My Hero Academia: Star and Stripe Can Do Worse Than Suffocate Enemies

Warning! Spoilers ahead for My Hero Academia chapter 331!

Readers of My Hero Academia understandably believed that America’s top hero Star and Stripe had already done the most terrifying thing possible with her World Order quirk when she successfully caused the air around All For One to disappear. But the hero just proved in chapter 331 that she can manipulate the air in an even more unsettling way.

Although the official translation has yet to be released, fans’ interpretation of the original Japanese text is that Star and Stripe solidifies the atmosphere around her into a massive version of herself that’s 1,000 times her actual size and that she can control. Whatever movement she makes with her actual body, her gigantic counterpart performs the same action. And she has the giant punch, clap and slam her opponent All For One with a laser that she condenses into some sort of spear.

As revealed in earlier chapters, Star and Stripe’s New Order quirk allows her to impose a rule on herself or another object so long as certain criteria are met, including the fact that she must touch what she plans on controlling before she announces out loud what she wants her quirk to accomplish. In both of the above scenarios, Star and Stripe had to first grasp the air around her before proclaiming her decree. The reason why she focuses her attention on the air is because of the complicated nature of names and identities. Earlier, Star and Stripe failed to enforce a rule on All For One because she referred to him as Shigaraki. All For One believes this is because whomever she targets with her quirk must identify themselves as the name she refers to them as. Calling her target by the wrong name nullifies what reality she wants to alter. Her ability to manipulate air is possible because the atmosphere doesn’t have an ego, allowing her to easily control it and other inanimate objects so long as she perceives them in a certain way.

However, there are still many unanswered questions about this technique. When Star and Stripe creates her new rule, she only says, “The atmosphere shall solidify to become 1,000 times my size.” This doesn’t explain how it looks like her and how she can control it. Hopefully this is just a translation error that Shonen Jump’s translators will be able to clear up with the official release. If anything, it would have made more sense if she said something like, “The atmosphere shall solidify into a version of me that’s 1,000 times my size and that I can control.” Regardless, it’s still a terrifying ability, and hopefully fans will check out the official release when it comes out to see what she really says.

Up until Star and Stripe’s introduction, My Hero Academia‘s most complicated quirk was undoubtedly Hitoshi Shinso’s Brainwashing ability that allows him to control those who fall victim to his power. Of course, the concept of how his quirk works is terrifying and is a crucial part of what separates Brainwashing from the rest, but what differentiated it more, especially at the time, was the fact that not only Hitoshi but his victims has to meet numerous criteria in order for certain effects to take place. This obviously puts Hitoshi at a disadvantage (especially when his opponents learn all of his quirk’s secrets), but it brought a level of complexity to the series’ battle system that was severely lacking at the time, especially when compared to other manga series. But at least My Hero Academia now has Star and Stripe‘s New Order.

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