Warning: Spoilers for My Hero Academia Season 6, Episode 20The collapse of My Hero Academia's hero society has left people feeling insecure and afraid, a fact which has manifested as hateful bigotry and violence towards those who are different, as the latest episode revealed.
Episode 20 of season 6 opened with a sequence showing a woman with a shark-like mutant Quirk on the run from several civilians equipped with support items who seemed to believe she was a threat to them. However, the woman never made any threatening moves, and these civilians continued to pelt her with attacks until My Hero Academia's Deku showed up and put a stop to it. This is symptomatic of the state of the world, though, and Deku can't be everywhere.
Why Vigilante Heroes Can't Work in My Hero Academia
With faith in My Hero Academia's heroes as low as it can get, more and more people are choosing to arm themselves with support items in order to protect themselves from "the bad guys." They're even right to worry, since jailbreaking villains are on the loose. The problem is, however, that not everyone can agree on who the bad guys are; obviously these people that were attacking the shark lady were under the impression that she was a threat, even if she wasn't. Their actions were justified in their own eyes, and until Deku stopped them, they never even considered that what they were doing might be wrong. It's the perfect example of why the use of force can't just be left up to those who feel so inclined to use it--there's no way to be sure they'll use it justly.
Quirk bigotry has long been an issue lurking in the background of My Hero Academia, so it's good to see it get more focus. The idea has been alluded to before, but there was always an implication that it really wasn't that big of an issue, outside some particularly backward rural areas. This clearly proved that wasn't the case, however, since this attack happened in an urban area and was targeting someone who really couldn't be less dangerous. The incident makes an excellent case in favor of hero society: by licensing and regulating those heroes authorized to use force in My Hero Academia, these sorts of scenarios were largely avoided. And, of course, this particular incident was ultimately stopped by a hero stepping in and deescalating the situation, making use of the training that even young heroes-to-be receive.
While a nasty ending to this scene was avoided, the same thing could be happening all across Japan at this point, and it really goes to show how far the country has fallen in the wake of My Hero Academia's Paranormal Liberation War. After all, the villains don't need to cause chaos if hateful civilians are willing to do it for them.
New episodes of My Hero Academia air on Saturdays via Crunchyroll.