After 6 anime seasons and over 350 manga chapters, My Hero Academia has amassed a large number of characters, most of whom have a special ability known as a ‘quirk’. Quirks are MHA’s main power system, and for the most part are consistently at least interesting if not straight up cool and flashy.
The big hitters in the world of heroes and villains have quirks that have now become iconic, such as Shigaraki’ s ‘Decay’ that decimated anything he touches, or Bakugo’s ‘Explosion’ which lets him detonate the sweat on his palms for mobility and offense. However, not every quirk can be a winner. In fact, some quirks have so little power, utility or cool factor that it’s easy for most people to forget they even exist.
8 Invisibility
Despite being a member of Class 1-A, Tooru Hagarakure is a very easy character to forget. Her personality is fairly generic, and she has very few big moments in the story. The thing that makes her the easiest to forget however, is easily her quirk.
Fans tend to remember that there is an invisible character in the class, however the quirk makes Tooru herself quite forgettable. Especially when the kids are doing hero work, her mostly naked costume means the eye will often go straight through her to look at another character.
7 High Spec
Principal Nezu might not have the most screen time, but it would be a stretch to call him forgettable. As UA’s principal, he’s had a decently important role to play in the story, and his design is quite memorable by itself. One might be forgiven for forgetting what his quirk actually is though.
Considering the amount of heteromorphs and animal-based quirks in the series, most people tend to see Nezu as a man who’s quirk makes him look like an animal. However, he’s actually an animal with a quirk that makes him more humanoid.
6 Gecko
All of MHA’s most dangerous villains manage to earn that status due to the threatening power of their quirks. In the League of Villains roster, even smaller hitters like Mr.Compress get a lot of mileage out of their quirks. Yet, it’s often unclear what Spinner’s quirk even is.
It’s easy to guess that his quirk is what makes him appear as a lizard of some kind, but one might expect it to have some other use. It does not. Gecko is a quirk that simply makes Spinner look like a gecko, and lets him stick to walls. It’s easily one of the weakest and most forgettable animal quirks in the series.
5 Weld
While they’re often seen as inferior versions of Class 1-A, Class 1-B actually have some very unique and useful quirks at their disposal. Ibara’s vines and Tetsutetsu’s steel for example, come to mind the instant the characters come on screen. The same can’t be said for Awase.
His quirk, ‘weld’ was actually one of the first Class B quirks to be revealed, yet still has far less impact than more newly revealed ones. The quirk lets him weld solid objects together, including human bodies, but it’s so utterly useless in most scenarios that it’s easy to forget what Awase even does.
4 Good Ear
‘Good ear’ is a rather simple quirk that gives its user enhanced hearing, allowing them to even pick up frequencies only certain animals can hear. Its simplicity already hurts its memorability, but it also suffers from the fact that it belongs to an irrelevant character, Sirius.
As an anime-only character, Sirius only appears in 3 episodes as a subordinate of the hero Selkie. Making matters worse though, her distinct, fin-like ears aren’t even part of the quirk. They’re simply thematically fitting earpieces. They do at least indicate that her quirk is hearing related, though.
3 Zoom
One of the most memorable non-hero members of the UA cast is the ever-enthusiastic Mei Hatsume. She’s well known for not only her odd performance at UA’s sports festival, but also for her work as Deku’s main support item manufacturer. How many people can remember what her quirk is though?
Mei’s quirk ‘zoom’ essentially lets her eyes zoom in like a camera lens, allowing her to see much farther than the average person. This is quite useful when working on complex machinery, but due to its lack of use on screen, it’s quite easy to forget about.
2 IQ
In truth, ‘IQ’ as a quirk is just an inferior version of Nezu’s high spec. While the latter is strong enough to make an animal smarter than most humans, the former can barely make a human smarter than other humans. And, it only activates after drinking tea, making it bad for field work as well.
It doesn’t help that IQ belongs to a short lived, anime only character, Saiko Intelli. Even considering that however, in its one appearance, Saiko still ended up getting outsmarted by Momo Yaoyorozu, who has no intellect boosting abilities whatsoever.
1 Iron Claws
Most of the teachers in UA’s hero course have some pretty impressive quirks, which synergise well with their hero work. However, as the manager of the school’s support course, and one of the least commonly appearing teachers, Power Loader’s quirk never comes up.
His quirk is ‘iron claws’ is a rather simple one that gives him metal fingertips. He is shown using them to dig into the ground, but his claws are easily confused as part of his costume. In fact, it’s such an irrelevant quirk that it’s shared with a random, unnamed background villain.