My Hero Academia: 21 Most Evil Tomura Shigaraki Quotes

Undeniably, My Hero Academia is one of the most popular shonen titles of the modern era. This “New Big Three” title combines traditional Japanese narratives with Western superhero tradition, which is why it became globally popular. The characters created in the manga are truly amazing and beloved around the world, which is why we have decided to focus on one of the series’ most important characters, the villain Tomura Shigaraki.

The article is going to contain the 15 best quotes by Tomura Shigaraki as they appeared in the My Hero Academia manga and anime. They won’t be listed in any particular order, so please enjoy our selection of the best sentences spoken by Tomura from the series.

1. “Create a world without All Might. And cause enough destruction to show them all how fragile their justice really is. From this day forward… that’s my conviction. It’s all about All Might.”

We couldn’t really start off with a better quote than this one, as Tomura Shigaraki’s ultimate goal is depicted in it. He had an enemy, he had a goal, and he had a way of achieving it, from his own perspective at least. All Might was the embodiment of heroism, and with Tomura Shigaraki being so destructive, of course, he would focus on All Might.

2. “Heroes and villains both thrive on violence, but we’re still categorized. ‘You’re good.’ ‘You’re evil.’ That’s how it is!! Symbol of peace? Hah!!”

Tomura Shigaraki was a very philosophical villain, and that was one of his trademarks and one of the reasons why people liked him so much. This quote illustrates how he saw through the hypocrisy of heroism when compared to villains, seeing how the same thing was categorized as good on one occasion and as evil on another. This is why he hated heroes so much.

3. “In the end, you’re just a tool for violence, made to keep us down, and violence only breeds violence.”

This was actually said to the heroes and is a continuation of the quote cited above. Violence was an exceptionally important aspect of both sides’ dealings, and Tomura Shigaraki simply pointed that out, which wasn’t all that wrong. The thing that he, as a villain, did not see is that the difference between these types of violence was in the ideals behind it.

4. “Even if this hero society comes crashing down… even if I rise to rule the underworld… that weight in my heart is never gonna go away. It’s why I hate everything. Every living, breathing thing just rubs me the wrong way. So why not destroy it all? Why not destroy everything?”

This one is both general but also a bit more personal than some other quotes on this list. From a general perspective, it illustrates Shigaraki’s desire to destroy the heroes, but it also reflects his own personal void and his destructive nature, as he knew that a world without heroes would still not fill the void he had in himself. That is why he pondered destroying everything, and not just the heroes.

5. “An adult’s words were absolute, that’s why I wanted to hear it from you guys.”

Tomura Shigaraki had a very traumatic childhood and a very strict father, which is why he understood the gravity of such words. This quote had a bit of an ironic undertone, but on a general level, Tomura Shigaraki was someone whose issues with his family, his father, in particular, reflected his later behavior, and this quote is an example of that.

6. “I didn’t itch anymore.”

When he killed, he did not itch anymore. He did not. He wasn’t a murderer when he was born, but he was turned into one by the circumstances in which he grew up and became who he is today. When he satisfied that homicidal desire in him, a desire he labeled as an itch, Tomura simply felt that it was over and that it stopped itching. Sad.

7. “Now you’re a useless, helpless, Quirkless wonder. All that hard work you put in! It’s mine now!! Your life’s gonna be a real nail-bitter now… not that you’ve got any nails left to bite. You should just sit back and watch!! Have a nice life!! Because this… is our time!”

This one takes us back to Tomura’s villainous nature and role, as he was – in a way – a herald of the age of villains. His special Quirk allowed him to be like that, and he thought that the era of villains was really coming. This was both an announcement and a threat and a reflection of who Tomura Shigaraki actually was.

8. “Violence for the sake of others makes it admirable.”

A continuation of Shigaraki’s views on violence, this quote illustrates the character’s philosophical nature better than any other on this list. Violence with a point, violence executed for someone was, for him, like love, like a sacrifice you did for someone to show them how much you cared, and this quote illustrates how deep his violent nature was and how irreparable he was as a character.

9. “Whenever I cried, she’d pull my hand like that, Hana-chan was the only one.”

This was also a reflection of the past, a memory of a Tomura Shigaraki that died a long time ago, that died in that house with the rest of his family. It was a traumatic childhood for him, and he did not really know how to cope with an abusive father. The irony is that he, albeit accidentally, killed those that actually cared for him.

10. “You Heroes pretend to be society’s guardians. For generations, you pretended not to see those you couldn’t protect and swept their pain under the rug. It’s tainted everything you’ve built. That means your system’s all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It all builds up, little by little, over time. You’ve got the common trash, all too dependent on being protected. And the brave guardians who created the trash that need coddling. It’s a corrupt, vicious cycle. Everything I’ve witnessed, this whole system you’ve built has always rejected me. Now I’m ready to reject it. That’s why I destroy. That’s why I took this power for myself. Simple enough? I don’t care if you understand. That’s what makes us heroes and villains.”

This is Tomura Shigaraki’s ideology in a nutshell. This is everything we know about his views on heroism, villains, and the battles they all keep fighting. This was his world, and all he did, before and after, came from that world, from such a dark place in which the light was something that absolutely had to be destroyed. Because the darkness was the only thing that made sense.

11. “You were right, I just want to destroy.”

And an admittance of guilt, or, rather, an admittance of his own twisted and broken nature. Someone might have had some other ideas about him, but Tomura Shigaraki could not and did not want to run away from his destructive nature, and he openly admitted it here. Tomura Shigaraki is such a character and that is just what he is.

12. “Why does dad say I can’t? Does he hate me?”

And another reflection of the trauma that he had been through, this quote shows how much he wanted his father’s attention and his father’s recognition. All he got was an abusive parent and complete fear, such fear that it later turned him into a complete monster. This is why Tomura Shigaraki became a villain, why he became a monster.

13. “Kids are surprisingly sneaky and simple.”

This was spoken both from personal experience and from observation. He and his sister used to do things to avoid their father’s rage, so Tomura Shigaraki knew quite well how versatile a child’s mind can be and how simple it could approach various issues and solve them with unbelievable ease while an adult would ponder about it for ages.

14. “I itch when I’m at home.”

The place where it all started for Tomura Shigaraki was his home, and it makes complete sense that the itch came back when he was home. This is where the monster was born and where his biggest trauma materialized. This is where his homicidal ideals were born, and that is why the desire to kill always came back when he was home.

15. “These sorts of things too… all unnecessary.”

As a nihilist who wanted to destroy everything, Tomura Shigaraki would say such a thing. It makes perfect sense that such a character says such a thing, and we can only say that this quote is a perfect illustration of Shigaraki’s personality and his darkest thoughts. The abyss that he was in something that not many people could withstand, and Tomura Shigaraki found a way to live with it and in it. He was a monster, but he survived, and that way clearly reflected in both his words and his actions throughout the story of My Hero Academia.

16. “If, at that time, just one person had extended a helping hand… “

What made Shigaraki into who he is today was being denied help when he needed it most. His family never supported his dream of becoming a hero and, in fact, stood by as his father abused him.

When he was wandering the streets, everyone continuously turned a blind eye to his suffering. He was a dirty, unsightly child and too much trouble for people to bother with. Even when he was found, it was by the most notorious criminal in My Hero Academia, AFO.

17. “So when I have the whole family on me… I feel so sick that I want to vomit… But I also kinda feel at peace. It’s weird!”

The hands that covered Shigaraki in the earlier volumes of My Hero Academia are the embalmed remains of his family and two street thugs he killed. Shigaraki feels sick at the thought that he murdered them, but his guilt is quelled by having them near.

18. “Don’t reject who I am.”

Shigaraki and the League of Villians are individuals that were rejected by society. They were discarded because heroes thought they weren’t good enough to be saved. This also highlights how Shigaraki has remained the same after all these years. At his core, he doesn’t want to be rejected, like he was by his family and society as a whole.

19. “I wanted to murder my father, so I did. My heart became unencumbered as I watched the rest of my family crumble too. No, that was not a tragedy. “

Shigaraki believes that because he harbored some resentment towards his father and felt at ease when he was killed, he had wanted to kill him all along. It has been beaten into him that because he has a destructive quirk, that destruction is what he truly longs for.

Despite saying this, Shigaraki walks around with every raw wound on him. You don’t need to look further than the hands placed on him, a symbol of his dead family. He believes destruction is what he had been longing for all this time, but we mustn’t forget how AFO groomed him to think this way for 15 years.

20. “It’s not crazy to imagine that someone could commit an atrocity at any given moment. So why do they smile and mingle like this? Because the laws and rules are built on their individual morality… They’re convinced that “no one would ever do that.” In the time it’d take to catch me, I could take out 20… No, I could take 30 of them out.”

Shigaraki emphasizes how complacent people have become. Because they rely on heroes so heavily, it ironically makes it easier for a Villain to wreak havoc and destruction for longer. Nobody will step up to help Deku if he’s in trouble, and Shigaraki knows that from experience.

21. “Bloodlust without conviction is meaningless. Ideals and convictions…? I had ’em from the start, Hero Killer.”

Shigaraki is oftentimes viewed as a simplistic villain who only longs for destruction because that’s who he is at his core. However, Shigaraki has one of the most well-analyzed and explicitly shown backstories, showing that he has plenty of things he fights for. Or rather, things he fights against.

He says this line to himself in response to Stain saying that Shigaraki’s ideals are empty. Stain thinks that because Shigaraki doesn’t fight to improve the hero society, his desire to destroy is meaningless.

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