While My Hero Academia has loads of scary and unsettling villains, its most terrifying villain is the surprising first one.
My Hero Academy has introduced some truly terrifying villains over hundreds of chapters, but the first chapter remains the most horrifying. The terror this villain causes is not surprising given mangaka Kohei Horikoshi’s frequent flirtations with the horror genre. What’s shocking, however, is how early this villain appears and how they surpass later villains like Shigaraki and Dabi.
The villain of My Hero Academia is one of the scariest characters in all of the Shonen manga. Shigaraki is a hand-shielded juggler straight out of Akira who can disintegrate anyone around him with his deadly abilities. Dabi is a walking flamethrower with stitched skin that makes him look like a Frankenstein monster. And of course, All For One is a brutal and unknown manipulator, arguably the most powerful character in the series. But My Hero Academia’s one-off villains can be just as terrifying as its main villains, as villains like Hero Killer Stain and Overhaul have proven. The first villain in the series also falls into that category.
My Hero Academia’s first villain is the Mud Nightmare
In the first chapter of My Hero Academia, an unnamed sludge villain tries to take control of Deku’s body by climbing inside him. It is implied that this not only kills Deku but is extremely painful. And since the sludge villain is made of liquid, it’s very difficult to stop him from actually forcing himself down someone’s throat and taking control of their corpse. All of this makes for an absolutely horrifying concept, much scarier than other villains in the series. While Shigaraki can kill someone easily with just a thought, at least the death is quick and doesn’t leave their corpse behind to serve as a puppet for his evil purposes.
The mud villain emphasizes the danger that the world of My Hero Academia poses to an ordinary person. The fact that the villain doesn’t even have a name implies that they’re nothing special in the grand scheme of things and that there are plenty of other villains out there that are just as scary. This was somewhat proven true when the Criminal Alliance was introduced. This concept later came full circle when the sludgy villain allied himself with the Alliance in the Final Wars arc, though at that point he was used more to highlight his skills. Mina Ashido, one of the many underrated characters of Class 1-A. But even that can’t lessen the initial impact that the muddy villain had in chapter 1.
While the sludge villain may not have as much depth as some other villains like Dabi, he serves his purpose well and is a great addition to the world and story. by My Hero Academia. If Horikoshi does indeed create a horror manga after My Hero Academia ends, this suggests he would be able to make its opening chapter quite scary. So even though the mud villain may not My Hero AcademyAs the best character, his terrifying nature actually serves a meaningful purpose in the story.
