My Hero Academia Volume 25 Review – Villainous Character Development

In the previous volumes of My Hero Academia, we see the league of villains go through such a dramatic power surge as they conquer their inner selves and unleash their quirk to its fullest and highest potential. Honestly, the entire event is quite frightening, seeing what they can do now with all that added power. In My Hero Academia Volume 25, we continue with the backstory of Shigaraki, which is where Volume 24 left off, allowing us to see what led him to become the person he is.

As the arc concludes, readers are shown why these characters have seen themselves as betrayed, misunderstood, outcasts of society and why they seek to reform it. Overall, the ending of the arc was very satisfying.

Typically, power boosts to characters are handled in long drawn out, and sometimes mundane ways, but Kohei Horikoshi pulls it off here to be exceptionally stylish. This also gives insight into the character’s background and makes us feel a bit bad for them as to what happened in their past and why they became the bad guys of this story.

The volume continues following the villains’ character development by heading back to Class 1-A as they are beginning interview training to learn how to interact with the press. It’s a charming break from the impactful story elements and adds balance to the volume’s structure as it leads us into Christmas festivities. As the class celebrates, they talk about who they want to go back and do their work studies under as they continue to grow as heroes.

As readers undoubtedly know, Hawks has somehow made it into the villains’ ranks and has been gathering information for the heroes, so they know what the league has up their sleeves. This allows them to plan accordingly to act at a moment’s notice. Hawks has obtained some pretty crucial information on the league and what they have planned that puts them against the clock to train and grow and become stronger.

The Volume concludes on a high note that only leaves the reader with excitement for what’s to come next. There’s decent pacing through these chapters that lay a foundation for something big that will happen in the following Volumes. My Hero Academia Volume 25 gives us some great moments of character development that may weigh heavily on the readers, it seems there’s still a lot that we don’t know, and I’m looking forward to reading more. This is one of those Volumes that you shouldn’t skip.