So about the “Aoyama is quirkless” theory...

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August 25, 2018

So about the “Aoyama is quirkless” theory…

[Spoiler Warning: This theory contains spoilers for manga chapters that have not yet appeared in the anime. All of the manga spoilers will be below the cut.]

[ID: young Aoyama in flashback from S3E18, asking “Why am I different from everyone else?” There are tears in his eyes and he is clutching at his stomach.]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comprehensive post I could link back to, but I’ve seen a few different people float the idea that Aoyama is secretly quirkless and that his “quirk” is really just contained within his belt.

I have a related, but slightly different theory.

I think Aoyama got his quirk from All For One.

Let’s start with the evidence that he is/was quirkless.

First, the flashback from “RUSH!”. Aoyama has consistently, constantly made a point about the fact that he “stands out,” that he’s “special.” In present day, he likes being “different from everyone else” – by which he means, his quirk is very flashy, and the thing he does best is “stand out.”

~~The Avatar has returned!~~ [ID: Aoyama from S3E18 blasting his navel laser into the sky while Iida watches]

Clearly, the flashback line “Why am I different?” line is meant as a contrast - that “standing out” is something Aoyama has grown into. This entire scene is a significant moment of character growth for him, as he is already proud to stand out, but here he finds a way to actually make it useful and even self-sacrificing. It remains, though, to understand what was different about him as a child to make him so upset. The manga has offered an explanation that I will discuss below, but for the moment I would like to mark that Aoyama’s quirk, by and large, is not that special. He’s flashy, yes, but he is not the most powerful, the most dangerous, or the strangest, even just within Class 1-A. Asking why he’s different from everyone in a world where kids can be born with eight arms and extendable teeth and bird heads seems extreme.

It would, however, make perfect sense as a question if he was quirkless.

Second, the belt.

Aoyama is the only character we have never to date seen without his support item. He is always and constantly wearing the belt, even when every other character has shed their support items.

[ID: Aoyama from S2E8, sitting on the sidelines of the sports festival, smiling and pointing at his belt. The subtitles say, “He submitted a petition.”]

[ID: one of the heats in the pool races of S3E1. Aoyama is wearing his belt as he uses his navel laser to fly over the pool, racing Todoroki and Sero]

[ID: Aoyama in S3E7, wearing his belt and using his navel laser behind a bush]

The sports festival is the most telling, because we know that Aoyama had to apply for and obtain special permission in advance to be allowed to wear his belt - in other words, Aoyama goes out of his way to ensure he will always be able to have his belt. He’s also had it longer than anyone else has had support items, since he was a child:

[ID: young Aoyama in flashback from S3E18, with an open box and torn off gift wrap beside him, wearing the belt and looking down at it happily]

While there have been some passing references to the fact that civilians can acquire support items if necessary to manage their quirks, it is far from the norm. Aoyama’s condition had to be exceptional to get that belt.

So far, all of this is decent evidence that Aoyama may be secretly quirkless, but then what explains the stomachaches?

[ID: Aoyama from the quirk assessment test in S1E5 with the subtitle “If I shoot for more than a second, I get a stomachache.”]

Theoretically, yes, the stomachache could be caused by however he used the belt, but I think it’s more likely that he does have a quirk, just one that is relatively weak and requires a great deal of support to control. With that in mind, let’s talk about Chapter 168. Manga spoilers start here.

[ID: Aoyama talking to Midoriya in Chapter 168. He says: “I’ve, constantly had a support belt on since I was a kid. If I didn’t, sometimes my navel laser would leak out. I was born with it. So my quirk and my body are also not compatible.”]

If you were running, still, with the theory that Aoyama were secretly quirkless, this provides a convenient cover story for why he NEVER takes the belt off, and why he’s had it since he was a kid: he doesn’t want his laser to activate unexpectedly. Alternatively, this is a reasonable explanation for the “Why am I different?” question that I discussed at the beginning: Aoyama essentially has a chronic health problem. His belt is less like Bakugou’s grenades – an enhanced but unnecessary weapon – and more analogous to a mobility aid. However, I would like to draw attention to a key bit of phrasing here, and a parallel that I think is important:

[ID: Aoyama bent over and clutching his stomach, talking to Midoriya in Chapter 168. He says, “Your quick [sic] doesn’t suit your body.”]

Aoyama believes that his quirk and his body are somehow incompatible, unsuited for each other, and he sees Midoriya as having the same problem. While Aoyama’s situation may be most similar to Midoriya’s, let’s point out that they are not the only two who suffer control or adverse physical reactions with their quirks. Tokoyami risks Dark Shadow getting out of control, Uraraka cannot use her quirk for too long without becoming nauseous and ill, and Kaminari fries his brain if he uses too much electricity at once; I’m also certain that as children everyone had less control over the quirks and I find it difficult to believe that Aoyama’s leaking navel laser would’ve been entirely unique. Yet Aoyama does not share his difficulties with them, but with Midoriya alone.

Horikoshi ended Chapter 167 on a hint towards this and used most of Chapter 168 to build up to this conversation, meaning this connection is important. He created an entire mini subplot where Aoyama suddenly claims to have uncovered some secret of Midoriya’s:

[ID: Midoriya in Chapter 168, pulling back the curtains of his room to find cheese arranged in Japanese characters and a star. A note under the panel says, “Writing on the Cheese: ‘I know.’”]

Since Midoriya’s only real secret is the origin of his quirk, the reader is forced to wonder if Aoyama has somehow learned about One For All. This (farfetched) possibility is kept as a fake-out until the very last moment, when Aoyama tells Midoriya the thing he “knows” is that his quirk is not suited to his body, because of course he’s right, just not for the reason he thinks. Horikoshi takes a detour from the plot to draw a very deliberate parallel between Izuku and Aoyama with regards to their quirks, and open up an association with One For All while he does it. Very little of what happens in this manga has proven to be insignificant - even if I’m wrong, I expect to see some kind of payoff for this connection between them.

Now let’s talk about All For One.

[ID: a series of panels from Chapter 193. In the first one, AFO says “From now on, if I’m ever in trouble you’ll elp [sic] me, won’t you?” The second contains only dialogue boxes saying “Of course! Aah… Dad, Mom…! Thank you! Thank you so much…!” and “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.” In the next image, AFO is standing triumphantly in the foreground with his brother on one knee behind him. AFO says, “What ‘world’ do you speak of, brother? I see ‘people’. And I put my power to use for their sakes. What do you see?” In the next panel, the brother replies, “Coming from you, that’s nothing but sophistry…! Just now, what you really did was create two more servants to do your bidding!” In the final panel, AFO holds a finger to his lips and says, “I need people who owe me a debt. That way I know they’ll come through when needed. But by denying me, you also deny them of their happiness.”]

AFO, at least when he started, had a policy of granting and taking quirks at people’s request for some unspecified future favor. He didn’t need an immediate use for them, only a promise that they would help him when he needed their assistance. His brother rightly points out that he is gathering “servants” – and by and large, this practice paid off. His servants followed him. Whether he has kept up this practice in more recent years, we do not know. However, I posit the following: a rich couple with a quirkless child, desperate for him to be ‘normal’ and happy, seek out rumors of a man who is able to grant quirks… for a price. AFO gives the child a quirk, in exchange for the loyalty of the parents, and possibly the child.

Aoyama may not even know that he got his quirk from AFO. Do you remember everything that happened when you were four? I sure as heck don’t. Aoyama may have been told he was going to see a specialist doctor, or something of the type, and that his quirk just manifested late, and his memories are too fuzzy for him to question them now, even if he had a reason to. Or, alternatively, he knows someone gave him his quirk, and thinks someone gave Midoriya his as well, but has not made the connection to AFO.

In the same chapter, I would also like to point out this line:

[ID: a dialogue box from Chapter 193 that says “I found a superpower that even someone frail and starving like you can handle! Now, join me!”]

That’s AFO talking to his brother, as he forces him to accept (we assume) the original One For All quirk. This is the line that caught my eye, because once again, we touch on this idea that a body needs to be compatible with a quirk, and a body too weak for a particular quirk will somehow be harmed by it, in the context of quirks being passed from one person to another. This may be the reason that Aoyama’s quirk requires so much support to control: because AFO gave him a quirk that was incompatible with his body, and didn’t let him train to accommodate it as All Might did with Midoriya.

Oh, and what happens right after this scene?

[ID: Aoyama in bed with his eyes half open, the sound effect THOOM! over him]

Midoriya blows apart the room and AOYAMA is the one who hears it, wakes up, and comes to investigate, drawing an association between the two once again.

Tied in, obviously, with the theory that Aoyama is quirkless and even more so with this theory, is the possibility that Aoyama is the mole. That’s an entire meta on its own, and not a debate I want to dive into too deeply right now. However, I think it’s worth pointing to the narrative potential for red herrings should Aoyama’s quirk turn out to be not quite what it seems (and then the mole turns out to be someone else, after all). Or we could end up in a Young Justice S1 situation, where Aoyama is getting blackmailed (“You don’t want to go back to being quirkless, do you?”) but then turns it into a double-cross against the villains (personally, I don’t see Aoyama going full villain, even if he were threatened with losing his quirk, but obviously that’s also a possibility). Now that we have Hawks’s storyline, we’re one step closer to revealing the mole, or at the very least delving into the intrigue around the League of Villains.

tl;dr

Aoyama relies heavily on a support item to help control his quirk, and even then, suffers physical backlash in the form of stomach aches if he tries to use it too much. He himself characterizes this affliction as a result of the fact that his quirk is “not compatible” with his body. This idea of a body needing to be physically able to handle a quirk is one we see specifically discussed in the context of One For All and All For One, quirks that allow passing quirks to people who were not born with them. Given what we know about All For One’s habit of granting quirks in exchange for favors and loyalty, it does not seem out of the realm of possibility that he may have given Aoyama his navel laser, which would then explain why Aoyama’s body seems to reject his own quirk. This possibility is reinforced by the fact that Aoyama draws a parallel between himself and Midoriya (and not to other classmates who suffer control issues or limitations with their quirks), a parallel that Horikoshi deliberately reinforces by spending over a chapter building up to it.