The Big Question Some My Hero Academia Fans Have About One For All

At the start of the pilot episode of superhero action anime "My Hero Academia," viewers learn that protagonist Izuku Midoriya lacks a Quirk, which in the series' parlance refers to a hereditary superpower. As is often explained throughout the show, roughly 80% of the human population on Earth possesses a Quirk, meaning that Midoriya is firmly in the minority of the human race in this regard. Furthermore, Midoriya is a huge fan of official number one hero All Might, and wants nothing more than to be able to emulate his idol.

Fortunately for Midoriya, All Might himself ends up passing onto him a Quirk called One For All, which imbues its user with super-strength, with the caveat that it must be given to a successor at some point in time. Midoriya then adopts the superhero name Deku and enrolls in the prestigious U.A. High School, which trains its students to either be or support registered heroes.

As the series progresses, Midoriya gradually learns more and more information about One For All, some of which comes to him in supernatural visions. One such sequence, abstractly depicting One For All's prior users, has at least one fan of the series questioning a certain aspect of Midoriya's Quirk.

Well after the conclusion of "My Hero Academia" Season 5, one viewer posted a gif to the series' subreddit of a procession of multicolored lights representing One For All, proposing in the post's title that each light represents the lifespan of a past user of the Quirk. This post was upvoted more than 1,500 times, sparking considerable discussion among the "My Hero Academia" community on Reddit.

While the original poster's theory is compelling, however, most of their fellow fans then suggested that the lights merely represent past One For All users, with no correlation to their respective lifespans. For instance, the most upvoted reply in the ensuing comment thread, by user natesneaks, simply reads "I don't think the duration of the light has any correlation." More than 750 people upvoted this comment, implicitly agreeing with its sentiment. In a similar manner, a comment by user StellaRamn argues, "No it's just supposed to represent OfA being transferred through different people."

In any case, the mystery surrounding One For All — which deepens considerably during Season 6 upon the introduction of the Blackwhip ability — seems to remain a talking point among the "My Hero Academia" anime-watching community, and could be a series focus come the eventual premiere of Season 6.