Star And Stripe vs. Shigaraki: Who Won? (& Is He Really Stronger)

One of the most important events in the My Hero Academia manga storyline was the battle between Star and Stripe and Shigaraki during the time when the hero society in Japan was in one of the worst events in its history. That was when Star and Stripe came to the aid of Japan because she idolized All Might through her rise as a pro hero in the United States. Of course, she battled Tomura Shigaraki. So, who won the battle between Star and Stripe and Shigaraki?

Tomura Shigaraki defeated Star and Stripe when she hesitated to sacrifice her friend to defeat the villain. That was when Shigaraki used the opportunity to grab Star and Stripe and use decay on her while stealing her quirk. However, Star and Stripe used her quirk to make sure that Shigaraki won’t be able to use it.

Star and Stripe was gifted with an extremely powerful quirk, but it ultimately wasn’t enough for her to defeat Tomura Shigaraki, who had numerous quirks that he was able to use to his advantage. Nevertheless, she was still able to deal a heavy blow to Shigaraki, who lost several quirks due to its effects. Now, let’s look at this battle in greater detail.

Star And Stripe Quirks And Abilities

While My Hero Academia focuses on the Japanese setting of the hero vs. villain world, the entire world is full of different hero societies. Of course, the United States has its own hero society. And the one standing at the apex of the pro-hero ladder in America is Star and Stripe, who was born Cathleen Bate.

Growing up, Cathleen Bate actually experienced a life-changing event that involved All-Might, who inspired her to become a hero. Once she manifested her quirk, she joined the US Military and started developing her own quirk to become a pro hero. Together with her fellow soldiers, Star and Stripe became strong enough to become the top hero in America, as she understood how to use her quirk to its full capabilities while also working well with the soldiers that she trained within the military.

The way that Cathleen Bate’s quirk works is quite unique because it is a quirk that can redefine what a quirk can be and how strong it could be. This is the reason why, in their battle, Tomura Shigaraki was so determined to steal the quirk from Star and Stripe, whose quirk could have potentially allowed the villain to become the most unstoppable being in the world.

Called New World Order, Bate’s quirk allowed her to set up two rules regarding the things in her immediate surrounding. She had to touch the thing that she wanted to set a rule on while also saying its name. New World Order has a two-rule limit that allows Bate to impose two new rules at the same time but has to disengage one of the rules to impose a new rule.

For example, in the battle against Tomura Shigaraki, Star and Stripe was able to set a rule that made the air around the villain disappear. She was also able to create a gigantic version of herself using the air around her while also creating a laser sword from the lasers that her men in their fighting jets fired. Considering that it is difficult for Bate to impose a rule on a living creature because she has to touch it (which was extremely hard to do on Shigaraki because of his Decay quirk), she often used inanimate objects around her, such as the air.

In fact, Cathleen Bate could also use her quirk to give herself new abilities or to improve her overall physical capabilities. However, New World Order is not omnipotent and has its limits. That’s why Star and Stripe was somehow sad that she wasn’t able to strengthen herself to the level of All Might’s strength.

Nevertheless, she was able to perfect the use of her quirk as she understood how New World Order worked and how she could use it to her advantage in most situations. That is why the US Government kept the nature of her quirk a secret so as to make sure that their enemies would never find a way to counter Star and Stripe.

Shigaraki Quirks And Abilities

We all know that Tomura Shigaraki was originally introduced as a villain that had one special quirk, which was Decay. This quirk allowed him to instantly decay everything he touched, whether living or inanimate. Shigaraki was also able to improve the strength of his quirk when it went through a re-awakening, as he could now use it against things that he isn’t directly touching as long as there was some sort of a domino effect involved.

Of course, later in the storyline in the manga, Shigaraki inherited All For One from All For One himself. This allowed him to inherit all of the quirks that All For One already had in his body before he was defeated by All Might. He also acquired several other quirks after he learned how to steal quirks using All For One.

During the battle against Cathleen Bate or Star and Stripe, Tomura Shigaraki used Air Cannon, Radio Waves, and Heavy Payload on offense by combining these quirks to create a powerful discharge of electrical energy. On defense, he relied on combining Reflect and Scatter so that he could defend himself from the attacks coming from Cathleen Bates’s fighter jets while also dispersing their attacks back at them.

Using this combination of offense and defense, Shigaraki was able to withstand most of Star and Stripe’s attacks. On top of that, he knew how to use his quirks quite creatively to make sure that they were combined well enough to maximize their effects.

Star And Stripe vs. Shigaraki: Who Won?

In the battle between Star and Stripe and Shigaraki, Cathleen Bate actually had the upper hand against the powerful villain. That’s because she was able to make use of her quirk well enough that Shigaraki struggled to find a way to counter it. The only way that he was able to counter it was that Bate didn’t know Shigaraki’s sense of self-identity as the lines between Tomura Shigaraki and All For One were quickly fading to merge both identities into one. As such, New World Order had no effect on him whenever Star and Stripe tried to use it directly on Shigaraki.

Nevertheless, Cathleen Bate continued to press on with her attack by knowing how to utilize her fighter jets to mount coordinated attacks against Shigaraki. On top of that, she was able to make use of her ultimate attack, which allowed her to create a giant construct of herself using air. Using the lasers from the fighter jets, she was able to construct a large laser sword that nearly killed Shigaraki. She also used a heavy payload of powerful missiles from the US Government to try to kill Shigaraki, although the villain found a way to escape the explosion by creating a hole in the ocean floor.

After that, Shigaraki jumped on one of the fighter jets before he used the opportunity to jump on Star and Stripe and grab her. It was during that moment when he started to use Decay on her while absorbing her quirk.

Bate tried to use New World Order on herself to prevent Decay’s effects. But her quirk was not strong enough to prevent the effects of Decay, as it was only able to slow down the process of decay. As such, she used New World Order to plant a virus in Shigaraki as she imposed a rule that made sure that this quirk would never be used together with Shigaraki’s other quirk. New World Order self-destructed within Shigaraki to cause injury to him while also taking some of his other quirks away from him, all while Star and Stripe decayed.

Is Shigaraki Really Stronger Than Star And Stripe?

If it were a one-on-one fight without the fighter jets, Shigaraki was indeed stronger than Star and Stripe because he had more quirks and was incredibly difficult to kill due to the many different quirks that he uses to sustain himself. Nevertheless, it is part of a hero’s arsenal to have allies, and that’s why Cathleen Bate had the help of her men, who were in fighter jets that could shoot lasers.

One of Bate’s men believed that they would have been able to kill Shigaraki when he hopped on one of the fighter jets as he urged Star and Stripe to use her air construct to destroy the jet and use the explosion to kill the villain. That would have probably been enough to kill Shigaraki or, at the very least, incapacitate him.

However, it was Cathleen Bate’s hesitation that defeated her. She hesitated to sacrifice one of her men, as this was the opportunity that Shigaraki needed to jump on her and use Decay while stealing her quirk using All For One. Had Star and Stripe not hesitated, she may have won that fight.