League of Villains vs Meta Liberation Army

The end of the My Villain Academia arc ends with the swerve of both the meta liberation army, and the League of villains working together. This however, was most likely planned from the start as every single character that gets development this arc Himiko, Twice, Spinner and Dabi faced off against their foil in the Meta Liberation Army Curious, Skeptic, Trumpet and Apocrypha.

The fact that most of these characters survived their encounters means we will likely see continued interactions between the Villagin’s League members and their MLA counterparts for the sake of development. More of their foiling underneath the cut. If you want to read about Shigaraki and Redestro I already covered it [here].

Himiko vs Curious

Curious and Himiko resemble each other heavily on the surface, and have a lot of elements in common with their characters. They’re both the femme fatalle archetype of their groups, and dress in an overtly feminine way. Magne and Apocrypha are also female members of both respective groups, but they are not femme fatalles in the way that Himiko and Curious are.

A femme fatale sometimes called maneater or vamp, is a stock character of a mysterious seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers and who deliberately leads them into dangerous or even deadly situations. She’s a commonly used in literature, able to entice, enchant, or even directly influence others sometimes to even supernatural extents. They’re tied mythologically to archetypes of enchantress women, or women who use some kind of magic or ability to seduce and deceive men.

One of the most common traits of the femme fatale includes promiscuity and the rejection of motherhood. Femme fatale, french literally translates to disaster woman it’s the appearance of a woman that leads ultimately to the destruction of the male.

Both characters are connected to the Femme Fatalle archetype, not just in the hyper sexualized way they present themselves. Himiko herself is a vampire (fitting for someone who can be called a vamp) she also is capable of taking the appearance of other people to enchant them and lure them into a sense of false safety when they are around her. She’s also a serial killer who falls in love with men, and becomes motivated to kill them, making her a literal bringer of disaster for the men she becomes interested in. When Himiko took the appearance of Cammie in order to get closer to Izuku, that scene has a lot in common with the typical femme fatalle ploys, women tries to use womanly charms to deceive the male main character.

While Curious lacks the kind of quirk that would increase her ability for deception like Toga has, she uses her position as a reporter and an executive in the meta liberation army to keep people under her sway. We see them literally at her beck and call throughout the entire fight, and because she’s able to control the crowds so effecitvely she almost kills Toga. Another important detail is intrepid reporter is a pretty common femme fatalle character archetype especially in noir stories, the woman who would do anything, even use her seductive wiles to get the story. Curious is also blue skinned, which is most likely a reference to mystique one of the more famous femme fatalle super heroes. (Considering that Toga’s power is just… literally mystique from X Men her coloring makes a lot of sense).

Curious also reflects Toga’s relationship of bringing disaster to other people as well, she turns her own loyal followers into bombs the same way that Himiko stabs the people that she loves.

While they are on the surface the same character, this is where they actively begin to differ. Himiko’s motivations are internal, she’s driven by her own obsessions, whereas Curious has an external motivation her primary motivation is to capture a story about someone else’s life. They are both people that obsess over others and try to make them theirs by stealing some part of them, Toga that person’s appearance, Curious by changing that person’s narrative stealing their story away for her own gratuitous use.

However, their motviations are entirely different, Himiko knows what she wants inside of herself and is incredibly intune with her own desires mostly following those. Toga is so full she’s overflowing. Her greatest desire is to live as herself, and for Toga living as other people is just an expression of living as herself.

While Curious finds her own self lacking. If Toga is overflowing with self identity, Curious is lacking. Which is why she steals the story of others instead, trying to make up for what she sees as missing in herself. She’s jealous, because Toga knows what she wants out of life, and is living a life true to herself and seems to be enjoying it much more. Toga lives an eventful, attention grabbing life, and she tries to change Toga’s headline to strike back.

Curious dies too quickly to be a fully fleshed out character, but there’s a lot you can infer from her projection on Toga. The most important thing to remember for all four of the MLA members is that they are most likely people who have been raised from birth to devote themselves to the ideals of the MLA in a cult-like fashion. Rikiya tells Curious that her writing is lacking in something, that it won’t move people. Curious herself is someone who lacks heart, which makes her the polar opposite of Toga who always lives true to her heart in an almost love crazy fashion.

However, if you assume Curious does not really believe in the cause of the Meta Liberation Army but rather it was sometyhing that was forced down her throat, therefore she does not have any ideals of her own what she is yelling at Toga makes a lot of sense.

Curious had no chance of a normal life if she was born into the MLA. Which means to her, Toga is someone who was given a chance at a normal life and turned away and chose to become a villain instead. Which is probably why Curious is so desperate to make Toga a martyr for their cause, not only for projection and jealousy reasons, but also because if Toga really were someone who was driven crazy by her quirk and suppressed by society then Curious’ world view would make sense. What she had been taught since birth was right after all and the framework of the world was not wrong. She doubts it but ultimately, she chooses to try to reinforce her belief in the MLA propaganda in the end rather than challenge it. Toga loves her life, Curious does not.

So you have someone robbed of a normal life trying to convince herself that she really believes in all this stuff, facing off against someone who had a normal life but instead just chose the life she wanted. Toga is comfortable with her life, she believes this is her normal life where she is accepted by the LOV, whereas Curious is not. This difference is also why Curious ultimately dies, because Toga loves her life enough that while she does chase after her obsessions she actually has highly trained survivalist instincts and will run away, or bail when things become too dangerous to protect her own life. Whereas, we see Curious get lifted into the air before she’s dropped but she makes no move to save herself and instead dies still thinking about the story she is going to write.

Twice vs Skeptic

There’s also a contrast in how the other characters react to their grievious injuries, Curious gets false sympathy from the MLA members, whereas Twice genuinely caring and wanting to protect Toga ends up fighting for her sake. We see Skeptic only react to Curious’ death by calling her a valuable asset, whereas Twice is genuinely distressed.



The reason that Twice and Skeptic come into conflict is also because of Curious death. Skeptic wishes to kill Toga to avenge her, while Twice wants to protect Toga.

Once again these are two characters that have a lot in common on the surface. They share designs where most of their face is obscured, Twice because of his mask, and Skeptic because of his bangs. They are characters who act as the comic relief for their groups, and have little to no social skills. Both of them have a tendency to get in the face of other characters rudely. Both of them have overexaggerated and dramatic mannerisms and body language.

Their quirks are also similiar, Twice creates doubles of things and Skeptic changes things into human sized objects that they can control. They can both create minions with their abilities, but Twice’s have free will and can turn against him, whereas Skeptic’s are just puppets with no consciousness.



While both of them are an odd combination of social, and antisocial. Twice is the one who wants friends the most, but also tends to be rude and have no idea how to pick up on social cues, and also in life was a jobless burnout who had no friends or relatives to sympathize with his problems. Skeptic is the only member who specifically fights to avenge a fallen member of the MLA. Skeptic is also pretty devoted to Redestro the same way that Twice is to the league. However, he’s also tactless and inside his own head in the same way twice is.

They start the ar with complete opposite social status. Twice is a mess psychologically and otherwise, and was living basically as a homeless vagrant on the absolute bottom of society. Skeptic may also be a weirdo, but he’s a succesful tech ceo and on top of that a prodigy who is hailed as a genius despite his eccentricities.

Twice is also someone who has little to no control over his own life, whereas Skeptic being a highly rich and influential CEO who had control of all the cameras in the city and also the ability to manipulate those puppets is a control freak who focuses on making everything go exactly his way.

His want to repay the league is what strengthens Twice in the end. The genuine connections and his acknowledgement of his mistakes, made him stronger. Whereas Curious’ subservience to the MLA, and his own perfectionism end up causing him to come crashing down just while Twice is rising up.

Spinner vs Trumpet

An important detail between the MLA and the LOV is that the Liberation Army members are all subservient. They regard themselves as nothing more than tools serving the cause which is why they don’t mind all charging the guy disintegrating people with a touch at once, or being blown up to be used as a weapon against Toga. Whereas, while Shigaraki is still the leader the LOV members are allowed to question him, talk with him as an equal, and even poke fun at him. Shigaraki is seen as one of their own.

The arc starts with Spinner calling out Shigaraki in front of everyone, and also questioning him to no consequence at all. Shigaraki was not even going to get violent he was just asking Spinner to wait to let him explain himself.

Spinner joined the league out of empty admiration of Stain and soon realized the reason he was staying with the league had nothing to do with Stain anymore. He didn’t believe in Stain so much as the feeling that Stain gave him, that he could change things. Spinner’s entire arc is him coming to terms with this, that he’s not really motivated to act on his own, he’s no one special on his own, he’s a follower that wants to cling to another person’s dream.

Spinner and Trumpet are different as can be on the outside. Trumpet is a charismatic and succesful politician in the upper crust of society, who also has a transmitter quirk that lets him provide power to his followers that trust in him. Spinner is not a leader in any sense of the wrod, and he’s alsoa discrimminated against member of society.

Trumpet is someone with a useful quirk, connections, a high social status and a social group he is a part of with people who are willing to trust him with their lives. Spinner was just a neet who got bullied too hard. He was one of the dregs of society. Not only that even though he has a lizard quirk that changes his whole body, his quirk does not even give him that many powers. He’s not even useful quirkwise as say Tsuyu. According to his profile he has the weakest quirk in his whole family of lizards and can only stick to a wall.

Trumpet and Spinner are the same however, because they both try to change the world based on ideals that are not their own. They’re followers who cling to other people’s ideals, and try to make other people’s visions real. Spinner admits this, while Trumpet is in denial. Trumpet is also a hypocrite, he claims that he believes in quirk liberation and treating all quirks equally then goes out of his way to degrrade Spinner based on his quirk. Spinner is also a hypocrite in that he doesn’t actually care that much about Stain’s ideals, and only gives the most token adherence to them but again he is someone who knows that he’s just a cosplayer.

Trumpet is a mebmer of a cult trying to make Destro and Re-destro’s dreams come true, and despite being a politician and a leader he’s fiendishly devoted to someone else. That, and his quirk that relies on inciting others rather than fighting himself makes him a natural support member to.

Spinner’s goal becomes to support Shigaraki, which is different than his empty worship of Stain, because Spinner got to know Shigaraki as a person and decided to support him after that fact. While he may just be clinging to Shigaraki, one he knowingly does it, and two this time around he chose to support Shigaraki as a friend instead of just an empty cosplayer. They are both support characters who are weak on their own but fight on the front line anyway. Spinner makes up for his lack of a quirk with violence and sheer effort. Whereas, Trumpet actually does not need to put himself in harm’s way as his quirk would work perfectly find without him standing in front of everybody. Trumpet is naturally suited to lead but doesn’t, Spinner isn’t even suited to fight on the front lines which is why we see him try so hard to change and put the effort in.

Spinner grows, he gets to know the person he is supporting, and decides to support them because he wants to help them with their trauma and lighten their personal load. Trumpet continues to follow ideals that aren’t his, and refuses to admit his personal connection with Re-Destro and therefore he fails to grow and ends up losing. Spinner witnesses Shigaraki’s triumph, while Trumpet observes Re-Destro’s fall, because unlike Spinner he was never able to be there for Re-Destro as a person. He only ever saw him as the symbol of Destro, and left Re-destro alone in his burdens until Shigaraki came to liberate him.

Dabi vs Apocrypha

This one is most likely going to be the shortest because not a lot about Dabi or Apocrypha’s characters were revealed during their initial fight. The two of them however have a lot of similiarites from the start, they both again have obscured faces. Apocrypha’s face is entirely covered by their hood the entire time, if Dabi is Touya then his dyed hair and stapled together face and burn marks serve as his disguise. They both only go by one name, Apocrypha is given no real name even though the rest of the MLA members have them, and Dabi is the only LOV member who we only know their alias and not their real name.

They both follow extremists seeking to revolutionize. Dabi follows Stain’s ideals, whereas Apocrypha follows Re-Destro. There’s a lot of similiar and opposites at play between them, the most obvious being fire and ice.

Also in their real apppearances, once again if Dabi is Touya that means he looks far more like his father Endeavor and even inherited his father’s quirk, but his actual ideals of becoming a villain and trying to reform the hero system are in rebellion to his father.

Apocrypha has an ice quirk and resembles Rei, however her ideals are not in rebellion but rather she accepts and spits out everything the MLA told her and buys into their propaganda completely. While looking like, and having an ice quirk like Rei, she lives ironically by Endeavor’s values that having a strong quirk is more important than anything else.

Apocrypha was even raised in the same way presumably Touya, and Todoroki were raised. That is she was trained from a young age, not allowed to go to school or socialize and worked only on developing her quirk. She was raised by Re-Destro specifically for the purpose of becoming a strong quirk user the same reason Endeavor bred children, however unlike Dabi who hates his father for this Apocrypha believes this makes her special and chosen.

Once again these are opposite reactions to the same abuse. Touya choosing to disregard what his father tried to force him to learn, and Apocrypha trying to accept it and live up to her role as the tool, and weapon she was raised to be. They are opposite reactions, but both of them are still victims of abuse.

Apocrypha also carries out the role that she was perfectly born to be, not only has her quirk experienced a serious upgrade in the same form of Shigaraki’s, but she also can control it perfectly. While Touya’s quirk is in exact opposition to his body, and trying to use it burns his body even worse. Touya the rebellious child could not be a tool even if he wanted to be, he’s thrown out as a failure, burned by his own quirk. Apocrypha fits into the mould that she was raised as perfectly, the willing tool, but because of that she doesn’t question the way she was raised, see how she’s been used, and overall failed to develop as a person. There’s a reason her face does not show underneath her parka, it’s because she’s entirely lacking in a sense of identity or beliefs of her own besides what the MLA told her to believe in.

Apocrypha and Dabi are also both close to their respective leaders. Apocrypha has fondness for Re-Destro and was trained personally by him, however in the end she’s just a devotee, a sycophant. While Shigaraki and Dabi do not get along on the surface, Dabi is also given much more freedom and trust in the league because he’s allowed to go off on his own on several occasions he is basically Shigaraki’s number two.

As opposites as their beliefs are, their methods are shockingly similiar. Remember, I know the MLA’s beliefs are bad and they are all hypocrites ultimately, not to mention they have parallels to their real world ableism in comparison to their views on quirks. I am not saying that Dabi and Apocrypha have similiar ideals, they’re the opposite, and Apocrypha’s are definitely more twisted. However, the two of them have similiar methods. They both believe in killing those who do not fit their standards.

Dabi follows Stain, who killed heroes who were not good enough heroes, and even heroes who were not true to the spirit of being heroes just as an example. While there are definitely corrupt heroes, people who were innocent were caught up in it as well as casualties. Iida’s older brother may have only been a career hero who treated it like a dayjob, but not only is Iida’s big bro a genuinely good person he also uses his corporation in Vigilantes as a way to employ as many people as possible in hero work so therefore even people without immediately useful quirks can contribute on their own. Quirk elitism, and individualism are definitely what created Endeavor’s circumstances, because he had a powerful quirk he’s accepted as a hero despite what he did to his family and having no ideals of a hero.

However, at the same time Stain took out somebody who was basically Endeavor’s exact opposite. Older brother Tensei literally was against individualism, and promoted cooperation and helping people without traditionally strong quirks and letting them have a chance to help the hero industry because teamwork and greater efficiency would result in more people saved. However, by culling, and focusing on trying to create really strong individual heroes to hold the system on their backs Stain is in fact achieving the opposite of what he wants with his methods. He’s endorsing individualism, and right of the strong, the things which allowed Endeavor to become so corrupt in the first place.

Basically by achieving everything alone with strength, Stain becomes a reflection of the corrupt, strength obsessed, hero system that he despises so much. Apocrypha said those who do not have strong quirks are better off dead. Dabi regularly kills people who do not meet his standards for following Stain’s ideals.

If they do not meet a certain quality, Dabi will treat them as fair game to kill. (Though to clarify Dabi’s want to rebel against Endeavor or even kill him is not something I see as wrong, it’s more like how he burns random thugs on the street, some of which probably had families or loved ones too. Considering Dabi’s entire motivation is that he comes from a broken house it’s in direct opposition to his ideals). While the ideals are different, Dabi is employing the same methodology as Apocrypha here. He suffers from the same dangerous extremism that even pushes him to act contradictory to his ideals, and makes him do things he regrets.

It’s not just something that will eventually counteract his ideals, (because once again Dabi does not believe what Endeavor tried to force on him, but he does use brute strength to try to accomplish his ideals because it’s the only viable option for someone like him, or all he knows) but it’s also incredibly unhealthy for both of them in the end. Apocrypha is barely a person, and Dabi is burning himself from the inside out every time he pushes himself to extremes to make his ideals a reality.

It’s not only destructive to other people, it’s destructive to themselves. Which is why it’s a trait both of them should grow out of if they are going to have continuing arcs in the story.