Summary
My Hero Academiais among the top picks when considering thebest Shonen animein recent times.The series is set in a world where a significant percentage of the population possesses one super ability or the other, and these abilities are known as Quirks. These quirks form the basis and essence of the superhero society, the core of the series’ narrative.
Some of these quirks have raised questioning brows due to their complicated nature, and one such is the Rewind quirk possessed by Eri, a character introduced in the series’ fourth season and following the reappearance of another notable hero, Lemillion in the just concluded season, Eri’s quirk seems to deserve a closer examination.
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Who is Eri?
Born to the Shie Hassakai,a Yakuza faction, Eri is the granddaughter of the boss of the mafia group and a key component to the operations of Chisaki’s production of the Quirk-destroying due to her quirk of reversibility. Due to her inability to control her quirk, she has lived a life of solitude, pain, and fear, beginning with her mother’s abandonment after using her quirk on her father, causing him to disappear. Being only a child without the presence of her parents and grandfather, Eri is easily manipulated by Chisaki in a bid to further his ambition of city-wide domination.
Overridden with the fear and belief instilled in her by Chisaki, Eri grows up believing she can only use her quirk to cause harm to others. As such, she willingly lets herself be used for experiments to protect those who help her, and this is precisely portrayed when she, out of fear, voluntarily returns to Chisaki’s side after her first encounter with Deku and Mirio. Even after being rescued at the end of the Shie Hassakai arc, She is shown to have suffered heavy psychological damage due toher traumatic experiencewith Chisaki. However, her condition improved gradually after being taken in at U.A Academy.
Eri’s Introduction & Its Consequences
Eri’s introduction into the story marked a significant turning point, bringing endless possibilities and a substantial impact that will shapethe lives of heroes and villainsthrough the remainder of the series. Following her chance encounter with Deku and Mirio Togata during their hero work-study session, Eri’s life circumstances come to light, revealing her tragic past, her current situation at the hands of Chisaki, and the probable magnitude of her quirk called Rewind. After learning how she is being used to create the Quirk-Destroying Drug, her rescue becomes the top priority alongside the plan to capture Kai Chisaki and the Yakuza faction he heads. Her rescue and rehabilitation, however, have several trickling effects on everyone involved, including herself.
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Her rescue mission forcibly ensures the maturation of both Deku and Mirio, ability-wise and even as far as their character development, highlighting their growth as pro-heroes during the final battle against Chisaki. Her presence, however, is motivation enough for not only the heroes but also for villains like Chisaki due to the potential of her reversibility quirk, as is seen with Chisaki’s ruthless actions in a bid to keep hold of Eri. On the other hand, for the heroes, aside from wanting to ensure her safety, her quirk presents an opportunity for unprecedented medical advancement regarding quirk uses and development.
It also lends credibility to thetheory of the Quirk Singularity, even though that is a downside to Quirks in general. Eri’s circumstances and experiences also raise questions about the ethics of using quirks, especially on a scale like Eri’s, sparking discourses around the heroes’ responsibility to protect society. In all, Eri’s characterization brings about the re-evaluation of quirks usage and potential dangers and advantages Quirks pose to the societal narrative of the series.
The Nature Of Eri’s Quirk
One of themost powerful quirksof the whole show, Eri’s Rewind is an ability that allows her to revert the state of anything she touches to a previous state, meaning she is capable of making an individual younger, reversing bodily modifications, andhealing severe injuriesby reverting them to a state before they even existed. Rewind, however, can easily be confused for a healing-type quirk. Rather than healing, the Rewind quirk is more akin to an erasing quirk and is quite a broken ability to have, given it is controllable. Rather than healing injuries, the quirk Rewind erases the entire state of the target to a previous time, making it essentially that the damage or modification never happened, and this phenomenon does not apply only to tangible things. Her quirk can even rewind other quirks into a dormant state, and the extreme case of this is the quirk-destroying Drug created from Eri’s blood, which Chisaki used on Mirio, essentially ensuring the loss of his quirk.
Another example of Eri’s Rewind quirk in full effect would be in the battle against Chisaki (Overhaul), where Deku could use thefull power of One For Alldue to Eri using her quirk to constantly revert Deku’s body to a state before damage accumulation.
Her power source lies in a horn protruding slightly from her head, the size of which determines the strength of her ability at a given time. Her quirk has also been determined to be an accumulation-type quirk, as was revealed by Monoma after copying her quirk, meaning the ability has to build up over time to use. Seemingly convenient an ability it may be, Eri’s Rewind quirks come with heavy drawbacks, mainly due to her inability to wilfully control it yet. She could reverse a person to a point before existence, essentially erasing such a person, as with her father. Coupled with the substantial physical burden it places on her, Eri still has a long way to go before getting her quirk under wraps.
