Overview
Toshinori Yagi (å «ãæ¨ãä¿ã¨ãå ¸ã®ãYagi Toshinori), more commonly known by his hero name, All Might (ãªã¼ã«ãã¤ã Åru Maito?), is the tritagonist of My Hero Academia, and the arc protagonist of the Hideout Raid Arc. All Might is the former No. 1 Pro Hero who bore the title of the world’s Symbol of Peace (å¹³åã®è±¡å¾´ Heiwa no Shōchō?). He teaches Foundational Hero Studies at U.A. High School.
All Might was the eighth holder of the One For All Quirk after receiving it from Nana Shimura. He has since passed the torch to Izuku Midoriya, whom he is training to be his successor. After using up all the embers of One For All to defeat All For One, All Might retired and ended his era as the world’s greatest hero.
Appearance
In his empowered form, Toshinori is a very large man with an equally-muscular and well-defined physique, his design resembling a typical western comic book superhero. He has chiseled features on his face with a strong jawline and pronounced cheekbones, and busy eyebrows. He has short blond hair, swept backwards, with two distinct tufts that stick up above his head, leaning slightly to each side. His strong features regularly casts a dark shadow over his face, hiding everything but his bright blue eyes.
Toshinori’s Golden Age hero costume consisted of a skin-tight blue bodysuit decorated with a red symbol that somewhat resembles a “Y,” designed with a white diamond at its center, with white lines connected to it that trace from his chest to his back shoulders; the lines trimmed with the aforementioned red symbol. The symbol appeared to have wings on the side that ran from the atop his torso before ending around his back, over which was a similar red and white design absent of the white diamond. Large white patches lined with red-covered each side of his hips before ending at his lower thighs, and he wore a gold belt that had a silver buckle with red eyes. His forearm sleeves were colored in gold that each had white lines covered in blue accents over his wrists, and had spiked fins on the sides of his arms, his feet were covered in shin-length gold boots trimmed with white and red accents.
In his “true form,” after sustaining permanent damage from All For One, Toshinori’s declining health reduced him to a very skinny man with sharp, angular features and long limbs, his neck long and his eyebrows absent. He possesses a large scar that covers most of the left side of his chest, and it is not uncommon for him to spout blood from his mouth when excited or surprised. He typically wears baggy clothing to accommodate the change in body mass between forms, but after the end of Toshinori’s tenure as a hero, he starts wearing clothes that fit him in his true form, as he no longer needs big clothes that fit his muscle form.
In his early career, Toshinori was a lean but fit young man. In his empowered form, his facial features were noticeably softer. In both his normal and empowered form, he did not have shadowed eyes on his face, completely showing his white sclerae while retaining the deep blue irises of his eyes, possibly showing how he was not a shell of his former self.
Personality
All Might’s hero persona appears to be derived from comic book superhero stereotypes: exuberant and filled with dramatic flair. He always protects and saves innocents, with a huge smile. The habit of smiling was ingrained to him by his mentor, Nana Shimura, who believed that the ones who smile are the ones who are the strongest. Though he can be annoying at times, All Might is extremely friendly and amicable due to his popularity and years in the spotlight, always taking his time to interact with fans.
Once All Might reverts to his true form, he becomes reserved and solemn, avoiding attention in direct contrast to the grandiosity of his hero identity. While he’s an optimist, he still ensures his goals are grounded in reality. When a Quirkless Izuku tells him about his goal of becoming a hero, All Might praises him for having a dream, but reminds him to stay realistic and suggests he enter another profession that helps people. He considered the harsh words necessary to save the boy from long-term frustration. In this form, he frequently vomits blood as an indicator of his fragile health, although it might happen if he gets surprised or amused enough. Two personality traits that seem to be always present on him, regardless of which form All Might is currently taking, are his optimism and oafishness.
Since his young days, All Might had always carried a single, yet burdensome goal in his mind: to become a pillar of hope that people could always rely upon during harsh times. After obtaining One For All from his master, Nana Shimura, All Might rose to become not only a hero but a legend, thanks to his seemingly endless competency and charisma. No matter who or what he faced, All Might would stand up triumphantly every time, one battle after another, inspiring the world and sending fear to the hearts of villains everywhere. He has a chronic ability to save as many people as he can, a trait he shares with his successor. He exhausted himself and fell behind on other heroes duties, such as filing paperwork. Though he was embarrassed by it, he still gratefully accepted the offer of Sir Nighteye and (later) Naomasa Tsukauchi to file his reports.
After his fight against All for One, he considered it necessary to keep his weakened state hidden from the public, for the sake of keeping up morale. Unfortunately for All Might, injuries inflicted on his body were starting to take a toll on him. Despite the concern and warnings from some of his close associates, All Might’s determination to preserve society from evil prevented him from relinquishing his role as the Symbol of Peace. His smile, once a gesture that served to calm others, started becoming more of a way for All Might to hide his fears and insecurities from the general population. As time passed, All Might began to forget some of the basic principles of heroism, until Izuku, in a brave attempt to save Katsuki Bakugo from the Sludge Villain’s attack despite being Quirkless, rekindled his heroic spirit and taught him that something can always be done to fight injustice.
Above all else, he considers self-sacrifice the most noble action. This comes in many forms for All Might, such as physically on the battle field, but also mentally, sacrificing so much of his time, he barely has a private life. He believes in this core value so much, he dropped Sir Nighteye’s preparations for a successor on a whim after witnessing Izuku’s single act of selflessness to save Katsuki. This selflessness has served All Might well to become a symbol, as civilians trust his words, “Do not fear”, truly knowing he won’t hesitate to save them. The dismissal of his own safety eventually caught up to him, causing issues with both his work and personal life. As a U.A. Teacher, he couldn’t help but be distracted helping people on his morning commute, shortening his time with his students. It also estranged All Might from Sir Nighteye, who disagreed on whether he should be avoiding his prophesied death or continue hero work. All Might attempted to ignore his prophesied death, keeping it secret from Izuku for a long time. At Inko Midoriya’s request, he gained a new resolve to avoid it entirely. He found a greater value in his own life, knowing Izuku needed him as a mentor, not just a savior.
Izuku has compared All Might’s personality to their mentor Gran Torino since both of them apparently play dumb often. All Might is actually more intelligent and perceptive than his campy image would suggest. He has a tactical mind when it comes to battle strategies and public speaking. Assessing a villain’s threat level, he’ll skillfully apply the necessary force and avoid injuries when possible. If he’s in control, he’ll even make a dramatic performance out of their defeat, as an example to other villains. His presence alone decreased Japan’s crime rate by 3%. He’s aware of villain tactics, such as monologuing, and actively ignores them. Only the most manipulative villains, like All For One, can bring out a rare instances of anger in All Might, such as catching him off guard and giving him a mortal injury, and causing him to bitterly state All for One would die in prison.
Despite his battle intelligence, his great powers and fame make him dissociated with others’ capabilities, and Gran Torino asserted this made him ill-suited to teaching. Sometimes All Might underestimates his students and is outsmarted as a result. Lacking teaching experience, he required a script in order to convey his first lesson to Class 1-A. He is also reprimanded on occasion by his fellow teacher, Eraser Head, for being sometimes unavailable for his teaching duties. However, All Might bringing his typical attitude into his teaching can be beneficial, creating an energetic and motivating environment. While his UA coworkers respect him as a pro hero, they can get frustrated with the conflict his presence brings to the school, such as attracting journalists. He has also faced criticism from the media for attracting villains to UA.
For Izuku specially, he has a habit of projecting himself onto his protégé, overestimating his limits. While All Might could use One for All at 100% instantly, Izuku received grave injuries when he did so. After multiple scolding from Recovery Girl for encouraging Izuku’s self destructive behavior, they both realized he needs to be his own individual hero. This is reflected when All Might told Endeavor, after taking his place as the Number 1 Pro Hero, to figure out on his own what symbol he wanted to be. While All Might wishes to inspire others, he’s not self-righteous and sees the value of different ideologies. He has a respect for other professions outside of heroes, specially the police, when others tend to underappreciate them. Though All Might has every good intention, his flawless persona caused some long-term consequences. Society has become overdependent on him and in extreme cases, his admirers have become delusional to what is realistic. For example, the villain Stain puts the standards that All Might has set onto every Hero, killing those he believes have fallen short.
All Might always prioritizes the lives of others over his own, considering them his responsibility. Still, All Might is deeply aware that saving everybody in the world is an impossible task, which is why he sought to become a symbol who could inspire others to take action as well. While All Might is seen smiling, laughing, and being cheerful most of the time, he is extremely protective of his students, showing a very rare instance of rage if they’re in danger. He is willing to go above his limits for their safety, making sure to alleviate their worries through his trademark smile.
All Might has a fatherly attitude towards his students (his successor Izuku, in particular) and takes pride in helping their development as future heroes, being quick to give encouraging advice and celebrate their accomplishments, but he’s also not afraid of pushing them further, even if he ends up going a bit too far. All Might has the habit of adding “young” (å°å¹´ Shonen?) to the surname of his students whenever he is speaking out loud or thinking to himself (ex. “Young Midoriya”).
However, during the Final Exams Arc, out of all the teachers he is, by far, the most ruthless. Like his hero persona, All Might can put on a theatrical villain one, doing it to bring out the full potential of others with rough love. His sheer intimidation alone was, according to Izuku, similar to that of Stain. When Katsuki stated that he’d rather lose than seek Izuku’s assistance, All Might was more than willing to force Katsuki to lose. He also punched Katsuki hard enough for him to vomit, showing he will not hold back and is willing to injure his student if that means they’ll pass the exams properly. He would even go as far as to crack Izuku’s back, as well as crush them both under his boot (all of which earned him a serious scolding by Recovery Girl).
Powers & Abilities
Overall Abilities: All Might was recognized as the strongest hero in the world. He was the “Symbol of Peace” and such a deterrent against crime that villains were largely discouraged by his presence in society. He was able to defeat All For One, a dangerous supervillain who once ruled all of Japan ages ago, and is revered as Japan’s most powerful villain, twice; he was the only user of One For All who was able to win against him. Despite winning, All Might suffered a gruesome injury at the hands of All For One that limited his maximum power output going forward.
Even after his Quirk’s power was constrained by his injuries, All Might’s strength and speed were unmatched though he was only able to manifest it for a limited time period. This time limit got shorter and shorter after he passed his Quirk onto Izuku. Even so, All Might could still defeat villains on his own that groups of normal Pro-Heroes struggled against. By pushing his power beyond its reasonable limits, All Might defeated Nomu, who was created specifically to kill him, with over 300 blows. Izuku and Katsuki, who are among Class 1-A’s elites, were completely dominated by All Might in their fight. All Might wore high-density weights during this battle and was still more than strong
and fast enough to effortlessly overpower his two young proteges. Forced to once again break the limiter placed on his Quirk, All Might defeated All For One by using up his remaining power.
Even though he is unable to keep his hero form for more than an instant after his final battle with All For One, All Might still keeps a keen intuition and sharp reflexes, which helped him hone his skills as a hero ever since he acquired his powers. This is shown in his observations regarding Izuku’s use of One For All, and the fact that he was capable of catching one of Mei Hatsume’s “babies” coming in from behind with minimal effort in his true form. Despite his physique in his true form, he is actually quite physically able but isn’t as efficient compared to when he is in his hero form.
Trained Muscles: Usage of One For All requires the user to have strong muscles, as One For All is a lot to handle and could cause the user’s body to be blown apart if they don’t possess the necessary strength of body. Gran Torino said that All Might, in particular, had a strong body that allowed him to master One For All much faster than previous users.
Indomitable Spirit: All Might’s will is clear in almost all of his actions as a Hero. He is known for saving people with a smile and his catchphrase “I am here”, two facets of him being the Symbol of Peace. During the pinnacle of his battle against the U.S.J. Nomu, All Might remembered his resolve of being the Symbol of Peace, and his resolution allowed him to push beyond 100% of his power in order to finally defeat the artificial human. Another prominent spectacle featuring All Might’s willpower was during his final showdown with All For One. One of All For One’s primary strategies in their fight was to wear down All Might psychologically, such as taunting All Might by mentioning the latter’s former mentor and predecessor, Nana, as well as revealing that Tomura Shigaraki
is her grandson. The first taunt enraged All Might, while Tomura’s kinship to Nana made him despair greatly. However, in spite of the guerrilla warfare employed by All For One, All Might remembers Nana’s teachings on heroism, and re-established his will, enabling the weakened hero to muster up some of his remaining power in order to continue fighting. Worn out of his muscle form and faced with certain defeat at the hands of a virtually unscathed All For One, All Might was still able to channel what was left of One For All to defeat All For One in a single strike. All Might possesses an extremely strong presence that has struck fear into others, such as Izuku and Katsuki during the Final Exam. This aura was strong enough to cause two villains to freeze in terror even though they’d been prepared to kill him and All Might had lost his power.
Former Quirk
One For All (ã¯ã³ã»ãã©ã¼ã»ãªã¼ã« Wan Fō Åru): Transferred to him from Nana Shimura, Toshinori’s Quirk allowed him to stockpile an enormous amount of raw power, allowing him to significantly enhance all of his physical abilities to a superhuman level. This resulted in unbelievable levels of strength, speed, agility, and durability.
All Might was so proficient with One For All that he was widely known as the world’s most powerful person. However, most of the feats he performed are after All Might had been grievously injured by All For One and after he started the process of transferring One For All to Izuku, so the fullest extent of his abilities are mostly unknown.
- Immense Strength: All Might’s most distinguishable trait was his boundless levels of super strength. A single punch from All Might could not only defeat a villain but completely change the weather subsequently. It also has the power to completely destroy several city blocks from the wind pressure it creates. Despite becoming severely weakened since first meeting Izuku, All Might’s pure overwhelming strength is still comparable to that of a nuclear device. He quite literally beat the Shock Absorption out of Nomu, forced Izuku and Katsuki into fleeing rather than continue fighting him head-on, and clashed with All For One’s attacks and cancel out their highly destructive power with brute strength alone. After defeating Nomu, All Might himself admitted that, compared to his prime in which he could’ve defeated Nomu with five hits, it took over three hundred blows to defeat the bio-engineered creature. This is another testament of All Might’s weakened state.
- Immense Speed: In conjunction with his immense level of physical strength, All Might possesses an equally impressive amount of speed. When he arrived at the U.S.J., All Might moved a remarkable distance from the gate and simultaneously incapacitated villains in the blink of an eye. Tomura even says that he was completely unable to track his movements despite the latter being slower than he once was. All Might was also able to swiftly defeat multiple Nomu and travel 5 kilometers from the League of Villains Bar, towards All For One’s location at the Nomu Factory, all in thirty seconds after the Nomu were warped by All for One himself. However, according to All For One, this was actually much slower than what All Might was originally able to accomplish in his prime. Even in his weakened state, he was fast enough to travel from Might Tower to the Tokyo Egg in mere seconds. In his prime, he proved swift enough to single-handedly defeat the army of Instant Villains created by All For One and save nearby children all in the span of three seconds.
- Immense Durability: All Might had extreme durability, almost to the point of being completely invulnerable to attacks. He sustained no life-threatening damage from his battle with the U.S.J. Nomu and took point-blank, full-power explosions from Katsuki without showing any signs of injury. All Might was even able to survive All For One’s enhanced Air Cannon, a move that can cause catastrophic, city-wide damage due to being amalgamated with many other quirks, and emerged virtually unharmed, albeit with only some minor scratches.
- Immense Stamina: In his prime years, it was noticed that All Might has never been shown to be exhausted even when fighting against multiple villains. The only time that All Might was shown to be panting and out of breath was against All For One and the U.S.J. Nomu, and those cases were only due to the Symbol of Peace injury he received from the former six years prior that also limited All Might from using the maximum output of One For All. In his prime, All Might was able to do more than seventy-two consecutive hours of hero work and still had enough energy to respond to an emergency call in Osaka.