doesn't have to shoulder the burden alone and he should let his friends fight alongside him.
  • The Chosen One: After his attempt to rescue Bakugo from the Sludge Villain, he is recognized by All Might for his bravery and is chosen to be his successor. Later, after the Paranomral Liberation War Arc, he finds out that only the Quirkless can wield One For All's full power safely and with Quirkless people being less and less common, this makes him potentially the last wielder of One For All and the only one capable of stopping All For One for good. However, as Uraraka states when she defended him from the angry protesters who didn't want him to to rest in his own school, he may have the power to defeat All For One, but he is still a high schooler who has chosen to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even as he is unlocking the true potential of One For All, the responsibilities it carries often overwhelms him and it becomes clear to Uraraka and Bakugo that Midoriya's power and ideals won't be enough. Instead, he has to put as much trust to his friends as he does himself and this power.
  • Determinator. Midoriya's determination is practically a Quirk in its own right. No matter how bleak the situation looks, no matter how stacked the deck is against him, Midoriya never gives up and keeps fighting even at a great personal cost to himself. The Dark Hero Arc takes it to its logical extreme. In his relentless pursuit to stop All For One, Izuku isolates himself from everyone. He leaves U.A High to fight villains and save people round the clock. He doesn't sleep, hardly eats protein bars, and ignores his wounds. After barely escaping one of All For One's traps, Izuku goes as far as to isolate himself from All Might and the other Pro Heroes. Izuku's drive is so extreme, even his One For All predecessors are concerned for him. It ultimately takes an intervention from all of Class 1-A to bring him to his senses.
• Dented Iron: Just from his first year at U.A. alone, the damage that Midoriya has done to his body in the process of learning how to properly control One For All has left him with permanent scars. Most prominently, his right hand has been a mess since he wrecked it during his match with Todoroki in the Sports Festival.
• Determinator:
  • Despite not having a Quirk, he never gave up on his dream of becoming a hero. His dream temporarily shatters when his idol All Might tells him to give up, until the latter comes back and asks Midoriya to become his successor, since Midoriya was the only person brave enough to try to save Bakugo from the Sludge Villain. Since then, Midoriya works very hard without giving up in accomplishing his goal.
  • Before he learned to use One For All effectively, this was regularly shown in Midoriya willingly breaking his bones multiple times for the sake of using its power for the good of others — usually fingers, sometimes arms. It takes some gusto to swing at the enemy knowing you're going to directly invoke some serious pain in doing so. He eventually develops a technique that allows him to power through those fractures by wrapping his broken limbs with Blackwhip, allowing him to manipulate them like a puppet. That he's able to fight while so severely injured, ignoring what must be unbearable pain hitting him with every movement, is a testament to his ridiculous willpower.
  • Deconstructed during his attempts to get through to Todoroki, as it resulted in his hand being permanently disfigured after using One For All with a broken hand. Later, it's revealed that he has only 2 or 3 more 100% bone-breaking attacks left in him. His arms run the very real risk of becoming permanently paralyzed if he tries to use full power punches as he is now.
• Depower: In the series Final Battle it becomes apparent that Izuku can't beat Shigaraki in a straight up brawl due to the villain's enhanced body and regeneration and because Izuku refuses to use a blow powerful enough to kill him completely. The vestiges realize that the only way to stop Shigaraki at this point is to break off One For All into its individual Quirk factors and forcibly transfer then into Shigaraki to attack his mental world in order to weaken his will so he will listen to Izuku. This results in Izuku losing the ancillary Quirks within One For All as they break against Shigaraki's shell of hatred until he loses the last Quirk vestige, Nana, leaving just himself with One For All's super strength.
• Difficult, but Awesome: One For All is this for him. While he started off breaking his limbs just to use it, once he masters it, he'll be the World's Strongest Man. Also, he'll be able to wield the turbocharged Quirks of his predecessors to their max potential once he masters One For All.
• Disability Immunity: His Quirklessness is what prevents One For All from sapping away at his lifeforce the way it did his predecessors (except the also Quirkless All Might), allowing him to contain and use it without it causing him to rapidly age.
• Ditto Fighter: He is capable of this, with enough research, incorporating and adapting other's styles and techniques to his own fighting style. So far, he's adopted styles from Bakugo, Gran Torino, Iida, Ashido and Shigaraki/AFO.
• The Dog Bites Back: He refuses to take any more crap from Bakugo after being tormented by him since preschool. This is shown when he stood up to him when Bakugo confronted him about going to U.A., fought him during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, and gave him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech after he punched him the face during the Final Exams Arc:
  Midoriya: "I'm not gonna be your worthless punching bag Deku forever... Kaachan. I'm... I'm the Deku who always does his best!"
• Doom Magnet: It's almost a Black Comedy Running Gag how often Midoriya runs into extremely dangerous villains in public places at times when he's just a civilian. Being only a hero-in-training, these experiences are quite scary for him. Played for Drama after the Paranormal Liberation War Arc, where the amount of casualties and the fact that All For One is targeting him for capture personally leads him to leave UA and become a vigilante to keep his friends and family out of harm's way.
• Dork Knight: He has one of the strongest Quirks in the world, has some of the best grades in his class, and is incredibly brave and selfless when others' lives are on the line. He's also a hero fanboy who will gush at the sight of nearly any Pro Hero in an instant and is a total Socially Awkward Hero who instantly gets flustered at the thought of anything romantic involving the opposite sex.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: He was born Quirkless and was constantly told that he would never be able to become a hero. Luckily, this doesn't last thanks to All Might's decision to give him One For All.
• Dub Name Change: Not him, but One For All: Full Cowl, which was renamed in the English version to One For All: Full Cowling.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: He gains these after the Paranormal Liberation War. The trauma he experienced as a result of the destruction the war caused, as well as running himself ragged in his efforts to stop All For One and Shigaraki before they can make another move robs him of a lot of the youthful optimism his eyes normally had. It's downplayed, since his eyes will occasionally gain that hopeful spark now and again when he's being particularly heroic, but it fades just as quickly once the situation passes. They go away permanently once he hears Ochaco passionately defend him from atop the U.A. roof, thankful for his friends' support and having a little Love Epiphany about Ochaco in the process.
• Elemental Motifs: Two.
  • Lightning. Whenever Midoriya activates One For All, his body is coated in green lightning and can hear a shocking noise. Along with that, his use of One For All is more focused on speed and mobility compared to All Might's raw power.
  • Wind. Midoriya's fighting style is that of a Lightning Bruiser, prioritizing speed and mobility. His ranged attack, Air Force, allows him to shoot blasts of compressed air. When he initially used One For All before his training with Gran Torino, Midoriya's attacks were extremely powerful, yet one-use blasts of compressed air. This becomes especially significant as the wind/air become a key thematic element during the series' final arc, with a giant comulonimbus forming during all the fighting and All For One expressing fury at his plans going awry, saying "the wind was meant to blow [his] way."
• Embodiment of Virtue:
  • Diligence. He never refuses to go the extra-mile even though he knows that he probably Can't Catch Up due to his initial lack of a Quirk and his small frame. He knows that he needs to work twice as much as everyone else but he does the job regardless.
  • Kindness. He wears his trademark dark green jumpsuit and emits green energy around him, the colour of Envy (which he used to feel for Bakugo) but also that of Hope and Kindness, which he exemplifies by his usual friendliness, his refusal to give into despair in any situation and his unswerving selflessness, so much indeed that Bakugo himself takes note of this quality in him upon training him with his new Quirks right before the beginning of the War Arc.
  • Patience. He patiently learns from his mistakes, observes everything around him, writes everything he learns in his workbooks to analyze and interpret it later and elaborate strategies and techniques.
  • Self-Sacrifice. Midoriya will do anything - even mangling his body and crippling his limbs - if it means protecting others. Yoichi Shigaraki, the first user of One For All considers it one of his greatest virtues.
• Endearingly Dorky: He elicits this reaction in All Might and Uraraka, both of whom smile fondly at the fact that Midoriya's room is filled with merchandise of the former. Uraraka even happily tells him "you're such a fanboy".
• Enhanced Punch: How he starts out using One For All. Usually breaking his entire arm in the process.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first on-page appearance as a child shows him defending another young boy from Bakugo and a pair of other bullies, despite being Quirkless, outnumbered, hopelessly outmatched, and absolutely terrified. Later in the same episode, he tries saving Bakugo, his bully, while using the info he wrote in his notebooks.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He has this reaction upon discovering Aoyama is the traitor from Toru, especially since he'd formed a close friendship with the boy.
• "Eureka!" Moment: While the rest of his class underwent training to strengthen their Quirks and develop new techniques, All Might tells him he's still trying too hard to be like him. After seeing Hatsume work on her inventions and her constantly thinking outside the box, it finally hit him: that indeed he was trying too hard to emulate All Might and that he needed to come up with his own workarounds for One For All. So he has his hero costume redone so that it'd lessen the impact of his strikes and likewise begins focusing Full Cowl to his kicks.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones:
  • Overhaul: When Izuku finds out what Overhaul was doing to Eri, he's horrified and eventually beats the ever living snot out of him in the most epic Curb-Stomp Battle possible. Upon encountering each other again, Izuku coldly shirks off his inane rambling and bluntly tells him he's going to apologize to Eri and give him information on All For One's whereabouts. It's either that or he'll leave him and his boss to die.
  • Shigaraki: Is openly disgusted by him in each of their encounters, going so far as to try to kill him during the Paranormal Liberation War, and redoubles his efforts after he nearly murders Gran Torino. This becomes flipped when he senses his old Tenko persona crying out for help, and while he can never forgive him, he decides he'll try to save him if possible.
  • All For One: The top contender by a mile. No other character has elicited such pure, quivering rage from Izuku. As if their traumatic encounter at the climax of the Paranormal Liberation War wasn't enough, he becomes another Arch-Enemy in addition to Tomura during his time away from U.A. after what he did to Lady Nagant, preventing him from saving her. This, on top of all his other crimes, makes Izuku uncharacteristically furious. And it only gets worse from there.
• Exact Words: At the end of the Joint Training Arc, when Aizawa requests an explanation for the emergence of the Blackwhip, Midoriya knows he can't give a truthful explanation that doesn't reveal the secret of One For All. Instead, he says the only technically true thing he can get away with: he doesn't understand how it happened either.
• Extreme Doormat: Used to be one as a child, chasing after Bakugo and shilling for him despite having been mocked, beaten and otherwise harassed by him and his toadies. He snaps out of this come the U.A. entrance exam, where he outright refuses to be pushed around by his former bully.
• Extremity Extremist: He switches between both sides of this, initially starting off with a punch-based combat style once he attains One for All. When All-Might tells Midoriya that he's trying too hard to emulate him, he decides to switch to a kick based fighting style so he doesn't break his arms as much after he nearly permanently paralyzes them. Subverted once he unlocks Blackwhip, a Quirk that lets him summon whips to attack.

F - I

• Famed In-Story: After the U.A. Sports Festival, he became well-known to everyone who watched it. Gentle and La Brava utter an Oh, Crap! when they realize that the boy coming after them is the insane kid who shattered his own bones on TV and destroyed the entire ring. Crosses into flat-out Hero with Bad Publicity status once he tries pursuing All For One by himself. After ensuing complications, a 1-A intervention, and Uraraka telling a mob of refugees off for their cowardice, people slowly begin accepting him, paving the way for him and the rest of his generation to be remembered as the world's greatest heroes.
• Fanboy: Of All Might and heroes in general, a fact that is lampshaded repeatedly by his classmates, who outright call him an Otaku for his obsession. For instance, his reaction to learning that All Might used support items in the past:
  Midoriya: [web-surfing on his phone with a manic look in his eyes] All Might wearing support items... All Might wearing support items. For me to not know such a "Rare-Might" is a failure, utter failure. What were they? Picture... not available... is there not a video of it?!
  Uraraka: [looks on and screams in horror] AHHHH!
• Fantastic Ableism: Played for Drama. Due to living as the only person without a Quirk in an environment full of Quirk-users, he's been bullied constantly for his lack of power and treated as a loser. It's however, subverted later on once he gains One For All.
• Fast as Lightning: As shown in the page image, once Izuku starts beginning to safely use One For All at safe levels his body can handle with 'Full Cowling', his usage of the power is indicated by green lightning arcing off him rather than the Volcanic Veins that indicated where he was channeling the power beforehand. At this point, rather than using the full power of One For All for devastating but single-use attacks, Izuku becomes more primarily focused on utilizing the enhanced speed and mobility Full Cowling grants him to engage opponents. The more power he channels, the stronger and bigger the lightning that generates off him, though it appears to be purely a visual effect, as Izuku can handle both machines and people whilst in this state without electrocuting them. When he temporarily taps into 'Full Cowling, 100%' with Eri's help, the lightning becomes blue-white and apparently generates such power that Izuku's hair is permanently standing on end throughout said state.
• Fatal Flaw: Several.
  • Izuku's Chronic Hero Syndrome and his fixation with trying to emulate All Might in every way ultimately does more harm to his body than good. His right arm ends up badly scarred and it reaches the point where his hands become permanently disfigured. The doctors tell him that if he takes any more significant damage using One For All, he could potentially lose the functionality of his arms altogether. His mother's concern, a pep talk from All Might, and his inability to rescue Bakugo because of how he crippled himself from an earlier fight finally get Midoriya to reconsider how he uses his Quirk going forward.
  • His empathy for others is a double-edged sword. Izuku's determination to save those who are in need no matter what, which extends to villains as well as civilians, is a grave weakness as it makes him very predictable. All For One in particular is extremely gleeful to psychologically torment him through this in the lead-up to his planned 'final battle' with him. What stops him from being susceptible to Villains Want Mercy ploys is that Izuku is wise enough to figure out which villains secretly want to be saved and which are beyond his reach.
  • His severe lack of self-confidence. Due to being ostracized by everyone for his Quirklessness and ruthlessly bullied by Bakugo, Midoriya has very little self-esteem and tends to suffer from a lack of self-confidence. This plays a major part in him having One For All, believing himself an unworthy successor to All Might, despite earning it through hard work and selflessness. This at times can make him very timid, easily intimidated and quick to think of himself as unworthy. It's heavily implied that he may suffer from Imposter Syndrome, undoubtedly brought on by his terrible childhood, explaining his lack of confidence.
  • Impulsiveness. Throughout the series, Midoriya has shown himself to be impulsive and quick to action without thinking things through. While admirable, this can at times put him into situations where he either puts himself in danger, hurts himself to the point of severe injury, or makes the situation worse. This is most exemplified when it comes to his arms; even though he disfigures one hand and injures his arms to the point where he could lose them, he still throws himself into situations without thinking things through.
  • Selflessness. In contrast to Bakugo, who can be selfish to a fault, Midoriya is very selfless and will always put others before himself. While selflessness is a major part of being a hero, Midoriya takes it to the extreme and often won't take himself into account when acting to protect others. Bakugo even brings this up later in the series that Midoriya almost never takes himself into account and his selflessness can border on self-destructive. This plays a major part in him leaving U.A. in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation War and it takes all of Class 1-A to break him out of his mindset.
• Feels No Pain: Played with. The constant pain of breaking his own bones whenever his powers were used caused him to have a very high resistance to pain. It's not that he doesn't feel it anymore, rather, he got used to the feeling of pain and it usually doesn't hinder him anymore.
• Felony Misdemeanor: His unsanctioned fight with Bakugo is treated as something even worse than breaking countless laws during the Hideout Raid Arc, although he would have been expelled for the latter if not for All Might's retirement. This is partly justified, as Aizawa explains that this is because, to him, it "proves" that Midoriya has a bad habit of breaking protocol and causing unnecessary risks, which is a massive red flag in the pro hero business.
• Fictional Disability: At the current time, 80% of the world's population is filled with Quirk-users while the remaining 20% are Quirkless (i.e. without Quirks). Izuku being born Quirkless is a very rare thing and he's treated by others as a physically disabled kid because of it prior to gaining One for All.
• Fights Like a Normal:
  • For a while during his first fight against Bakugo, since using his power would cripple him and/or kill Bakugo due to his lack of control.
  • During the first round of the U.A. Sports Festival, he took first place without using One For All. Justified, since his opponent Shinso only had his Brainwashing Quirk to rely on, but is reduced to plain fighting once his target is aware of how it works.
  • For the most part, this is phased out after he manages to utilize Full Cowl, allowing him to utilize his Quirk at a lower power level to boost all of his physical abilities without the risk of harm.
• Finger Poke of Doom: Delaware Smash involves Midoriya compressing One For All's power into a single finger that he proceeds to flick at the air. While it breaks his finger, it also releases a massive rush of wind and concussive force that can generate whirlpools when aimed at water and blast Todoroki's ice back at him. Midoriya eventually develops a more manageable version, Delaware Smash Air Force, that uses only 20% of One For All's power to launch a cannonball of air at someone with the help of new gloves designed by Mei.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Lightning to Bakugo's Fire and Todoroki's Ice. Green lightning surrounds Midoriya when he uses One For All.
• Flash Step:
  • He did this once in order to try to save All Might from Shigaraki, although he broke both his legs in the process.
  • When able to safely use Full Cowl 100%, his default movements become this, which is one reason Overhaul doesn't stand a chance.
  • Jumps all the way up to light speed when he uses Gearshift on himself in tandem with One For All's Super-Strength and Fa Jin, ignoring inertia and zipping around like a speedster straight out of DC Comics.
• Flying Brick: Finally achieves flight at the beginning of the Final Battle where he combines Float with his Air Force technique to travel the speed of a motorboat as he tries to cover the distance between himself and the floating U.A. High due to Toga pulling him into the wrong place. Combine this with his physical strength and other superpowers and he's like a fusion of Superman and Spider-Man.
• For Great Justice: Since childhood, Midoriya always had a compulsive need to help anyone in trouble. After receiving One For All, he states his goal is to create a bright future for everyone.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: It's revealed in a shot of his U.A. files that his Quirk is written as "Super-Strength" in his official files, rather than "One For All", which is likely due to trying to keep his Quirk and the relation to All Might a secret.
• Freudian Trio: Of the main trio who intern under Endeavor together, Midoriya, who's diligent, reserved, and intelligent, is the Ego to Bakugo's Id and Todoroki's Superego.
• A Friend in Need: He tried to be there for Iida after the news that Tensei barely survived facing off Stain. He didn't hesitate to disobey Gran Torino's orders to not fight Stain when he learned of his sighting in Hosu. This landed him in trouble with the law for using his Quirk without permission.
• Friend to All Children: In every instance, he ultimately befriends the children he interacts with. Whether it is to offer some encouraging words, protecting them from harm and making sure that they are taken care of even after everything is said and done. This is seen with Eri, Kota, Mahoro and Katsuma.
• Friendless Background: While he and Bakugo started as friends, their subsequent falling out due to Bakugo's enormous ego ensured Midoriya faced ostracization and bullying for ten-odd years before meeting All Might. He admits that so much as making two friends in Uraraka and Iida on his first day of high school was way more than he could've hoped for.
• From Zero to Hero: The series is basically how he went from a Quirkless Heroic Wannabe to the World's Greatest Hero.
• Generation Xerox: He's a former Quirkless wielder of One For All who aims to be the world's greatest hero. All Might reveals to Midoriya that he was also a Quirkless wielder of One For All who became the world's greatest hero.
• Genius Bruiser: A genius who worked his ass off to become a bruiser. While his wide variety of Quirks make him definitely formidable, what makes him truly dangerous is his cunning and ingenuity. A consistently excellent strategist and tactician, his specialty is analyzing combat situations and devising plans before and during brawls which helps etch himself several victories during his career.
• Glass Cannon: One For All 100% has insane power, but Midoriya can't use it or else he'll break the body part he uses it on. He could be seen as this to the logical extreme: in reality, a glass cannon would be destroyed after one shot. He exploits this fact when Overhaul tells him about Eri's Quirk, which can also rewind injuries. By constantly breaking his body, Midoriya can effectively use One For All at its maximum power. He proceeds to crush Overhaul, defeating him for good.
  • That said, he steadily subverts this trope when he's forced to frequently adjust how he uses One For All, as he runs the risk of rendering his arms useless.
• Glowing Eyes: In the anime, the irises of Midoriya's eyes glow a neon green while using One for All: Full Cowl in contrast to their normal dark green coloration. This gets pronounced to particularly intimidating effect whilst he's operating under his 'Dark Deku' look, as he's additionally sporting the Black Eyes of Crazy that All Might did when truly serious in a fight. When he's really angered, to the point of almost losing his rationality altogether, the energy of All For One overflows from his body and blots out his eyes, making them look like they're on fire. So far, only All For One has proven capable of enraging him to this extent.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: How Midoriya fights during the first part of the series. This reflects his naivete and inexperience, as he's more or less just copying All Might while having no clue how to use his power. He switches into the self-propelling Shoot Style after deciding to mix it up, but as he demonstrated against Bakugo, he can and will still throw a good slug in. Later, he also improved his ranged abilities to the point where he's one of the most dangerous of Class 1-A's ranged attackers because he can snipe with his air blasts using Hatsume's gauntlets.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Compared to other Shonen protagonists, Deku is far from stupid. Years spent on analysing Quirks has made him very observant to the applications and weaknesses of the abilities of his opponents and comrades. Deku is also known for observing things that others tend to overlook.
• Good Is Not Soft: In Chapter 282, Deku fully intends to kill Shigaraki with a 100% smash to the head. Considering Shigaraki has just become an inhuman monstrosity and has killed many people, including (possibly) Gran Torino, it makes sense for him not to hold anything back. A few chapters later, Deku goes all out to destroy Shigaraki.
• Goomba Stomp: How Midoriya switches up his fighting style after deciding to stop totally emulating All Might, Shoot Style. It isn't straight proper kicks, that's Ida's department; he uses his method of launching himself in Full Cowl to get around, carrying the momentum through his legs to strike at maximum power while rocketing his body like a ballistic.
• Greater Need Than Mine: Self-sacrifice is a defining aspect of his character, to the point of destroying his body repeatedly for the sake of someone else. He even goes as far as offering to give Mirio, who lost his Quirk, One For All, essentially offering to give up everything he fought and earned as a hero because he believed Mirio was the better candidate and by extension save more people.
• Grew a Spine: A defining part of his development is getting over his doubts and fears. In the beginning of the story, he's terrified of meeting villains and confronting Bakugo, his tormentor. Later on, he's breaking his own limbs without hesitation to use One For All and doesn't even think twice about rushing in to fight Hero Killer Stain.
• Grin of Audacity: Rarely at first but, as the series progresses and his self-confidence improves, this expression shows much more often on his face.
  • Sports one in Chapter 24 when facing the villain bots.
  • He does it in Chapter 52 fighting against Stain.
  • From the Season 2 anime opening, there's a split-second look at future Midoriya's face.◊
• Hair Color Dissonance: Due to the way his green hair is shaded, it often appears to be a mix of green and black.
• Hairstyle Inertia: His messy hairstyle hasn't changed one bit since he was a young child. The only time it changes is when he taps in to his Quirks' full power. Similar to All Might it stands up, but instead of having bunny antennae, Midoriya's whole head spikes upward making him look like he has Vegeta's hairdo when it happens.
• The Heart: Deku's earnest desire to help and protect others makes him a Magnetic Hero who inspires the rest of Class 1A to push themselves and become better heroes.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Not the more famous Super-Strength aspect of One For All, of course, but most of the individual Quirks held within One For All count as this. Of the six Quirks Deku has inherited from the previous users of One For All, at least half of them (including Smokescreen, Float, and Danger Sense) have limited combat capabilities and can't be used to make Ultimate Moves. However, each Quirk is very useful when used as a support tool, and as Muscular learns the hard way in his rematch with Deku, all of the Quirks used in tandem make Deku incredibly difficult to fight against for villains with only one trick up their sleeve.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Well, hoods anyway. Midoriya wore the full face covering hood and mask during the class' very first training exercise, but the costume got wrecked. With version 2.0 of his costume, the professionals modified the hood, but he has only ever worn the thing once to hide his appearance from someone dangerous. Normally, it just hangs down his back, conveniently looking like a miniature cape.
• The Hero: He's the protagonist of the series and as the bearer of One For All, he's destined to be a game changer in the hero community. As of the Dark Hero Arc, he's effectively the leading figure in the fight against All for One.
• Hero Does Public Service: He begins his training as All Might's protégé by cleaning up a beach filled with trash by himself over the course of several months.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • More like hero seen as a giant walking target for imminent annihilation. Once Izuku strikes out on his own to hunt down All For One and Shigaraki, he is at first perceived by the public as a terrifying, manic figure not unlike the Nomu that have been terrorizing the public the past year. This grows even worse when the refugees taking shelter at U.A. try to force him out, scared he'll bring Shigaraki or other villains near them. Izuku's own lack of self-esteem has him take it in stride as an excuse to leave his friends again. Then in comes Ochaco.
  • And is again the subject of infamy in World Heroes Mission where he's falsely accused of mass murder. His name is thankfully cleared by the end of the film.
• Hero-Worshipper:
  • All Might has shaped all Midoriya's beliefs in what a hero should be. In fact, it's commented that All Might is pretty much like a god for him. He knows everything about All Might, from his measurements to his favorite tree.
  • To a lesser extent, he also has this towards Bakugo. No matter how much of an enormous Jerkass the latter is, Midoriya can't help but admire his immense power and confidence. During a field exercise, Midoriya outright tells his rival that he doesn't want to beat him as an act of revenge for his bullying, but because he thinks Bakugo is amazing and he wants to reach that level as well.
  • These tendencies backfire when he realizes that he's been trying too hard to emulate All Might instead of finding a fighting style that works for him. This leads him to develop Shoot Style, which is designed to improve his mobility and reduce the strain on his damaged arms by focusing on utilizing his legs.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Goes into combat with nothing but his fists and his wits, until he decides to place more offensive focus on kicks. This is subverted once he gets a true projectile weapon in Blackwhip.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: In the Fantasy AU depicted in the second ending of the second season, Midoriya carries an undecorated sword that he seems to be able to charge with All Might's power.
• Heroic Bastard: He isn't one, but this is alluded to when Todoroki asks him if he's All Might's bastard when he notices Midoriya's Quirk is surprisingly similar.
• Heroic Build: Necessary to become All Might's successor. Not as blatant as other examples though, being that he just resembles a very athletic teenager rather than a hulked-out bodybuilder.
• Heroic RRoD:
  • Midoriya is still getting used to the One For All despite having strengthened his body for it, due to unfamiliarity. Whenever he uses any big moves, the bones in that limb shatter, crippling him for the duration of the fight. It starts to come easier to him over time as long as he doesn't use more power than his body can handle.
  • Blackwhip causes him so much physical pain that it's somewhat impractical for him to use, not to mention that it can go out of control and hurt him even more if he doesn't stay calm. His theory is that the pain is because his body hasn't adapted to it at all.
  • This becomes a serious, non-Quirk related issue for him following the fight with Lady Nagant, and her near-death from AFO predicted he'd try to Save the Villain. Finding AFO's recorded message in the hideout where she was supposed to deliver him to, wherein he promises that he's only just gotten started with tormenting Izuku, drives him to redouble his efforts to make headway in finding the league, pushing away his allies so they don't get hurt in the crossfire, and generally ignoring all advice that he cannot keep pushing himself like this from everybody out of fear that others will be hurt if he doesn't try his hardest to save everyone. Sure enough, by the time he faces AFO's 3rd Hired Gun, he's too exhausted to stand up straight anymore and would have lost the fight if Bakugou hadn't intervened to rescue him.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation:
  • Midoriya has this bad, to the point it qualifies as an imposter syndrome-type disorder. Despite being the one person in the world who actually earned his Quirk through his own selflessness and hard work, rather than just being born with it, he's deeply insecure and seems almost fundamentally incapable of recognizing he's proven himself worthy to be All Might's successor many times over.
  • This trait of his actually gets Deconstructed towards the final arcs. Whilst there's nothing wrong with Izuku being a Humble Hero, his insecurities over being the 'right' person to wield One For All and finally end the generations-long feud with All For One, even after discovering that being born Quirkless means he's the only one who could safely unleash its full potential, end up being a massive psychological weakness. All For One gleefully drives home the narrative to him that he's an Inadequate Inheritor who isn't capable of beating him despite the power he wields, and because Izuku believes him on some level, he gradually starts driving himself to physical and mental exhaustion in his maddened efforts to single-handedly restore order to Japan. Before the Final Battle can even start, it takes the entirely of 1A giving Izuku a pep talk to get him in a better mental state to face the fight together with them.
• Heroic Willpower: In spite of all of the times he's had the ever-loving crap kicked out of him, Midoriya will absolutely never quit so long as there is someone in need of help or rescue. This quality, along with the help of the spirits of the previous users, let him resist the upgraded Tomura's attempt to steal One For All with his newly acquired All For One.
• Hidden Badass: He grows into more of a standard superhero as the story progresses, but starting out you wouldn't be blamed for thinking he was just a nervous and cowardly wreck. As it turns out, Midoriya is the bravest character in the whole series with nigh-terrifying Heroic Willpower that leads to him frequently breaking his bones if it means somebody can be saved. He's such an amazing hero at his core even without a Quirk that Bakugo acknowledges that he has always been far, far ahead of him where it counted as he embarks on his own Heroic Sacrifice against Shigaraki/All For One.
• Hidden Depths:
  • It slowly comes out over the course of the story that his timid personality isn't just him being shy, it's the result of years lamenting his own Quirklessness, abuse from his former best friend and classmates, his own weakness letting him be a doormat so long, and his mother being unable to properly emotionally support him through all of it damaged his personality. Healing this damage quickly becomes his number one obstacle to becoming a hero.
  • Deep down inside, Midoriya admires Bakugo as the image of victory since he was the closest he'd initially gotten to seeing a strong hero who always wins like All Might.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Whenever Uraraka gets too close to him, he gets so flustered he turns full red. Implied when he first saw her in her costume made of Sensual Spandex, as he stares awkwardly at her hourglass figure.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Nearly hands victory to All For One by isolating himself from his peers to keep them safe and driving himself to exhaustion trying to stop all the villains on the loose thinking he's entirely expendable. Bakugo notes he isn't right in the head and would erase himself down to nothing before accepting he needs and deserves help, likely because he himself had a role in shaping that mindset. It takes multiple attempts, from rescues to apologies to publically defending him from a furious mob to finally convince him to slow down and let his friends bear as much of his immense burden as they can.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • During his match against Shinso in the U.A. Sports Festival Arc, once he broke free of the brainwashing, Midoriya insists on fighting him with straightforward martial arts instead of exploiting his Quirk to blast him out of the ring. However, this did serve a practical purpose since Midoriya didn't want to injure himself. His reasoning was to prove a point to Shinso, since the latter had resentment towards the kids with naturally combat-oriented Quirks, so defeating Shinso with pure skill was to give some form of inspiration.
  • Calling out Todoroki on his stubbornness about using his fire side in combat would be a laudable thing were Midoriya not trying to do it during his tournament match against him. This is lampshaded by All Might, who points out that the tournament match wasn't the best time to bring that up. Midoriya is also painfully aware of this afterward, apologizing profusely for not being able to keep his mouth shut.
• Hope Bringer: A Zigzagged case wherein this is both played straight and deconstructed at the same time
  • Initially, Izuku inheriting One For All means he was destined to gradually become this as All Might's successor, and the early chapters, particularly the U.A. Sports festival, had a focus on him learning to both master his powers and public perception to eventually grow into this role. However, All For One's plans and the rising threat of the League of villains gradually eclipses this as a focus, especially after the Paranormal Liberation war wherein the loss of public faith in heroes leads to the Darkest Hour. By this point, a combination of Izuku learning that he's the last likely inheritor of One For All because of its hidden side-effects and All For One making it clear that he's targeting him next whilst he's Incompletely Trained drives him to try and force himself into single-handedly becoming this for everybody, pushing himself non-stop into trying to resolve the ongoing societal collapse alone and putting an end to All For One for good. In the end, the strain of this nearly breaks him in mind and body, and he has to be talked down by his classmates, who step in to convince him to let them support him in this burden, and it's made clear that it's far more effective for every hero to be a symbol of hope, rather than one extremely-powerful individual.
  • At the same time, It's also made clear that Izuku very much is this, far more than any singular hero in his social circle. His interactions with villains like Lady Nagant and Gentle eventually convince them to aid the heroes after re-discovering their faith in true heroism through his example, he betters the lives of those he meets like Shoto, Eri, and Kota, and his selfless example even convinces previously hard-line experienced heroes like Endeavour and Rock lock to ease up and put their trust in him. This reaches it's apex during the Final Battle, wherein his titanic duel with Tomura is unknowingly recorded and streamed live around the world by onlooking reporters and business course students. After Tomura killed Star and Stripe, the strongest known hero in the world, along with All For One's international machinations to prevent further international aid, everybody had come to believe there was nobody left who could oppose the power wielded by the villains whilst they cemented their control of the country. The World instead gets to watch as Izuku opposes and matches Tomura, along with the efforts of the other scattered heroes, showing that hope for a heroes; victory is still possible.
• Horrifying Hero: During the Dark Hero Arc, Deku looks like an infernal being and doesn't look like a hero at all. Lampshaded by citizens in Chapter 317. Notably, Izuku has always seemed to have a natural talent for this, in contrast to All Might's ability to wear a confident smile when acting as a hero, Izuku struggles to do so, but has notably shown to intimidate or strike fear into even experienced villains when he's truly set on stopping them with the full power of OFA, regardless of the damage he's doing to himself in doing so, such as Muscular or Overhaul.
  • In fact, this talent has been hinted at by the Sports Festival during his match with Shoto. His willingness to keep fighting and pushing Todoroki regardless of the outcome and his injuries terrified the audience he was supposed to impress to the point that Mineta mused that Midoriya wouldn't get any invitations from pro heroes to do work field studies. And he was right. And later, when he confronts Gentle and La Brava, they recognize him from the Sports Festival and immediately decide to get away from him as fast as possible, showing that even by that point Deku had become The Dreaded to low tier villains.
• Hot-Blooded: In the heat of the moment Izuku will start to become an extremely passionate and riled up to the point where he'll start to act more like Kacchan in extreme moments of desperation.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Unlike his peers who have had their Quirks since they were toddlers, Midoriya received One For All only recently. So, unlike them, he hasn't had years to figure out how to use his power and he doesn't have the benefit of being an Instant Expert like All Might, leading Midoriya to constantly injure himself in his first few months of schooling until he trains under Gran Torino. Even then, he's still learning how to moderate his power and has to actively maintain his concentration, lest he accidentally fire off 100% and break his limbs again. It's even worse with his Combat Tentacles, all they've done so far is trash his room while he slept then tried to kill him and his friends. He has no idea how to turn it on and off or control them in any way. Later he meets a One For All predecessor who tells him to master his emotions before activating his power.
• Humble Hero: He's never looking for praise or fame and honestly wants to be a hero to fight for what's right.
• Hypocrite:
  • Midoriya has a troubling pattern of refusing to take the advice that he gives out to his friends though this could be tied in to his troubled past and his unique circumstances compared to everyone else, alongside underlying issues.
  • He advises Ida to go to his friends when he is hurting, but when he is hurting, he doesn't do the same, and Ida actually has to give the same advice he received to Midoriya. In all fairness to Midoriya, he was under a gag order regarding his internship at the time, and so couldn't talk to anyone about Eri's plight or Sir Nighteye's prediction.
  • Aoyama basically calls him out in Chapter 167, saying that Midoriya should ask for help when he needs, something that he never seems to do after the Field Training Arc, despite fighting Bakugo about the fact he never accepts help and that Midoriya is always helping people himself.
  • He spends the entire series determined to master One For All. Yet, he ends up offering it to Mirio after everything that happened, in part out of not feeling worthy (given how Mirio was nearly able to beat Overhaul while Midoriya needed some outside help, though namely because Mirio's Quirk is a Difficult, but Awesome power that was a natural counter to Overhaul's while being more experienced. Meanwhile, the outside help was twofold; namely in allowing the girl he was rescued to channel her out-of-control power without fear while also letting him fight at 100% without being impeded by the repercussions due to accelerated "healing." This is the point when All Might realizes Midoriya's personality problems run much deeper than a simple lack of confidence.
  • One could make a drinking game out of how many times he tells himself he needs to find his own way and figure out how to use One For All in a way that works for him, but only makes small improvements and never really follows through with it. It takes going through the Trauma Conga Line of nearly getting killed by Muscular, permanently damaging his body, almost letting Tokoyami get kidnapped, actually and accidentally letting Bakugo get kidnapped, being forced to watch helplessly as All Might fought All For One alone and lose his powers, and finally, his mother's decision to force him to leave U.A. that Midoriya actually follows through with it. Though some of this could be tied into how All Might confesses to not being a good teacher. Heck, Midoriya makes leaps and bounds thanks to Gran Torino and it's likely his new style was inspired by him and Iida.
  • Subverted when it comes to recognizing One For All as his Quirk despite giving the exact same advice to Todoroki. Todoroki's case is his refusal to accept that part of himself like his dad, something that keeps from fully going out, especially since it's revealed that the mechanics between his Quirk and his father's are indeed much different and Todoroki is not impeded by Endeavor's weakness. Meanwhile, Midoriya was Quirkless until about a year ago and has to adopt a different mindset, especially since he still understands little about One For All and its power. Chapter 210 features One For All changing beyond even All Might's knowledge. Specifically: One For All has grown strong enough to awaken the latent Quirks of its predecessors, meaning Midoriya has six more Quirks to master on top of One For All, especially since said Quirks are now amplified by One For All itself. All on top of being able to communicate with the spirits of the predecessors. Needless to say, Midoriya has his plate full with his unique Quirk.
• I Have This Friend: When trying to connect with Kota, Midoriya explains his own Quirklessness this way:
  Kota: Shut up... You're all crazy... calling yourselves heroes and villains... killing each other like morons... bragging about your Quirks... that's why you end up like that... idiots...
  Midoriya: [internally] It isn't just heroes... Kota hates Quirks and superhuman society itself...
  Kota: What is it? If there's nothing else, then go away!
  Midoriya: [out loud] Well, um... my, uh... friend... My friend... couldn't inherit any Quirks from his parents...
  Kota: Huh?
  Midoriya: It's a hereditary thing, and apparently, it's rare but it does happen... But he admired heroes and wanted to become one, but you can't be one these days without a Quirk. My friend couldn't accept that for a long time and practiced... trying to draw objects to him and breathe fire... But it was no good. There are a lot of different ways to think about Quirks, so I don't know if this will apply to everyone, but if you reject it that much, then it'll just become more painful for you. So... that's why...
  Kota: Just shut up, already! Get out of here!
  Midoriya: Sorry... I was rambling...
• I Just Want to Be Special: He wishes to be a superhero like his idol All Might despite lacking a Quirk. He was desperately trying to believe that he could be a hero even without one and it took All Might saying no to his face for the reality to sink in. His actions of saving Bakugo made All Might realize his heroic spirit and named him his successor on the spot. This also ties into I Just Want to Be Normal given how 80% of the population has a Quirk, making Midoriya abnormal in that sense.
• Iconic Outfit: His red shoes show up in pretty much all the chapter art with Midoriya regardless of the rest of his clothes, and they even got a vote during the first official popularity poll. Gets even better when the third version of his hero costume outfits them with a pile bunker-esque contraption.
• Ideal Hero: He started out a Classical Anti-Hero, but he's starting to fit the bill well enough to be recognized as such by his classmates and All Might. Despite his inexperience, he is charismatic, determined, altruistic, kind-hearted, strong, intelligent and capable of inspiring other people, both civilians and heroes to do better. He's also the most altruistic among his classmates, being in it to save people with a smile like his Hero All Might.
• Identical Stranger: Yo Shindo from Ketsubutsu Academy and Saito, Himiko Toga's first "love" look very similar to him.
• Improvisational Ingenuity: Apart from his analytical skills, this is one of Midoriya's greatest strengths, frequently managing to come up with ingenious, unorthodox solutions to his problems - whether that's finding new and creative ways to effectively use his powers without harming himself or thinking up new strategies on the fly.
• In a Single Bound: After mastering Full Cowl, he can now jump great distances with ease. Unlocking Fa Jin, the third user's original Quirk, allows him to jump even more efficiently than he can with One For All; by storing up kinetic energy with repeated squats, Fa Jin allows Deku to blast off from the ground and go straight up the entire length of a skyscraper in an instant. For an added bonus, while he's already capable of reaching the same heights by just using One For All at 100%, it appears that Fa Jin allows Deku to do it without breaking his legs (at the cost of having to prepare the movements rather than jumping instantly)..
• In-Series Nickname: Bakugo gave him the nickname Deku, an alternative reading of his first name Izuku. Deku can mean "weakling," but it can also roughly mean "never giving up." Midoriya sticks with the latter variant when he hears this from Uraraka.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Sir Nighteye, and by some extension himself, believes that he isn't worthy of inheriting One For All, and sees him as a Sketchy Successor for the position of "Symbol of Peace."
  • All For One dismisses Midoriya as an unworthy inheritor of One For All (although AFO considers all One For All inheritors as worthless). However, the first user of One For All himself is impressed with Midoriya's resolve to save others and deems him worthy of One For All. Additionally, it's also made clear that All For one is specifically invoking this. He's attacking and targeting Izuku in the same year he first received a Quirk, period, taking full advantage of his Naïve Newcomer status to take him down before he has Time To Unlock More Potential and constantly belittles him in conversation, playing upon Izuku's poor self-esteem to undermine his confidence and slowly wear down his willpower through repeated traumatic attacks, just to make it easier to win the inevitable battle of wills that will occur when he finally comes to steal One For All for good. Regardless of his future potential, All For One has absolutely no intention to allow Izuku to become a better hero than All Might and is intentionally targeting him well before he's ready to start facing such an experienced villain— even All might himself needed to spend years training abroad before he was ready to face All For One and he's allowing Izuku no such grace period.
  • Eventually, this is averted. Midoriya happened to possess the exact qualities needed to utilize the full potential of One For All. Anyone with an existing Quirk would eventually succumb to its Rapid Aging side-effects, and Midoriya received the Quirk just before the power hit a point where it would overwhelm its user and also has an unprecedented affinity for its more esoteric aspects, something All Might never had and only Nana Shimura had even a fraction of. These circumstances not only make Midoriya the best possible candidate for One For All, but also possibly its last inheritor.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Something that makes him the ideal hero yet also causes him a lot of self-imposed pain. Izuku not only wants to be a hero, but embodies all the traits that have worn down and punished many heroes before him to an overzealous degree. His time as Dark Deku deals with this directly as it shows that, left to his own devices, Izuku will self-destruct from all the burdens he feels obligated to take on. It's only when Class 1-A vow to follow his example and charge into battle against All For One with him that he finally begins easing up and accepting he's not the only person who still believes in heroes. Furthermore, Izuku's purity is what compels him to save anybody he sees is in need of help. It doesn't matter who they are or even how Izuku feels about them personally. He'll save anybody, from his childhood bully (Bakugo) to even his greatest enemy (Shigaraki.)
• Ineffectual Loner: To keep All For One from targeting his friends and those close to him, Izuku leaves U.A. behind to track down Shigaraki alongside All Might and the other Pro Heroes. Unfortunately, All For One constantly taunting him on how he'll never stop until he obtains One For All causes Izuku to overexert himself, to the point where he abandons the Heroes and All Might to shoulder the burden of society himself. It took Class 1-A reaching out to him, Katsuki apologizing to him, and Ochaco convincing the mob to let him rest in U.A. for Izuku to realize that he can't do everything on his own and that he needs to rely on his friends.
• Irony:
  • Despite being a Socially Awkward Hero, he is among the most charismatic heroes in training in the manga, and most of his classmates accept him as somewhat the unofficial leader of Class 1-A. He was actually voted as the original Class Representative.
  • Midoriya, who always dreamt of being a Hero, started out Quirkless before All Might granted him his One For All Quirk. The true irony comes when it is revealed that One For All is actually a collective of seven Quirks, each one culminated from each previous Quirk user before All Might and Deku inherit it.
  • Another instance that works in his favor is when his and Shigaraki's memories begin melding together as he attempts to mentally wear him out instead of match him physically during the story's climax. This is a mirror to All For One's own plan to merge himself with Shigaraki, except Izuku's version keeps the two's personalities distinct from one another and instead allows them to understand each other without one having to claim dominance.
• Ironic Nickname: Bakugo originally called Midoriya "Deku" because he saw him as a weakling who couldn't do anything. Over the course of the story, Midoriya comes to embrace this nickname, made it his hero name and proceeds to become one of the most powerful and capable characters out of all of them.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: A (mostly) platonic variation - after the Paranormal Liberation War, when he comes to grasp with the fact that All For One is gunning to capture him, he leaves UA High School giving this reason to his friends, explaining that so long as he's the wielder of One For All, just being near him is a potential death sentence. It's only mostly platonic due to the special attention given to the reaction of his Love Interest, Ochaco.
  Ochaco: (fighting back tears) Dummy...
• It's Personal: With All For One, and Shigaraki to a lesser degree. From crippling his mentor and friends, to killing most of his One For All predecessors, orchestrating the downfall of society in part just to get to him, manipulating and callously discarding Lady Nagant, his coercing of Aoyama to spy on his class, even up to killing Bakugo (at least temporarily), All For One has gone out of his way to make it extremely personal with Izuku. As far as Shigaraki goes, while he can never forgive him for the hurt he's caused him, he realizes his crimes are a byproduct of All For One stringing him along for his own ends.

K - P

• Karmic Jackpot:
  • Midoriya is bestowed One For All after years of torment for chasing his dream despite being Quirkless, giving him the chance to become a hero. Unfortunately, his new power has some serious drawbacks and he's frequently hit with No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Played straight on a whole new level when he is told that he has six other Quirks that were stored within One For All and that he is the first user who can wield them all.
  • His general heroism, especially going above and beyond to help others he had no obligation to, pays off during the Final Battle when people like Gentle, La Brava, and Lady Nagant all show up to provide much needed back up to the heroes.
• Kitsch Collection: Midoriya is the proud owner of several All Might figurines, posters and merchandise he collected over the years. He continues to fanboy over All Might even after the latter transferred his power to him and mentors him.
• The Klutz: Downplayed. Most of Midoriya's clumsiness can be chocked up to nervousness, lack of practice, or his usual Butt-Monkey tendencies. He still manages to trip over his own feet on the way to the entrance exam, slips and faceplants during the rescue exercise while showing off One For All: Full Cowl, and initially struggles to keep up with the dance routine Class 1-A planned for the U.A. Cultural Festival. In the second ending of the second season, the scene opens with Midoriya stepping out the door and waving goodbye to his mom, only to immediately hit a rock in the road and fall flat on his face while spilling everything in his bag.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Even becoming a U.A. student doesn't stop him from squeeing over every cool Pro Hero he meets and rattling off their life stories from memory.
• Large Ham: He's extremely expressive when you manage to work him out of his shell, particularly when he's nervous or fanboying out about hero-related topics.
• Last-Name Basis: He's almost exclusively referred to by his surname by everyone except for his mom, Bakugo, and Uraraka, the latter two referring to him as "Deku" derisively and affectionately, respectively. Of course, before he coined the insulting nickname, Bakugo was on a First-Name Basis with him and even as a teenager, he refers to him as "defenseless Izuku" at least once. This very page is littered with many more mentions of "Midoriya" than "Izuku" as if to emphasize this. Toga also calls him "Izuku," but he is less than happy to hear this.
• Last of His Kind: Downplayed; due to One For All being so powerful that it can no longer be used by normal humans (ie. those born with Quirks), and due to a diminishing availability of Quirkless candidates, Izuku is very likely going to be the final user of One For All.
• Le Parkour: Moves like this once he masters One For All: Full Cowl, bouncing off walls, flipping through the air, and leaping huge distances in a single bound.
• The Leader:
  • In any situation where he ends up working with his classmates, Midoriya almost always takes the lead. What's remarkable is that he seems to bring traits from all four types to the table. Like the Mastermind, he's adept at analyzing the situation, his opponents, and his allies and formulating plans to allow his teammates to use their abilities to the fullest. He also has aspects of the Levelheaded, being able to keep his cool and avoid panicking, even during the direst circumstances. But he also has aspects of the Headstrong type, particularly when it comes to using his own Quirk, as he's completely willing to bust his own arms and keep going. Finally, he's also the Charismatic type, despite his somewhat introverted nature, as his heroic drive and willingness to give his all, even if that means trashing his body to an unbelievable extent, for the sake of his classmates inspires them to give their all when it comes to supporting him.
  • A major theme in Midoriya's character development has seen him stepping into this role for Class 1-A. He was initially reluctant to take on the role of Class Representative and stepped down and gave it over to Iida. Over the course of the series, he's more or less become recognized by his classmates as the unofficial field leader of the group. During the first stage of the Provisional Heroes License exam, they defer to his judgement. The second film My Hero Academia: Heroes: Rising even sees Midoriya create the strategy for his class to combat Nine and his group.
  • As of chapter 309, Midoriya is more or less appointed as the centerpiece of the heroes' counteroffensive against All For One by the current top 3 heroes Endeavor, Hawks and Best Jeanist, as well as All Might. This effectively makes him the leader of the resistance in the new age of chaos and terror following the Paranormal Liberation War. Somewhat downplayed in that even when the heroes try reigning him in, he's too headstrong to stop without Class 1-A's intervention and effectively blazes ahead before being convinced to slow down. Afterward he then shares the role with the adult pro heroes as they collaborate on how best to initiate their final counterattack against All For One and Shigaraki.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Gran Torino criticizes him for being prone to attacking first, although he's much more thoughtful than most examples.
• Legacy Character: He's just the latest of many who gained One For All. And given the nature of said power (it's Cast from Lifespan for anyone who already has a Quirk), he's probably going to be the Last of His Kind.
• Leitmotif:
  • He shares his theme with the show in general, "You Say Run" and its second version "Jet Set Run", which often plays whenever he has a moment of awesomeness.
  • "Worthy Rival, Written and Read as Friend",^note Kōtekishu to kaite "tomo" to yomu is a theme that he receives in Season 2, generally used as the theme for his Full Cowl technique and plays over again during his fight against Muscular.
  • Every episode of Season 3 opens with "Battle of Deku" as Izuku describes his aspirations and the setting itself.
• Lifesaving Misfortune: Him being part of the 20% Quirkless population which hampered his dreams prior to meeting All Might actually saved him from a nasty side-effect of One for All where if the current holder naturally had a Quirk since birth, they would succumb to Rapid Aging. Not even All Might was aware of this during his tenure despite holding it for forty years himself.
• Lightning Bruiser: Using One For All: Full Cowl, Midoriya increases both his mobility and striking power to above average levels, being able to smash through thick tree trunks with only moderate effort. Its overall power output is less than when using one limb at full power, but he is able to fight without wrecking his body. He's also steadily getting more and more adapted to it, letting him use higher and higher percentages. The one time he's been able to use Full Cowl 100% safely, he moves so fast he can't be seen and is able to decimate Overhaul with next to no effort.
• Living MacGuffin:
  • This is Downplayed throughout the first part of the manga, as despite inheriting One For All from All Might and the number one hero's retirement afterwards as an indirect consequence of that, there are only a very select few people who are aware that Izuku is destined to eventually become the World's Strongest Man and replace All Might as the Symbol of Peace, and thus there is no specific focus placed upon him rising to the challenge of becoming an effective hero-in-training over any other. Instead, the plot is more focused on the efforts of the League of Villains and Tomura's own ascension towards replacing his master as the next Symbol of Evil. However, during the Paranormal Liberation War arc, when the vestige of All For One within his inherited Quirk inside Tomura begins taking control over him, his absolute obsession with claiming One For All from Izuku makes him induce Tomura to pursue him at any cost, regardless of Tomura's own will and to the detriment of his allies in the League. In the aftermath of the war, once the original All For One is freed from Tartarus and begins directing the villains whilst Tomura recuperates, he makes it clear to Izuku that his focus is squarely upon tormenting him and beating him down before he can become the next Symbol of Peace, directing multiple plans, pawns and mind games aimed solely to wear him down for their 'rematch'. He even says to Spinner that stealing One For All is his 'midgame goal', and necessary for the Diabolical Mastermind to proceed with his plans. Eventually, this is part of what allows the Heroes to turn the tables on All For One, because his obsession with Izuku gives him tunnel vision that leads to him being blindsided by heroes who weren't part of the history of One For All, resulting in all the active villains being Lured into a Trap when All For One tries to deal with his 'nemesis' for good.
  • This actually becomes Inverted towards the end. When the Final Battle starts in earnest, all the villain combatants are involved for their own personal reasons unrelated to One For All, and even Toga's focus on him is because of Izuku personally, not his power. Whilst played straight with All For One and his vestige controlling Tomura's body, when Tomura himself finally fully reasserts control over himself, he disregards his master's obsession with the Quirk as irrelevant, willing to destroy it and Izuku outright to achieve his desires in defiance of his master's will. Whilst the story presented the possibility of other heroes and villains potentially stealing One For All as a reason to keep its existence secret, this sequence of events makes it clear that said worries were mainly due to All For One's megalomania and obsession with having his brother's Quirk, along with the fact that only the Quirkless Izuku can actually safely wield the power.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Two of them at first. Midoriya only received his Quirk later in life, thus using it is not at all "natural" to him and causes him trouble activating it at all without hurting himself, because he only ever experienced it at full force when he first used it and has no idea how to 'ease' himself into more-manageable activation of the Quirk, although he's working to alleviate that. Second and most importantly, his analytical skills is what often gets him ahead of his enemies, but that means he still needs some time to think. A sufficiently speedy opponent who can Speed Blitz him can deprive him of that advantage, such as his fights with Bakugo and Muscular.
  • Eventually, with The Reveal of his Combo Platter Powers, Izuku gains several of these, in a similar vein to All For One, which can cause him problems in a fight from having to balance so many advantages and disadvantages at once in a pitched brawl.
    • Firstly, the fact that he's inheriting a Quirk that gives him the strength needed to become the World's Strongest Man means he needs a body capable of withstanding such immense strength before he can use it. Izuku has to put himself through Training from Hell to gain a container sturdy enough to use One For All's power without blowing his limbs apart from the sheer force his body becomes capable of producing, and even then, his first few attempts result in him breaking his limbs anyway because he's got no fine control over a power he's only recently gained, and one with such immense might to it. It takes Izuku a good while before he's able to safely work out a way to dial back One For All into his Full Cowling mode, which comes with its own drawbacks. Whilst Izuku can now safely use One For All in a stable manner, he's much weaker and slower than he's capable of being, meaning that he's greatly outmatched against a Lightning Bruiser like Muscular who's can contend against 100% blows without getting OneHitKO'd. Izuku does gradually start to overcome this as the series progresses, constantly doing strength training in order to raise the upper % he's capable of utilising Full Cowling with, but since the league of Villains are constantly escalating their attacks against society with greater ramifications every time they show up, and he's often caught in the middle of these, there's simply not enough time for him to train himself up to use 100% Full Cowling. Indeed, a large part of All For One's plans, one he deduces Izuku is the Ninth inheritor, is focusing solely upon targeting Izuku as much as he can whilst he's still Incompletely Trained so he doesn't have the chance to unleash his full potential. As his showing against Overhaul demonstrates, at 100%, Izuku is leagues beyond anybody in the story besides maybe Tomura. About a year after he first gained One For All, by the time of the Final Battle Izuku can only safely utilize about 45-50% of One for All's powers and has to improvise workarounds by combing his multiple Quirks together to reach 'Faux 100%' to achieve the same level of strength without suffering anymore damage to his accumulated injuries.
    • Relatedly, whilst unleashing the full force of his might at 100% is incredibly powerful, and often the only way Izuku can actually attack at all during the early chapter, his new abilities do not come with an inbuilt Healing Factor. Izuku might be capable of withstanding the pain of breaking his bones using One For All after a while, but the human body is only capable of taking so much punishment before it breaks for good. Recovery Girl's quirk helps with his natural healing process, but it fails to fix any damage that came from Izuku abusing his body almost to the Point of No Return. Its eventually spelled out for Izuku that if he ever unleashes 100% again from his right arm 2-3 more times without giving himself time to properly heal, the damage done to his ligaments will become irreversible and he'll lost motor function in the limb, crippling his career as a hero.
    • Izuku struggles throughout the story with mastering his new abilities and figuring out ways to make One For All's strength and abilities his own, to the point it's his biggest persistent challenge throughout the narrative besides the schemes of All For One and the threat of Tomura. Accordingly, learning he has six more Quirks to learn how to master, and moreover, Quirks that are even stronger than they were for the original users thanks to One For All's amplification effect, is presented as a massive obstacle to him in the short term, especially with the rising threat of the villains. Izuku is already having a hard time mastering one specific ability, figuring out how to utilize Combo Platter Powers on top of that is a significant hurdle for him, especially since the details of some of his Quirks are Shrouded in Myth thanks to record-keeping being spotty during the advent of Quirks. He has to spend a training arc under Endeavour's tutelage to be capable of using Black Whip and Full Cowling together at the same time, and even when he gains a strengthened connection to the vestiges within One For All and can be coached by them on how best to use their powers, using them all at once proves to be a major mental burden on him in a fight, as he's still not used to them. He actually has to stop using some of his Quirks to better react to Lady Nagant's attacks during his fight with her, as he's too unfocused to react to her shots otherwise.
    • Float grants Izuku Not Quite Flight, but being airborne means he has no solid grounding to unleash some of his stronger attacks, actually getting pushed backwards uncontrollably when he tries using Air Force in mid-air. It's useful to help him fly around, but not great at attacking from a distance. When he tangles with Tomura in mid-air during the Paranormal Liberation War, the force of his 100% attacks blows the pair of them apart from each other, with the only reason Izuku can repeatedly attack him being that he's ensnared Tomura with Black Whip, allowing him to reel him back for another attack like a human paddleball.
    • Danger Sense allows Izuku to sense incoming malicious intent or attacks aimed at him, but it only reacts to that as a trigger, failing to warn Izuku when he's caught in another explosion from visiting Mei's lab, because there wasn't any malicious intent aimed at him and random explosions happening around Mei's workplace are common. Toga's Yandere mindset meaning that she equates loving somebody with violently stabbing them also means she doesn't emit any malicious intent when attacking Izuku, leaving her completely invisible to its detection.
    • Black Whip grants Izuku Combat Tentacles and is one of his more versatile and combat-effective Quirks, but it's a psychoactive power that reacts to his emotional state. Becoming too enraged or emotionally unstable can make the tentacles lash out uncontrollably and against Izuku's will at times, running the risk of hurting those around him before he can regain control. Combined with the mental balancing act Izuku has to pull off with controlling his Full Cowling output and his multiple Quirks, and it's a struggle for him to use it in high-pressure situations.
    • Smokescreen grants him to ability to create a cloud of obscuring smoke on command, but it doesn't come with the Required Secondary Powers to see through the same cover. En's vestige outright warns Izuku against creating too much smoke, because that could just as easily lead to the villains Izuku's facing getting the drop on him as much as he's aiming to ambush them. Danger Sense somewhat downplays this, but it's still presented as a double-edged sword to use in a fight, since obscuring sight is the only effect the Quirk has.
    • Fa Jin allows him to accumulate energy for a single massive attack and in combination with his current mastery of Full Cowling is the cornerstone of allowing him to achieve 'Faux 100%' without risking further damage to his body, but it requires him spending time to charge up the attack by repeating the same motions over and over again, and it's tricky to use in a fight when he's being constantly attacked, effectively taking the specified limbs out as attack options until he's ready to unleash his Finishing Move.
    • Gearshift allows him to increase his speed even faster than achievable with One For All's base strength boost through accelerating him on a cellular level, turning Izuku into a Lightning Bruiser whose blows can 'warp the very fabric of reality' whilst it's active, additionally negating Fa Jin's charging time as well from performing the necessary moves in an instant. However, this exponential upgrade to his combat ability comes with a corresponding downside. Izuku's cells being constantly active in this state means they cannot absorb oxygen, steadily subjecting Izuku to oxygen deprivation the longer he remains fighting in it. Like a car cannot preform well at high speed without a regular intake of oxygen, Izuku's body runs the risk of shutting down on him if he over-uses the ability, with it being one of the only Quirks in his Combo Platter Powers that runs the risk of directly killing him if he mishandles it.
    • One For All's ability to resist All For One's absorption is dependant on the holder's willpower being stronger than All For One's. For a Sociopath like him, the combined willpower of the vestiges is normally enough, but when combined with Tomura's boundless hatred of everything there is actually a sincere risk that One For All could be stolen. Accordingly Izuku's Humble Hero characterisation is not a benefit during this process, as All For One goes out of his way to undermine Izuku's confidence in himself, mocking him with glee for being such a Sketchy Successor and setting up multiple plans to take advantage of his Chronic Hero Syndrome to break him mentally and physically before their next meeting to maximise his chances of success, very nearly succeeding because, on some level, Izuku has internalised the self-vision of himself as 'worthless' from his childhood of growing up ostracised from being Quirkless.
• Lost in Translation: Midoriya got his nickname from an Alternate Character Reading of his first name that can be read as "puppet" as in a "weakling who's a puppet that can't do anything." On the other hand, it also sounds like "dekiru", which can mean to be able, ready, and even good at doing something. Hence, Uraraka helps him embrace the derogatory nickname as his hero name for its "never giving up" feel. Since there's no way to properly convey this in other languages, Uraraka instead ends up calling it cute and sounding like a hero’s codename in the international versions.
• Love Epiphany: While not 100% confirmed, his inner monologue and accompanying imagery preceding the Final Battle strongly imply he's come to realize he's in love with Ochaco.
• Made of Iron: Though he doesn't seem to have trained his body enough to have outright developed Super-Toughness like All Might yet, he nonetheless can take a lot of punishment for such a small guy. Midoriya has been beaten to a bloody pulp, shot, stabbed, crushed under extreme pressure, burned, and tossed through solid concrete countless times- yet he has always survived with no long-lasting or cripling injuries.
• Magnetic Hero: It's mentioned very often that Midoriya has a natural tendency to get people to follow his lead, as well as to push themselves further because of what he's already accomplished. Because of his kindhearted nature, powerful Quirk, intelligence, and his desire to help people to the point of willingly tearing his body apart, he's managed to garner the respect of fellow students, teachers, and even other heroes.
• Magnetic Medium: Of all users of One For All, Midoriya has had the most experience with the ghosts of the Quirk. Luckily for him, they all act as Spirit Advisors. Previous users, including All Might, manifested as brief silhouettes of their predecessors. Nana Shimura only got a vague message. Midoriya, however, got bursts of power, memories, some advice and new Quirks.
• Manipulative Bastard: In My Hero Academia Smash!! he knows exactly how to manipulate Bakugo into doing what he wants and prepares an instruction manual for the entire class 1-A to do the same. It works!
• Many Spirits Inside of One: One For All isn't an entirely physical ability. The wills of previous One For All users also live within the Quirk in the form of vestiges. Almost all users briefly glimpse the shadows of past users at least once in their lifetimes. During his match against Shinso at the Sports Festival, Deku witnesses the vestiges who help him overcome Shinso's brainwashing Quirk by activating One For All in his fingers. All Might dismisses it as a one-time event, although he later admits that he is ignorant about this aspect. Becomes a major plot point when Midoriya discovers an exclusive affinity for One For All's esoteric aspect. He becomes the first user to actually be able to interact with past users. The predecessors can show him visions of the past and advise him. Midoriya is also the first user who can access all the Quirks of previous wielders which have been augmented by One For All.
• Martyr Without a Cause: Once Midoriya decides to save someone, he'll charge ahead no matter how much it might hurt him in the process. He's willing to save anyone from anything, to the point he nearly ruined his arms to try and save Todoroki from his father's shadow. This gets far worse when he gains all seven of One For All's Quirks. Now that he has a greater capacity to save, he thinks he must save everyone, and he has to do it alone to protect his allies. The Dark Hero Arc would see him running himself ragged jumping from fight to fight.
  Bakugo: But you don't know the first thing about Deku. He's screwed up in the head. The guy never takes himself into account. Just says crap like "I'm fine".
• Meaningful Name:
  • His chosen hero name is "Deku," which was originally used as an insult against him. Midoriya proudly claims it, stating that it now shows his determination. Rather like how he's not inherently a hero but has to work towards becoming one.
    • In an interview, Horikoshi revealed that the 'Deku' name was taken from a verse in the Poem 'Be Not Defeated By the Rain' by Kenji Miyazawa. The poem illustrates a person who lives simply, who helps those who are in need of help, and doesn’t get praise for it (nor desires to be praised.) So aside from its other meaning ‘dekiru’ or ‘I can do it!’, Deku as a hero name means that he doesn’t seek credit for doing what should come naturally.
      Called useless by all^note minna ni deku-no-bō to yobare
      Neither praised
      Nor a bother
      Such is the person
      I wish to be
  • Midoriya's name contains the kanji for "green" (緑), "valley" (谷), "coming out/being from a certain place" (出) and "long ago" (久). Incidentally, the "ku" in "Izuku" is homophonous to the number nine in Japanese. Guess what? He's the ninth user of One For All.
  • His surname translates to the Japanese word for "green." Guess what color is most commonly associated with him (his hair, eye color, superhero costume, and even the visual effects of him using One For All in "Full Cowling" mode)? He was also a greenhorn himself when he received One For All since he lacked years of experience with a Quirk at all and was prone to self-destruction, with a major part of his story developing the strength needed to handle it with minimal repercussions.
    • In an instance of Ship Tease, his name can be paired with Uraraka's to spell out "green tea", a beverage popular in Japan for its medicinal properties and gentle taste. Which is a fairly apt representation of their relationship.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He has seven Quirks instead of the usual one or (rarely) two.
• Megaton Punch: Tends to employ One For All 100% this way. 120% cracks through even Tomura's hardened defences one-sidedly and actually breaks the sound barrier from how fast and hard he hits him.
• Men Don't Cry: As of the Internship Arc, Midoriya has tried to stop crying so much, especially in public. Presumably, this is to try and promote the image of a pro hero (and more specifically, emulating All Might as saving the day with a smile). However, as Todoroki and Ida state, it's not wrong to cry when he is facing something awful, and he starts crying either way, so it ends up as a subversion.
• Mercy Kill: Discussed Trope. Gran Torino speculates with Izuku privately that the only way to save Tomura may well be killing him to release him from his hatred. As the story draws to a climax and Tomura reiterates his goal of destroying everything to him, now free of All For One's influence and removing any doubt about his villainy, Izuku prepares himself to do what must be done to stop him from unleashing his wrath upon the world while also explaining he can't ignore the part of him that was crying.
• Messy Hair: His hair is curly and sticks out in every direction.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Midoriya gains some kind of new technique or gear that improves his abilities halfway through every season besides the first. Full Cowl in Season 2, Shoot Style and Costume Gamma in Season 3, and Hatsume's air focusing gauntlets during the U.A. Cultural Festival Arc.
• Mind Hive: One For All seems to reach critical mass when All Might passes it down and gives Midoriya a power no previous wielder has. All of the previous torchbearers are inside of him and can talk to him or lend assistance when needed. Before, neither All Might nor Nana believed the Vestiges were anything more than residual willpower. The Quirk also gives a mental link to All For One, although its implications beyond mildly sensing one another are unknown.
• Mirror Character: While a good number of characters can be compared and contrasted to Midoriya, there are two characters in particular who are shown to be reflections of what his life could've been like if things didn't work out as they did:
  • Shinso is a general education student who wants to be a hero. Unfortunately, he's saddled with a Quirk that isn't only unsuited for combat situations, but also makes people think of him as a potential villain. He calls out Midoriya during their Sports Festival battle as not being able to understand what he's going through, but Midoriya can absolutely relate- having been a Quirkless boy with no chance at passing the entrance exam before getting his power and wanting to be a hero despite everyone telling him he can't.
  • Gentle Criminal grew up wanting to be a hero, but was a failure as a student, and could never gain a provisional license. When he tried to save a citizen's life, his Quirk only made things worse, and the public attacked him for getting the way of a hero's job. This reminds Midoriya of his attempts to save Bakugo from the sludge villain, which got him harshly reprimanded, but didn't otherwise ruin his career. Midoriya finds the battle with Gentle hard on a personal level when he realizes just how similar the two of them are.
  • Midoriya also has a few other mirrors for different aspects:
    • Both Jiro and Midoriya are teens that have wanted to be heroes since they were little kids, have hobbies that they are passionate enough about to compile entire notebooks on, and quickly get embarrassed when others take note of their passion for said hobbies. For Midoriya, the hobby is hero analysis, while for Jiro, it's music.
    • Bakugo points out to him that he's basically the same as All For One because of the way his version of One for All functions. He doesn't deny that at all and accepts that he will have to make a power with such evil origins into something good after realizing Eri is going through a very similar struggle. Furthermore, as more of All For One's character is revealed, it becomes underlined that at heart, he has the same childish love of superhero comics and tropes as Izuku, and revels in the opportunity Quirks provide him to 'role-play' a real-life comic book, but whereas Izuku has admiration for the selfless heroes of the tales and the feats they perform to protect everyone, All For One instead identifies more with the villains of the comic books, choosing to become one for no greater reasoning that believing they're superior and a 'real-life' villain would never lose to any heroic figure. Whilst Izuku, the actual protagonist of the story, doesn't seems to consider himself any more special or gifted than his fellow peers — quite the opposite in fact — and often gets swept up in the events unfolding him by accident or happenstance, All For One wholeheartedly believes the world revolves around him, and sets in motion several long-term plans that actively shape the course of the story going forward.
    • With Aoyama of all people since both of them have Quirks that don't fit their bodies, which Aoyama himself notes. Aoyama needs to constantly wear a special belt to contain his Quirk leaking from his navel and said Quirk, if used too much, will cause him intense stomach pain and bowel malfunction. Izuku needs a reinforced costume to compensate for his yet too lean musculature and ends up having to use his legs since his quirk has seriously damaged his arms, especially his right one. This common hurdle has made both of them befriend one another. Taken further when it's revealed that Aoyama was also Quirkless and recieved his Quirk from an external source.
• More Powered Protégé: Izuku is All Might's successor, whose only real powers amounted to Super-Strength. The story eventually ups the ante by giving him SIX additional Quirks to use in battle. None of them on their own are particularly strong, but together, they turn Izuku into the strongest hero the world has ever seen in opposition to Shigaraki becoming the strongest villain. Although Shigaraki arguably possesses more raw power than he does, as a result of effectively 'cheating' through getting Garaki's extensive body modifications to handle every one of All For One's extensive accumulated powers within a few months of (excruciating) surgery, compared to Izuku's gradual improvements through slowly adapting to One For All leaving him only able to safely handle 45-50% of it by the Final Battle. This is still enough to render Izuku the most powerful fighter on the heroes' side by far.
• Momma's Boy: A rare case in which this is not Played for Laughs. He and his mother are very close, and her words of encouragement are just as important to him as All Might's. When he gets his hero costume upgraded, he makes it a goal to keep the base as close to the original as possible, because that was the costume his mother gave him.
• Mr. Fanservice: Clothing Damage and the occasional Shirtless Scene are frequent reminders that he’s ripped to kingdom come underneath his loose-fitting clothes.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Both of his parents have minor Quirks. Midoriya himself didn't have one until he received One For All from All Might.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Midoriya works out all throughout the series in order to become a better vessel for One For All. As such, he goes from being a scrawny wimp to being lean and muscular, emphasizing his role as a brawler. By the time of the U.A. Cultural Festival Arc, he can catch steel girders with the help of One For All: Full Cowl and keep one aloft with a single hand, albeit with incredible effort. His short frame and lean musculature are a notable drawback for his Quirk but he's perfectly aware of it and continually works to overcome it.
• My Greatest Failure: At least until the Internship Arc, he considers not properly thinking and taking responsibility about how to make One For All his own. This is because it resulted in allowing Bakugo to be captured and the heartbreaking amount of grief he caused his mother by continually failing the promises he made to her that he would be careful. After the Internship Arc, his greatest failure becomes not saving Eri at the very beginning of the arc when he had the chance, resulting in more trauma for Eri, Mirio losing his power, and the death of Sir Nighteye.
• My Suit Is Also Super: Averted at first, since his hero costume was mainly a cheap jumpsuit his mom made for him in celebration of getting into U.A. It was subsequently shredded by Bakugo and Midoriya's own use of One For All during the Heroes vs. Villains training exercise. After getting his costume repaired, it was reinforced with much sturdier and darker fabric in addition to giving him reinforced gloves along with elbow and leg protection. After visiting Mei, the gloves are lengthened past his elbow for extra support while his leg protection is reinforced with metal and shock absorbers to support his new Shoot Style. In the U.A. Cultural Festival Arc, inspired by All Might, Midoriya orders a new pair of gloves from Hatsume in order to increase his fighting power and grant him long range attacks by helping him direct the air pressure created by One For All: Full Cowl into a cannonball like blast to limit collateral damage and focus its power.
• Nerd Action Hero: He's called a "hero otaku" because of his obsession with heroes. As he develops as a hero, his information gathering skills become useful when fighting against villains or even his fellow classmates.
• Nerds Are Sexy: His nerdiness is exactly what Ochaco likes about him, not that he would ever notice.
• Nervous Wreck: He's quite skittish and overemotional at the start of the story. The thought of being in the same class as Bakugo and Iida sends shudders down his spine and social situations leave him sputtering and fumbling for words. He gradually grows out of this, becoming far more sociable, but still freezes up from Performance Anxiety when put on the spot for a mock interview courtesy of Mt. Lady.
• Nice Guy: Midoriya is sweet, polite, caring, and friendly. He's one of the nicest people in Class 1-A, never looking down upon anyone or going out of his way to antagonize people unless they somehow deserve it. His drive to become a hero is also the most altruistic among the main cast, between Bakugo using the hero name to prove his superiority, Uraraka being Only in It for the Money(albeit planning on using the money to support her family), and Ida's desire to continue his Heroic Lineage (albeit still being a friendly Nice Guy like his brother). Midoriya is in it to save people with a smile and nothing else, just like his idol, All Might.
• Nice Mean And In Between: In Endevaour Agency arc, Midoriya gets officially paired with Bakugo and Todoroki, where he serves as the Nice one in the trio.
• Nightmare Face: Oddly enough, for such an endearingly designed character, Midoriya can look very unsettling when enraged - his eyes gain a somewhat maniacal streak, and he menacingly bares his teeth. When he's extremely pissed, Blackwhip coils around his body, turning his eyes stark white and with blue flames as he loses control of One For All and it makes him rampage in a frenzy.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Played With: In his match with Shoto during the Sports Festival, he breaks all his fingers, loses the battle, and after the festival no one wants him for internships due to his power being Awesome, but Impractical (at the time). However, because he chose to help Shoto during the match instead of take advantage of his refusal to use his fire side, his opponent finally starts overcoming the abuse he faced from his father and accepting all of his Quirk as his own. This leads to him re-establishing conctact with his mother in the hospital, and in general Shoto becomes much more sociable and friendly for his classmates and other people. The benefits Izuku reaped from this act far outweighed the negatives, especially considering how striking up a friendship with the boy eventually led to him being employed at the agency of the number one pro hero, Endeavor, where he starts improving rapidly compared to being taught under All Might.
• Not So Above It All:
  • He's just as excited as Mineta to get the chance to go into the girls' rooms:
  Midoriya: (with the most serious look possible) "The girls' dorms? I suppose, if we must!"
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Midoriya, being the Nice Guy that he is, usually tries to keep his cool with his enemies. That composure breaks when he finds out what Chisaki has been doing to Eri.
  • His All Might collection is almost holy in importance to him, as is all rare All Might memorabilia. So it's telling that he's so terrified of what's happening to him after speaking to the dead users of One For All and destroying his room that he doesn't seem to give a damn that most of it is ruined.
  • Midoriya always tries his best to live up to his noble ideals, even when dealing with enemies. However, during the Paranormal Liberation War arc, Midoriya considers actually killing Shigaraki instead of subduing and imprisoning him. Few moments later, Midoriya's hatred and rage against Shigaraki is unsettling to look at.
  • Anime-exclusive example. When doing the preview at the end of each episode, Midoriya always caps it off with his signature "Plus Ultra" motto. So when he doesn't do this at the end of episode 21 of Season 6, the animated adaptation of his fight with Lady Nagant, it's a clear red flag that he's not in the best headspace.
    Izuku: Next time, 'Friend'... I'm fine, really. I am.
• Oblivious to Love: Zigzagged. While he has no doubt about Toga's twisted attraction towards him, due to her being a Yandere Love Freak whose greatest wish is to molest, stab and "absorb" him by drinking his blood, he has no clue that Uraraka actually returns the attraction he feels for her. It's mostly because both are extremely shy and just don't know what to do with their feelings, added to the fact that the circumstances surrounding and affecting Hero Society at the moment don't really leave them much time to address the subject. When Toga actually reveals her feelings in front of him, he is baffled and the narration notes that despite all his achievements, he still sees himself as a nerdy loser and had no idea anyone would like him that way.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Aoyama acts very vain and haughty, but inside he is a very insecure boy with a Friendless Background and has No Social Skills. After finding out about his issues, Midoriya and Aoyama strike up a friendship, with the latter worrying about him as Midoriya takes too long to run into town and by a length of rope for the U.A. Culture Festival.
  • In general, Midoriya is so friendly that he gets along easily with just about everybody, no matter how badly their personalities clash on paper. Examples include the perverted slackers Mineta and Kaminari, the hyper and overly bold Hatsume, the stoic Todoroki, etc.
• Older Than They Look: Though he's 15-16 for the bulk of the story, there are times when he could definitely pass for about 12 due to his short height and round face, especially during calm or comedic situations. Ironically, he's actually one of the older students in Class 1-A, being the 7th oldest out of 20.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • Aizawa makes it clear to him that he is not going to let him forget about his unsanctioned fight with Bakugo and the damage it did to his image. Ida refers to Midoriya and Bakugo as "the lockdown boys" months of in-universe time after the fight.
  • Midoriya's fight against Todoroki, considering the fact that other students, veteran heroes, and even villains immediately identify him as "the psycho who broke his own arms at the Sports Festival."
• One-Man Army: While Deconstructed in that doing this was seriously unhealthy and not technically necessary, since he had allies willing and capable of helping, but not to the same level that Izuku could achieve on his own, Deku still managed to defeat a large number of the more powerful and dangerous Tartarus escapees by himself.
• Only Friend:
  • Granted, he's far from being considered a "friend" by Bakugo at the beginning of the story, but it still fits since out of every one of their peers since kindergarten to middle school, Midoriya actually cares about him as both a person and an upcoming hero while everyone else either kisses up to him or only hung around Bakugo simply because he's cool. The fact that Midoriya was the only one who tries to save Bakugo from the Sludge Villain in comparison to the latter's posse abandoning him speaks volumes.
  • A variation with Todoroki. While Todoroki has opened up to people and is clearly well-liked by the group, the one to immediately check up on him, invite him to things and chat with him the most is Midoriya. Todoroki is actually rarely seen interacting with other characters, but he is, by no means, isolated from the group.
  • Midoriya is also this to Aoyama after they bond over the fact that both of their Quirks are not kind to their bodies at all, even though the latter's flamboyant persona puts off his classmates.
• Only I Can Kill Him: Much of the story builds up the concept of him and Tomura as destined counterparts to each other, fated to battle and put an end to the generations-long feud between One For All and All For One, but this concept gets Zigzagged around a lot by the time of the final few arcs.
  • All For One deliberately invokes this mindset into Izuku as part of a psychological gambit following the war and his gradual possession of Tomura, playing up the idea that only the full power of One For All can challenge him, and Izuku is an Inadequate Inheritor who doesn't stand a chance of stopping him or his plans. Izuku believing this, drives him to try and single-handedly use his powers to subdue the rampaging villains and isolate himself from his classmates out of fear that All For One would target them to get to him, which only succeeds in gradually pushing him into a Heroic RRoD as per All For One's intentions before their 'rematch', aiming to have Izuku in as poor a fighting state as he can be to guarantee his victory is as one-sided as possible. However, 1A interferes and rescues Izuku from this self-destructive mindset, arguing that even if Izuku cannot avoid the coming conflict, he doesn't have to fight it alone, and should have faith in his fellow heroes, convincing him to participate in a multi-layered plan with all remaining heroes working in tandem instead.
  • Once the Final Battle commences, it becomes clear that in addition to the power gap between their opposing Quirks and all others, All For One's obsession with comic book tropes has lead him to perceive events unfolding around him like they actually were a real-life comic book, and thus genuinely believes he has Plot Armour when facing off against any 'extras' who aren't the holder of One For All. This winds up giving him tunnel vision from focusing exclusively on countering Izuku alone, allowing other heroes he overlooked to outmanoeuvre him, and numerous cases of Underestimating Badassery from his original and vestige self, resulting in taking continual damage from foes he believes cannot sincerely defeat him. Nonetheless, despite actually killing All For One's original body, he is ultimately able to stave off his immediate demise with Eri's Rewind, and his vestige self in Tomura's body eventually does overwhelm the heroes facing him despite their best efforts, leaving Izuku alone to fight him in the end anyway.
  • When Izuku and Tomura finally do clash, Izuku's Combo Platter Powers enable him to overwhelm even Tomura's increased defences that his allies couldn't even scratch and overcome Tomura's ridiculous strength with 120% attacks, single-handedly putting Tomura's body on the back foot after he shrugged off every effort the heroes made to weaken or defeat him before. Therefore, whilst there is no narrative reasoning saying that Tomura's enhanced body cannot be beaten by a hero other than the holder of One For All, the sheer power that the quirk possesses by the present means that it and Izuku are still the best logical choice they have for defeating Tomura for good.
• Only Sane Man: In the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc, where he calls Todoroki and Yoarashi out for fighting against each other instead of focusing on Gang Orca, who is the immediate threat there.
• Otaku: He's a superhero otaku whose knowledge often comes in handy. His Determinator qualities are the result of taking his obsession with learning about heroes and applying it into actually being a hero. This is also another thing used to highlight his contrast to All For One, who is also an otaku at heart but of more traditional 21st century media like comics and manga.
• Out of Focus:
  • Midoriya isn't the focus for the entirety of the Pro Hero Arc. He only shows up as a background character trying to show support to Todoroki. It's not until Chapter 192 the focus goes back to him.
  • The Joint Training Arc follows with it because the arc is formatted to give focus to several characters from Classes 1-A and 1-B, besides Shinso. Midoriya is only part of the arc by making comments about the on-going fights, even then he might only show up a few panels every few chapters. During the final round, Midoriya returns to the spotlight.
  • Once again, during the Meta-Liberation Army Arc, Izuku doesn't appear. Instead, the League of Villains are the main focus.
  • In the first half of the Paranormal Liberation War, the main focus shifts from him, Bakugo, and Todoroki being grouped with some hero interns to evacuate civilians out of Kyoto, to the Pro Heroes' confrontation with Dr. Garaki.
• The Paragon:
  • His Chronic Hero Syndrome was only part of the reason All Might designated Midoriya as his successor. The other reason is that Midoriya's attempt at heroism inspired All Might himself to take action. He is also the one that makes Mineta, Ida, Todoroki, and Uraraka decide to work harder towards being a hero. This is a quality that Aizawa lampshades while talking to Ms. Joke about the two students that move Class 1-A forward.
  • In an anime-exclusive episode during the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc, Yaoyorozu recalls Midoriya's conviction and selflessness when she and her allies are on the ropes against a strategist. She gets a Heroic Second Wind and defies her opponent's plan to win.
  • One of the reasons why Endeavor becomes The Atoner is Izuku calling him out during the Sports Festival. And, during the Paranormal Liberation War Arc, his faith that Endeavor is doing his best to improve as a person is implied to inspire him into pushing himself beyond his limits to knock Gigantomachia down.
  • Acknowledged by All For One during the Dark Hero Arc, as he tells Lady Nagant that, as long as Deku is around, bringing down the Hero Society will be impossible. And, indeed, after Deku defeats Lady Nagant and shows her his true nature, she is so moved that she almost calls him a true Hero.
  • During the Final Battle, this attitude ends paying off BIG TIME with La Brava counter-hacking Skeptic and nullifying his actions, Gentle stopping U.A.'s fall and Lady Nagant supporting Izuku from afar, all of whom note it was Izuku's willingness to help them that prompted their Heel Face Turns.
• Personality Powers:
  • "One For All" is an exceedingly powerful Quirk that stock-piles power in the form of Super-Strength, representing Midoriya's sheer potential born from his analytical mind and his desire to help others in-spite of how powerless he may seem. The fact that such powers are also harmful to him, destroying his body every time he uses it, shows that his tendency to rush into a fight is a self-destructive habit, Midoriya potentially having gotten hurt regardless of whether his Quirk crippled him or if it was his opponent, and even then his ability to use his overwhelming power even after it harms him like when he continues to use his own broken fingers against Todoroki in the Tournament Arc shows his determination, continuing to pursue his dream even when everyone around him tells him that his dream of becoming a hero is hopeless. On top of all of that, the fact that "One For All" was made into the invincible juggernaut of a Quirk it is now is because it has been willingly given to various other heroes in the past, stockpiling their raw power and Quirks shows that while Midoriya is ready to stand on his own two feet to become The Paragon, he is willing to work with others and accept their help when it is needed.
  • The Quirks he inherits from the previous users also count as a whole. Though they are weak powers individually, they prove surprisingly effective in the hands of the resourceful and quick-witted Midoriya and prove to be good supplements to keep him from over-relying on his Super-Strength. So, in other words, they complement his lifelong status as an underdog and allow his creativity in battle to really shine.
• Pintsized Powerhouse:
  • Deconstructed. He's among the shortest boys of his class (the other two being Tokoyami and Mineta), with one of the strongest Quirks in The 'Verse. But his small frame and rather lean musculature (as opposed to Mirio's solid stature for instance) end up becoming a liability since it makes him a particularly frail vessel for the One For All. Even though he trains continually to keep up, it's stated by other characters that All Might didn't consider Midoriya's morphology at all and perhaps made a mistake in that regard.
  • While this trope is heavily Deconstructed regarding his powers, he at least does play it straight when he's not using One For All. After training for 10 months, he can lift the 255 kg (560 lbs) All Might on his back (!), and flip the taller Bakugo and Shinso clean over his shoulder even without his Quirk, showing off a degree of Charles Atlas Superpower.
• Positive Friend Influence: To pretty much all of Class 1-A, having inspired the likes of Uraraka, Iida and Todoroki to be better heroes. Even leaving lasting impressions on some of his other classmates such as Shoji during the School Trip Arc. Aizawa mentions that he is one of the moving forces behind Class 1-A drive and skill together with Bakugo, and has played an important role in the other's Character Development, having stopped Iida's revenge against Stain and pushed Todoroki to reconnect to his mother.
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Midoriya's room is covered from top to bottom with All Might merchandise, everything from posters to alarm clocks, to action figures. He's horribly embarrassed by this when his friends come knocking on his dorm door, as it clearly shows how much of a hero Otaku he is. It's used later to show how scared he is to the point that he doesn't care at all that his priceless All Might collection was destroyed, because he just talked to several dead people on top of the fact that he's the one who destroyed all of it in his sleep and doesn't know how.
• Power Incontinence:
  • Played with. Midoriya can activate One For All at will, but when he first receives the Quirk, the only was he can use it is either not at all or with 100% of his power focused into whatever extremity he is attacking with, invariably breaking every bone in that extremity. He eventually learns to not focus his powers on one point, but rather to spread it throughout his entire body; as a result, his attacks aren't as strong, but he reduces his risks of serious injury. After the previous users start interacting with him directly, One For All begins to act very strangely, doing things like turning itself on in the night. Hearing about it even makes Bakugo worried about what the here is happening to Midoriya. It's later on revealed that One For All has also been assimilating all the Quirks of its previous users and that his uncontrolled emotions will cause these unknown and now greatly empowered Quirks to lash out. To control the Quirks, Midoriya must first control his emotions.
  • Midoriya heeds his predecessors' advice and is now able to exert basic control over Blackwhip, but it still is so painful and hard to control that he'd rather not use it. He overcomes this drawback within a few months of training and is now able to use Blackwhip easily.
• The Power Of Potential: As One For All is a Quirk that only gets stronger over time, there's theoretically no hard set limit to what Izuku's true strength is. This becomes further compounded by the arrival of multiple Quirks at his disposal recorded within it. The new ways he discovers how to use his super strength, mix and match his powers and become a better fighter overall make Izuku an opponent villains underestimate at their own peril. Reading between the lines of All For One's grand plan to steal One For All makes it clear he intends to catch Izuku at the earliest possible time before he can truly fulfill this potential. Said element to his scheme goes spectacularly wrong, as the chaos he spreads throughout Japan actually gives Izuku the time needed to exceed All Might's level of strength even before his base percentage reaches past half of One For All's full range of super strength.
• Pre-Battle Banter: On the eve of the final offensive, he shares a tender heart-to-heart alone with Ochaco thanking her for standing up for him against the refugee mob who tried to kick him out of U.A., and discusses the viability of saving Toga and Shigaraki despite their horrific crimes. Along with telling her how perfect her hair is.
• Precision F-Strike: Midoriya is normally a very sweet and polite boy but under high stress situations he's uttered swears like "damn it" and "holy crap" and even called a villain a bastard at one point.
• Prone to Tears: His large, round eyes are practically a fountain of tears given how often he cries - Ocular Gushers, Tears of Joy, Tears of Remorse, Tender Tears, Manly Tears and even Berserker Tears - he's cried them all. All Might often ribs him about this fact, insisting that he "cools it with the waterworks".
• Psychoactive Powers: The Singularity version of One for All operates completely off of his thoughts and emotions, which is one of the reasons he has so much trouble controlling it compared to the previous wielders. As a Nervous Wreck with confidence issues, it's quite possibly the worst possible situation for him. The way he activates his powers are by thinking about what he wants to do, then One For All selects the most relevant power to the thought. For example, because All Might makes up most of Midoriya's thought process it usually manifests as Super-Strength. If he really wants to catch something, Blackwhip will be chosen. The intensity is based off of his baser emotions like anger which can be absurdly dangerous if he isn't in a calm state of mind. When he goes into an atomic rage at Monoma for blaming Bakugo for ending All Might, his Blackwhip nearly killed everyone nearby including himself.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Midoriya's eyes are big and round, giving him an adorable, innocent appearance. Of course, it helps that he cries a lot.

R - T

• Rage Breaking Point:
  • Midoriya goes through a lot in the Paranormal Liberation War. Being personally targeted by Shigaraki, having to witness several of his friends and close allies getting maimed at his hands, and the stress and fear of knowing that the devastation will continue until Shigaraki gets his hands on him. But it's only when All For One hijacks Shigaraki's body and hits Bakugo with an attack aimed at Midoriya, mocking the heroes' sacrifices as 'pointless', that Midoriya hits this. He goes utterly apeshit on Shigaraki/All For One, charging them in a feral rage with Blank White Eyes and blue Fireball Eyeballs, tearing his way through their Combat Tentacles with his bare hands and even his teeth just to make them pay.
  • Happens again during the Final War Arc when Midoriya finally arrives on the battlefield and finds The Big 3, Best Jeanist, and Mirko all grievously injured and Bakugo seemingly lying dead on the ground. The sight of the carnage, and Shigaraki's taunting, nearly causes him to go berserk once again. This time, however, Mirio is able to calm him down before he does something reckless.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Midoriya is the blue oni to Bakugo's red oni. As he is kinder and meeker than his frenemy that's angrier and a hell of a lot meaner than him. Also contrasting their costumes as Midoriya has cooler colors while Bakugo has warmer colors.
  • He becomes the red oni to Todoroki's blue as Midoriya is more emotional and displays a talkative attitude when nervous, but Todoroki is more stoic and rarely speaks to his classmates.
• Required Secondary Powers: All Might's strength does not come with invulnerability. Midoriya has to train long and hard to make it so that his new powers won't tear himself apart. Even after training, his muscles still lock up and his bones shatter after use. He does manage to find a way to use One For All without crippling his body, but at the expense of not having as much strength on his attacks.
• Retool: Of Jack Midoriya from My Hero.
• Righteous Rabbit: Invoked. Even if he doesn't always wear it, his hood across several costumes incorporates the silhouette of All Might's signature hair locks as a pair of long rabbit-like ears.
• Rugged Scar: Midoriya attains a frighteningly large number of scars in a rather short time period of just a few months, but his biggest ends up being a burn mark he sustains from Dabi during the initial attempt to rescue Bakugo at the summer training camp.
• Rule of Empathy: Midoriya is practically a textbook example. Which is one of the main reasons why the egotistical Bakugo hates him so much. Nothing can stop him from putting his life on the line to help or save others who need it. All Might recognizes immediately this virtue of his as being worthy of a true Hero and inspires him to make Midoriya his successor.
• Running Gag:
  • He has a tendency to mumble when he overthinks, complete with a "mumble" sfx around his speech bubble, creeping out the people around him until someone reminds him to stop.
  • His Manly Tears, to the point where after winning the cavalry battle, he becomes quite literally a human geyser, even sticking himself in the ground due to the sheer water pressure of his tears. All Might lampshades this often, saying things like, "You need to fix those leaky eyes of yours!"
  • He tends to suddenly start taking notes of other people's Quirks.
• Save the Villain: His new mission after All For One breaks out of prison is to save Shigaraki from him, as he can sense his old Tenko persona trapped and crying out for help. Izuku can never, ever forgive Shigaraki for all he's done, but he wants to at least spare the part of him that never got the help he needed.
  Izuku: Maybe there is no other way besides killing. And I dunno what I'm gonna do when the time comes... but I want to save that little boy.
  • Izuku also did everything he could and more to save Kai Chisaki from being killed by the bullet Lady Nagant shot at him.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: He's the intelligent, analytical and (mostly) calm guy in contrast to Uraraka's upbeat, go-getting and energetic girl.
• Say My Name: In true hot-blooded shonen style, Izuku shouts out "SHIGARAKI" during their final fight when he winds up for a punch to transfer One For All and overcome his mental defenses, to which Shigaraki shouts out his own surname in response.
• Scars Are Forever: Using One For All with his broken arm during the fight against Todoroki left it even more broken, to the point that surgery plus Healing Hands couldn't fully repair it, which gave him a lot of scars on his right hand. He's left with even more intense scarring on his right upper arm after he was forced use his already broken arm to use One For All at 100% of its power several times in rapid succession.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Midoriya is a usually very respectful kid, but once the opportunity to save or help someone can cause trouble down the line, he's willing to forgo rules, codes and authorities in order to do what he feels to be right. He confronts both Stain and Gentle without supervision, placing his life at risk and breaking rules and protocol in the process. This gets deconstructed in that his reckless heroism frequently lands him in hot water with the police and Aizawa and makes him come across as a Hypocrite when he runs off to save Bakugo even after Iida reminds him of the consequences they both faced.
• Screaming Warrior: Midoriya has to employ this otherwise One For All would not work. He also does this in very stressful situations where he can do nothing but unleash a roar enough that even rivals Bakugo in this department.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The adorkable sensitive guy to Bakugo's brash manly man.
• Sherlock Scan: Midoriya's analytical skills are almost a Quirk in their own right; he is able to quickly analyze someone else's Quirk and fighting style by watching them and formulate an effective strategy to counter them.
• Ship Tease: Izuku starts out rather nervous talking to girls, which is understandable given his childhood, but he only grows extremely flustered whenever he's around Ochaco. He also appears to prefer spending time with her more than any other kid his age, given how many downtime scenes are spent with the two alone together or otherwise hanging out with Iida. Given Ochaco's own blatant attraction to him, it's likely only a matter of time before the two have an exchange concerning how far they want their relationship to go.
  • It's implied much later on he's had a Love Epiphany concerning Ochaco, and doesn't hesitate to shower her in compliments when he gets the opportunity to have some alone time with her away from the rest of the class. All traces of his Cannot Talk to Women traits have vanished, and Izuku delivers all of his praise with single-minded confidence. Much to Ochaco's (thrilled) embarrassment.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Invoked. He's among the shortest males in Class 1-A and one of the top students academically.
• Shock and Awe: Not exactly, but when Izuku is using Full Cowling or invoking One For All to enhance his physical abilities, it gets represented by him literally getting covered with green lightning arcing off him. This appears to be a purely visual effect though, as he's able to hold others without them getting electrocuted and can use electronics without frying them. Instead, it seems to be indicative of the sheer amount of power that One For All is enhancing him with, that even when using it safely, it's still discharging from his body due to being more than he can completely contain within himself.
• Shonen Hair: Downplayed. Midoriya has the Messy Hair typical of a shonen protagonist, but with soft curls instead of sharp spikes, a visual indicator that he has a "softer" personality than is typical for shonen (e.g. an analytic Shrinking Violet rather than a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero).
• Shrinking Violet: At the start of the manga, he was a full blown one, but after his Character Development, he starts to grow out of this. His first reaction to most social interactions is to act timid and skittish, but he can soon drop it. He specifically does this with Bakugo, whom he still seems to not know how to behave around. Yet even with him, he does begin to ease up over time after they make up.
• Shrouded in Myth: After dropping out of U.A., many rumors are being spread about Izuku - how he appears soundlessly, has multiple Quirks like the Nomu, and has an ominous appearance.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Dabi is ranting about how Endeavor deserves what he's being put through because of what he did to his family ( Including Dabi himself), Izuku responds that yes, Endeavor is guilty as charged, but he's also trying to make up for it, while Dabi himself can't let go of his hatred and is worse because of it.
• Shy Finger-Twiddling: He twiddles his thumbs while talking to All Might for the first time.
• Signature Move:
  • Full Cowl, a sort of Super Mode in which he uses a fraction of One For All applied to his entire body instead of 100% of it applied to a specific limb or digit in order to lessen the blow back to himself.
  • Delaware Smash and its variations. Initially, fans assumed this move was Midoriya copying one of All Might's moves, but in chapter 241 he states that this isn't part of All Might's repertoire, which means Delaware is his own original move.
• Signature Sound Effect: The "mutter mutter mutter" effect (ブツブツブツ, read as butsu butsu butsu) that surrounds him when he starts mumbling to himself while taking notes about somebody's Quirk.
• Sketchy Successor: Accused of this by Sir Nighteye. He believes that Mirio would be a far better option than Midoriya to be the user of One For All, since the latter is so naive, inexperienced, and lacks a sense of humor. The Paranormal Liberation War Arc ends up proving Sir wrong as the Predecessors reveal that only those who are born Quirkless can use One For All without suffering from Rapid Aging. Izuku was literally the only viable option to inherit the Quirk.
• Smoke Out: One of Izuku's new Quirks is Smokescreen, which allows him to generate clouds of smoke from his body. It originally belonged to the 6th user En, and like all of the Quirks within One For All, it has been greatly enhanced throughout its lineage. In Deku's hands, it's potent enough to cover an entire city street in a thick plume of smoke and it gives him a tactical advantage against his foes- although En warns Deku that using too much can also give cover to the enemy instead and allow them to get the drop on him.
• Socially Awkward Hero:
  • Midoriya is capable of great feats of heroism. Even without a Quirk, he wasn't one to sit around and do nothing while others suffered, and you can bet that during a fight, he will be charging head long in the heat of it. But in social situations, Midoriya is incredibly shy and that goes double if a girl is involved. As it happens, he's in a pseudo-Twice Shy situation with Uraraka, who likes him but becomes embarrassed if anyone brings up her crush.
  • In Chapter 241, Midoriya is so nervous and wooden during his mock press interview that he either speaks in short, one-syllable answers in a loud voice, or overly-long, meandering explanations. The only one to do worse than him is the amazingly rude and abrasive Bakugo.
• Spider-Man Send-Up: Midoriya has many similarities to Spider-Man with the two sharing similar personality traits, being very friendly and charismatic to those around him. Similarly, he also struggles with the responsibility of being a hero. He also shares some of Spidey's powers such as super strength, along with a similar Combat Parkour fighting style. The similarities grow stronger when he gains Daigoro's Quirk, Blackwhip, which essentially acts like Spidey's webbing since Midoriya primarily uses it for capturing opponents, grabbing objects, and moving around. He later gains Shinomori's Quirk, Danger Sense, which is an almost point-for-point copy of Spider-Man's iconic power. As Midoriya uses Blackwhip to augment his body, the effect heavily resembles the Venom Symbiote. It's also worth noting that Horikoshi has gone on record as saying that Spider-Man is his favorite American superhero.
• Spider-Sense: During the Paranormal Liberation War, Izuku awakens the Fourth User Shinomori's Quirk, Danger Sense, which manifests as a strong throbbing sensation in the head whenever a threat to the user's body or surroundings is in the area. However, despite the severe head pain it causes, the Quirk proves to be fairly useful in battle as it gives Deku a degree of Combat Clairvoyance and allows him to dodge incoming attacks more readily.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Downplayed. While he's a determined underdog with a heart of gold who wants to become the world's greatest hero, amasses a group of True Companions, and gains one of the world's most powerful Quirks, he's timider than most examples and his greatest strength is his willingness to learn, analyze, and experiment to find the best course of action. He does have his moments of recklessness and over-the-top screaming, but far less than the standard Shōnen Jump protagonist. Most of the trope's traits that he doesn't have are instead given to Bakugo, who paints them in a far more negative light. He's also far more intelligent and curious than most examples, averting the Book Dumb and Idiot Hero tropes that are frequent parts of this trope.
• The Strategist: Midoriya's greatest asset is his mind and tactical capabilities. This shines the most when he's with his classmates, where he uses the information he knows about their Quirks and draws out their fullest potential. In the Provisional Hero License Exam, he manages to notice what Aizawa hadn't told them and the best way to make sure his class has a chance in the upcoming battle: they lost the advantage of not having their Quirks and fighting style known, so it's much more advantageous for them to stick together in teams and use their newly developed skills rather than go off alone.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Invoked In-Universe. Due to being unable to control the raw power of One For All, Midoriya develops a fighting style that revolves around purposely limiting his full power to smaller amounts, and then adjusting it as need be so he can adapt. In later arcs, he gets a better handle on its power, and the percentage of One For All's power he can handle increases. The Second and Third user's Fa Jin and Gear Shift enable Izuku to successfully invoke this by the time of the Final Battle, despite Izuku only being able to use 45% of the base power, enabling him to successfully reach 100% level attacks of One For All without incurring further damage to his limbs, and in the case of the latter, even exceed that, albeit with some workarounds.
• Super-Empowering: How he obtained his Quirk. Users of One For All have the ability to pass along its power to another person; All Might was the one that transferred the power to Midoriya. It is later revealed Midoriya will be the first user to awaken Quirks of previous users that were locked within One For All.
• Super Loser: At the beginning of the story, Izuku doesn't really change much as a character even after receiving One For All, remaining the same dork he was pre-empowering. It's only after he learns to use his power more properly that he gradually grows out from a clueless nerd to an actual strategic leader.
• Super Mode:
  • Full Cowl in general acts as this: while weaker in overall damage output, it lets him actually use One For All for things outside of Death or Glory Attack situations, and makes him overall a lot stronger.
  • Thanks to Eri's Quirk, Midoriya is temporarily able to access One For All: 100%, without any injuries at all. He proceeds to decimate Overhaul. Note that Midoriya at full power is much stronger than All Might ever was. Given the great odds stacked against him, this also qualifies as Let's Get Dangerous!.
  • Gear Shift also qualifies for this, as it enables Izuku to instantly increase his speed through four stages to the point his blows can break the sound barrier and bring out 120% of One For All's overall attack power, but it comes with a time limitation and unspoken risk, as Izuku is warned once he starts using it, he needs to finish the fight or he will lose. Regardless, this state enables him to visibly damage TomurAFO even through his enhanced defences.
• Super-Speed:
  • He's not as fast as Ida, but he can easily go faster than most students and heroes. Pushing One For All past 20 percent makes him even faster than Iida is, and 100 percent lets him Flash Step in midair. It's given a bit more focus in Two Heroes, where he can even dodge gunfire at 5% if he predicts where it's coming from and has angles to jump around. He can even keep up with All Might as he runs towards Wolfram in the climax of the first movie.
  • The Second's Quirk, Gear Shift, is based on this principle, enabling Izuku to increase or decrease the speed of a chosen target through four stages for increased damage on impact. When applied to himself, it increases the velocity and damage of his punches to be comparable to 120% of One For All's power, and even the empowered Tomura cannot keep up with his speed anymore. He can also use this on the opposite scale as a feint to make Shigaraki completely miss a punch.
• Super-Strength: One For All allows him to use incredible super strength to overcome various obstacles. This is downplayed due to his inability to fully control his powers, resulting in him being unable to use the max 100% power without injuring himself. When he first started using his Full Cowl technique, he was forced to only use 5% power until he could get accustomed to using higher percentages. Midoriya has since increased his strength and is now able to utilize 8% power and temporarily use 20% in short bursts. Currently in the Manga, he is able to utilize 30% and short bursts of 45%.
• Superior Successor: One For All is cumulative, and becomes stronger the more it's passed down. Once he fully masters it, he'll become more powerful than All Might. This is compounded with the reveal that Midoriya's the first One For All user who can use all of the previous wielders Quirks too, which are also being empowered by One For All. So not only is he the Superior Successor to One For All, he's the Superior Successor for all the previous Quirks.
• Superpower Lottery: Played with. For a Quirkless guy, Midoriya received a stronger version of the Quirk of the most powerful hero, All Might. Unfortunately, his body is still not fully compatible with the Quirk and his bones get broken if he uses One For All too much. Played straight when it is revealed that Midoriya is the first One For All user who can wield the Quirks of his predecessors, and all these Quirks are drastically stronger than they were in the past because of One For All's power.
• Survivor Guilt: The end of the raid on the Shie Hassaikai leaves Mirio Quirkless and Sir Nighteye with mortal wounds. As a result, Midoriya feels terrible about the fact that he got away with comparatively minor wounds and needed Eri and Aizawa to save him, trying to hand off One For All to Mirio to make up for the loss of Mirio's Quirk and Nighteye's previous commentary about how Mirio would be a better successor. Mirio refuses before giving Midoriya a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech.
• Swapped Roles:
  • With All Might. As his successor, Izuku is entrusted with his power while All Might's remaining One For All "embers" slowly fade, consigning him to becoming an ordinary Quirkless man once more while Izuku goes on to become the new Symbol of Peace.
  • With Bakugo as well. While Bakugo learns the spirit of self-sacrifice and breaks himself in the fight against TomurAFO, Izuku goes on to become a symbol of absolute victory he always saw Bakugo as, thoroughly trouncing TomurAFO in a fit of righteous fury.
• Sweat Drop: Almost always breaks out in a nervous sweat when someone or something rattles him.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: One For All is a Quirk that stockpiles power to grant enormous Super-Strength. When applied evenly throughout the body, it also grants a degree of Super-Speed, the ability to Wall Jump and leap considerable distances In a Single Bound, the ability to Double Jump and redirect oneself in mid-air, and the ability to fire air blasts. It can also be transferred to a Quirkless person, and it cannot be stolen forcefully. In Midoriya's case, he can interact with deceased users of One For All and can view their memories from a third person POV. It's later revealed that One For All has six more Quirks stored within it from the previous users, all of varying uses with the first demonstrated being Blackwhip, a destructive sort of Combat Tentacles that can readily wreck everything in their path if the user doesn't control them with their emotions.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Izuku senses Shigaraki's turmoil manifesting as a scared, lonely child when One For All and All For One briefly meld with one another during their battle. Later, during his conversation with his predecessors, Izuku declares he wants to understand the tragic pasts of villains and settle conflicts differently if he can with Shigaraki being at the top of the list. He knows that sometimes there is no other way besides fighting, but after encountering Gentle and La Brava he can't stand by and pretend some villains don't need help.
• Technician vs. Performer:
  • Midoriya and All Might:
    • A teacher-and-student variation exists between the protagonist Midoriya and his mentor, All Might, who trains him in the use of their shared Quirk, One For All. All Might is a performer. From the day of his heroic debut, saving people while laughing in the face of disaster and proclaiming everything will be all right now because he is there, All Might has inspired confidence and admiration over his career. Midoriya, meanwhile, is a technician. He's quiet, has taken notes on heroes since he could write and tends to impress people on a much more individual level. All Might's mentoring of Midoriya is hampered by this fact, as the former took to One For All much more naturally than the latter has, yet fails to realize his student isn't as intuitive as he was. His teachings are less informative than they should be as a result.
    • All Might's teacher, Gran Torino, taught All Might by basically subjecting him to Training from Hell and beating the crap out of him to the point that the latter trembles in fear of the former years later. He deals with Midoriya by giving him a few choice pieces of advice, letting the boy work out the answers on his own, then beating the crap out of him to give Midoriya a chance to test what he's come up with. Midoriya makes much more progress controlling One For All in a week with Gran Torino than he had in a significantly longer period with All Might.
  • Midoriya and Bakugo:
    • Midoriya shares this contrast with his childhood friend and bully, Bakugo. Midoriya is timid, thoughtful, and has to constantly put in the work to catch up to his peers in using his powers. Bakugo is a hothead driven to surpass his peers who prefers to rush in headfirst and is a more naturally gifted fighter. Where Midoriya sees being a hero as cool because they help people, Bakugo sees being a hero as cool because heroes always win. The differences between them are highlighted as early as the U.A. Entrance Exam. Bakugo passes the practical exam exclusively by destroying robot adversaries for points. Midoriya makes it through exclusively by passing the Secret Test of Character, fighting a powerful foe worth zero points to save a fellow student.
    • In the Provisional Hero License Exam, in which the students are tested for the right for licenses that let them act as heroes in limited situations, the second phase is a simulated rescue mission which involves a combination of fighting off villains and rescuing survivors. Bakugo's tunnel vision on the surface level, action-oriented side of heroism bites him hard, as he's excessively rude to the people he's supposed to be saving even as he's making appropriate calls on whether to help them or send them to aid stations. Midoriya, despite some initial stumbling, is much more well-rounded and handles both the rescue side and a simulated villain attack much better. This results in Bakugo being one of only two members of the class to not pass the exam. Later, All Might tells both of them that a mix of technician and performer is ideal, and that Bakugo was held back by being too focused on the surface fame of being a hero, while Midoriya is too focused on the nuts and bolts and tends to be less driven and ambitious.
  • For all that Midoriya is the technician when placed beside the inspirational All Might and attention-grabbing Bakugo, the dynamic flips when Midoriya is compared to Iida. Midoriya's natural willingness to jump into danger to help others and relative recklessness contrast sharply to Iida's by-the-book, borderline-overthinking attitude. In the U.A. Entrance Exam, Iida focuses on performing the test following the rules laid out to them beforehand. The idea of attacking the giant, zero-point robot never occurs to him for a moment and only seeing Midoriya do so to save someone else makes him stop and consider that there even is a Secret Test of Character involved. As the two become friends, Midoriya's natural heroism helps inspire Iida, while Iida's adversity to recklessness has helped to keep Midoriya in check.
• Technicolor Lightning: When using One For All: Full Cowl, Midoriya often leaves trails of what appears to be green lightning in his wake, but these can't actually hurt anyone and are likely just an aftereffect of the power he's using.
• Terror Hero: As stated at Creepy Good, Midoriya's appearance during the Dark Hero arc make him look just as terrifying as the villains he is hunting down. Civillians end up running away after being saved by him at one point.
• Thinking Out Loud: He tends to start mumbling whenever he's thinking hard about something. This used to creep his friends out, but they've gotten used to it to the point that they remark about how they almost missed it after he does it for the first time in a while.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted for the most part. Izuku begins the series as an introverted, victimized, but earnest Wide-Eyed Idealist, and still is in many respects, but gradually comes to accept the gray nature of the world he lives in. He fights to kill in extreme circumstances but treats it as a last resort and has not yet gone through with actual murder. This applies strongest to Shigaraki, who he's become determined to save upon realizing he's another victim of All For One while acknowledging he may have to die at his hand despite his best efforts. All For One himself isn't being extended the same courtesy and Izuku is 200% dedicated to stopping him forever.
• Throw the Book at Them: Throws his bag full of books at the Sludge Villain while trying to save Bakugo in the first chapter. When facing off against Nighteye in his test, Izuku picks up on Nighteye's Exact Words regarding how his foresight works, allowing him to realize that Nighteye can only foresee his own movements and not the movements of objects unrelated to him in advance, picking up and chucking an entire desk full of books and papers right at Nighteye to blind and distract him while he takes advantage of his broken concentration to attempt to grab his stamp.
• Tiny Schoolboy: Midoriya is the third-shortest boy in his class, standing at 166 cm or 5'5''.
• To Be a Master: His goal is to become the world's greatest hero, following his idol, All Might.
• Too Awesome to Use: His early belief that One For All is this, along with Centipede's Dilemma, is one of the main reasons he's unable to properly use the power at the start. Gran Torino calls him out for this attitude, and Midoriya comes to realize the first step to mastering OFA is to treat it like a natural part of his body.
  • Invoked again with the Kudo’s Quirk. During the Dark Hero Arc, Deku is shown to utilize all the previous OFA User's Quirks except the Second's for this very reason. The Second himself warns that while useful, because his Quirk has merged with OFA to become more powerful than when he had it in life, it should only be used as a last resort.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Even before he received One For All, All Might put Midoriya through a 10-month regime of Training from Hell that bulked him up from a weedy little nothing to a buff-as-hell beast of a boy capable of carrying the 255kg (560lb) All Might on his shoulders. And then, of course, he received One For All.
  • Thanks to his training with Gran Torino, Midoriya has developed a new way to use One For All, dubbed "Full Cowl." Rather than running a set amount of it through a single extremity, it flows through his body evenly, boosting his overall ability accordingly. Proof of success? It let him hold his own against and even overcome The Hero Killer.
  • Midoriya later finds out that he can temporarily double up his output up to 20%, although it can cause him some pain.
  • After training with All Might after the Hideout Raid Arc, Midoriya can fire multiple air blasts with a flick of his finger with the help of a new pair of gloves designed by Mei.
  • By the Joint Training Arc, the 1-B team he's pitted against compares his speed and firepower to Bakugo and says that if they can't stop him, he'll walk right over them.
  • During the Paranormal Liberation War and Tartarus Escapees Arcs, Izuku unlocks several Quirks and quickly learns how to use them, allowing him to defeat Lady Nagant in a fight, and then all of his classmates at the same time.
• Trademark Favorite Food: According to official materials, it's Katsudon, or fried pork cutlet and other toppings eaten over a bowl of rice. He's frequently seen eating it in cafeteria scenes.
• Training Montage: Chapter 2 focuses this on this after Midoriya agrees to gain All Might's powers. Eight months pass between then and the finish, and Midoriya is shown having developed an impressive build.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • At first averted, as he spends most of the series as a Screaming Warrior thanks to being so young and inexperienced coming across some truly terrible villains. He gains this trait at the beginning of his solo stint, quietly surveying opponents like Muscular and swiftly defeating them when he determines they're not worth his sympathy for having no sympathetic reasoning behind their villainy. His hatred toward All For One in particular comes into play here, after the whole business with Lady Nagant who did earn his sympathy for being a Broken Bird.
    Izuku: (trembling with rage staring at Lady Nagant's near-dead body) All.. For... One!!
  • During the Final War Arc, seeing Bakugo and the others injured nearly causes Midoriya to go berserk with rage once more. This time, Mirio is able to calm him down, causing Midoriya to go into a Super Mode complete with spiky hair, Blackwhip wrapped around his face like Aizawa's scarf, and glowing with Fa Jin energy as he asks All For One if Shigaraki's still in there. The rage is still present, but it's far more focused this time.
• Trash Landing: While he's on his internship with Gran Torino, Midoriya attempts to Wall Jump his way to the roof of a building in an alley. He uses stuffed trash bags as his safety net in his late-night practice.
• Tricked-Out Shoes: His second hero costume upgrade (named Costume Gamma) adds special power-reinforcing iron soles that go over his sneakers. They protect his feet from sharp objects and debris while also adding a special power-blowback effect that increases the force of his kicks by responding to strong impacts in order to supplement his Shoot Style.
• A True Hero: Midoriya's goal is to become a hero, not out of glory or material gain, but out of a sincere desire to help people. His hard work, determination and bravery leads to several people considering him to be one of the only people truly worthy of the title of "Hero," alongside the man he idolizes: All Might.
• Twice Shy:
  • He and Ochaco clearly have beyond platonic inclinations for one another, but given his past lackluster social life, along with various outside issues, his feelings have gone unmentioned for the time being.
  • Averted towards the end. He has no problem telling Ochaco how pretty she is, and it's implied the only thing that stops him from confessing outright is the lingering worries the two have about their upcoming final confrontation with the League of Villains.

U - Z

• The Unchosen One: Izuku was born without a Quirk even though both of his parents had them, denying him his dream of becoming a great hero, is an average child with no outstanding qualities, and someone no one expected anything great from. However, he meets his idol and hero All Might by pure luck and impresses him so much with his grit, determination, and desire to help that he gives Midoriya the chance to prove himself. Midoriya doesn't disappoint and shows that he's worthy of One For All and gains the power to enter U.A. and become a hero. It's played with later. While all of the above is still true, Midoriya has an unusual affinity for the esoteric aspects of One For All, something no other user had proper access to. It turns out that Midoriya is the first to manifest a strong psychic connection with the spirits of his One For All predecessors and is able to commune with them. He is also the first user of One For All to manifest the original Quirks of his predecessors.
• Unflattering ID Photo: Izuku's picture on his Provisional Hero License looks bug-eyed and nervous.
• Unfortunate Names: "Deku" is an Alternate Character Reading of his given name, and it can be short for deku-no-bō, meaning a "physical puppet" or "wooden doll" and it's usually used in the context of calling someone an "idiot", "blockhead", or a "good-for-nothing". Which is something that Bakugou associated him with since childhood.
• Uninhibited Muscle Power: What the 1,000,000% Delaware Detroit Smash is described as, being Midoriya using hysterical strength in a moment of desperation, combined with the full power of One For All. It also causes more damage to his arms than any other attack, to the point of permanent ligament damage.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: All Might was Quirkless just like Midoriya before inheriting One For All, and with the previous holders as well as the existence of All For One he's not unique in receiving his Quirk in an unusual fashion. What makes Midoriya unique in the setting in general and among the previous holders of One For All, in particular, is that by the time it reaches Midoriya, One For All has developed to a point that he can access the Quirks of the previous holders, as well as speak to them through remnants of them stored within One For All along with their Quirks. Midoriya is the only user capable of using a wide range of abilities and being able to actively call upon guidance from his predecessors in a way none who came before him could.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Played with. As the holder of All Might's power, he has perhaps the greatest raw power out of all the students, but is still learning to control it, and it ravages his body every time he uses it. Incredibly, this warps him all the way back into Weak, but Skilled. Unlike the other students, who can use their Quirks at will, he is limited to explosive bursts of strength that leave him damaged, so he is forced to develop strategies and use his power creatively. As he uses One For All: Full Cowl, he actively finds ways to be unique and even incorporating kicks into his new fighting style, which he names Shoot Style. He's on his way to becoming Strong and Skilled. But then Izuku increases the percentage of his power and then reverts back to his old unskilled ways especially after he unleashes a new dormant Quirk within One For All known as Blackwhip that is related to his emotions that he needs to control over when he is angry. Then it is revealed he has 5 more dormant Quirks he needs to master before utilizing them in combat.
• Un-Sorcerer: He's the current trope image. 80% of the world population has a Quirk, including both of Midoriya's parents. Midoriya was one of the 20% that didn't. That number doesn't account for each individual country nor the increasing rarity of Quirklessness with each passing generation − in his generation, it has apparently become extremely uncommon.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the League of Villains. Midoriya successfully defeated the Yakuza leader Overhaul. The Shie Hassaikai is also rendered defunct after they are systematically defeated and captured by the heroes. But that means they just eliminated the biggest competitor of the League of Villains, paving the way for them to gain unchallenged dominance over the underworld.
• Utility Belt: Played with. He wears a belt with plenty of compartments attached as part of his hero costume, but he's never really seen using them.
• Visual Development:
  • Midoriya looks much more muscular and rugged than what he looked in earlier chapters of the manga, he also has a considerable number of scars gained through several battles.
  • His hero costume has evolved with time. The Support Department darkened the green color and turned the white details to black in his second costume, also adding a metallic mouthpiece, elbow, and shin guards for protection. His third costume piles up longer and stronger protection gloved and knee pads, with flexible iron soles that go over his sneakers to strengthen his kicks and push back after receiving powerful impacts to protect him from the recoil of kicking into hard things. They also protect his feet from oncoming debris, sharp objects, and other hazards that could potentially prove dangerous with his high-speed fighting style.
• Volcanic Veins: When activating One For All, glowing veins of power often run through Izuku's body.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: He is the only student in his class who hasn't gotten the hang of tying a necktie, appearing as a round bundle around his neck. It connects with his nervous, jittery demeanor and his lack of experience with his superpowers compared to his classmates.
• Warrior Therapist:
  • In his tournament match against Todoroki. While they were fighting, Midoriya yelled at Todoroki for suppressing his fire powers just to spite the latter's father. Midoriya then claimed that Todoroki's powers do not belong to his father, and that Todoroki shouldn't hold back if he wants to be a superhero.
  • Chapter 118 has him deciding to do this with Bakugo, after he is challenged to fight, as he realizes that the fight is pointless, but it's a fight Bakugo needs to vent out his frustration and sadness due to his guilt over making All Might lose his powers.
• Weak, but Skilled: When using Full Cowl. His overall power at 5% lacks the explosive power of a full powered Smash. However, he is capable of fighting longer, is much faster as a result, and is capable of strategizing better since he no longer needs to fear breaking his limbs. Furthermore, he can gradually utilize more of it as he improves, steadily increasing his power, and becoming more Strong and Skilled. The individual Quirks that lie dormant in One For All are mostly relatively unspectacular powers, but when used intelligently still give Deku a major advantage in a fight.
• Willfully Weak:
  • One For All takes an enormous toll on Midoriya's body. Even after training with Gran Torino and being able to effectively use it safely, he can only do so at 5% of One For All's full power and has to continually regulate its usage to avoid injuring himself.
  • By the time Midoriya and Bakugo fight again, to help the latter deal with guilt issues, Midoriya is able to handle One For All at 8%.
  • During the raid of Overhaul, Midoriya is forced to up the ante to 20%. He mentions that he feels intense strain on his body, meaning that he keeps it even lower for his body to get used to it and only went to 20% out of desperation, though he can still fight.
• With Friends Like These...: Even after everything Bakugo put him through, Midoriya still considers the former to be his friend, even if he admits that they aren't as close as they were as kids, and couldn't help but rush to save him when Bakugo was being attacked by the Sludge Villain. He still calls Bakugo by his affectionate childhood nickname, "Kacchan," even though Bakugo brings all of Midoriya's insecurities to the surface. To Bakugo's credit, he does let up somewhat after being saved from the Sludge Villain, never bullying Midoriya outside of class, but is still actively resentful and abusive for much of the story while in-class. He simmers down after the Hideout Raid Arc, after Midoriya told him everything about One For All, causing their relationship to develop into more of a Friendly Rivalry than before.
• With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Subverted. Midoriya has to work his ass off to go from scrawny nerd to muscled and athletic in order to even survive being given One For All. Even after becoming strong enough to receive it without exploding, he has to continue working out and refining his body so he can handle larger and larger fractions of its power without breaking his bones. It's also massively subverted during the Tartarus Escapee Arc, as Izuku is operating at his maximum current power level, and has unlocked most of the Quirks within OFA, able to use them in tandem with some difficulty to overwhelm and defeat opponents like Muscular without breaking himself like last time, or Lady Nagant by combining his Quirks to reach pseudo-100% power, but Midoriya's lack of self-worth feeds negatively into the newfound potential his abilities give him, driving him to run himself ragged trying to singlehandedly restore order until he's covered in filth, mud and wounds, looking exactly like a villain to most of the people he's rescuing.
• World's Strongest Man: As One For All gets stronger with each user, Izuku will become this once he masters it and be stronger than All Might ever was, with him as the narrator flat out saying this is the story of how he reaches that point. This is showcased when he's enabled to use 100% against Overhaul with no drawbacks: Overhaul, an extremely dangerous villain who multiple pros struggled with, doesn't stand a chance against him, even after going One-Winged Angel. And that isn't even as strong as he'll actually be once he reaches his true potential, as he begins unlocking the Quirks of One For All's previous Torch Bearers. As he will likely be the last user due to it being too dangerous to easily pass on at this point, Izuku's status as this trope will likely never be exceeded. Even at around 45 percent of his full power, Bakugo puts him as already being on par with the likes of Endeavor and the strongest pros still around.
• Worthy Opponent: Be it because of his moral convictions, his sheer determination or his growing power, over the series Izuku grows to have several enemies that deeply respect him for one reason or another:
  • Out of all the heroes he has encountered it appears that Midoriya is the only one Stain deems to be a true hero.
  • Later on, he's seen as such by Stain's Foil Gentle as well after hearing Midoriya's motivations to become a hero.
  • Muscular's sheer and absolute glee at facing Midoriya again during the Dark Hero Arc might disturbingly border on In Love with Your Carnage levels, but it's made clear that nobody has thrilled him in a fight quite like Midoriya before.
  • Lady Nagant, who was disgruntled with the facade of a peaceful society, was impressed with Izuku and deemed him to be a true hero.
  • Even Shigaraki seems to have developed in this kind of mentality towards him in the end. After winning his Battle in the Center of the Mind against All For One, the way he declares "After all, I am your villain" towards Izuku is almost prideful and full of The Only One Allowed to Defeat You energy towards the younger hero.
• "X" Marks the Hero: Whenever he activates One For All Full Cowl, a pattern of luminescent red stripes covers his body, including an X-shaped one encircling his eyes from his nose bridge.
• You Are Not Alone: Class 1-A fight tooth and nail to make him see that they truly love him as their friend, and will charge into battle with him as True Companions despite his attempts to keep them out of harm's way. Both because they have a personal stake in the war against All For One, but also because they want to be by his side even through the worst of it.
• You Can Barely Stand: To save others, he'll push himself until his bones are shattered and his body is beaten bloody and not even that will stop him if there's at least one person he can help. Yoichi Shigaraki cites that as the reason One For All will remain with Izuku.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Implied. It takes a lot to rile up the usually kind and friendly Midoriya but, if you do, you're not getting out without your ass being handed to you thoroughly and violently, as Overhaul and Stain found out the hard way. Midoriya himself is well aware of it, reflecting that his willingness to win tends to gradually turn to rage as he fights on, making him increasingly violent and crass.
• Youthful Freckles: They're not always visible, but during closeups of Midoriya's face, one can see clusters of freckles under each eye. They were more prominent in the early chapters though.

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