Since it first aired in 2015, Boku No Hero Academia (or BNHA) has propelled itself as one of the most popular shounen anime. Now that its fifth season had just ended, its audiences were shown that the heroes of the superhuman society are not that different from the very villains that they wish to eliminate.
Of course, there are quite many glaring differences between the two: heroes proclaim themselves to be on the side of justice, while villains pride themselves as harbingers of chaos. At a glance, it isn't too hard to see which group is right and which is wrong, but this season, it was proven that some villains weren't so bad at all, while there are also heroes who weren't that righteous. In other words, villains and heroes, no matter how much they hate each other, are more alike than different.
They Use Their Quirks to Further Their Own Goals
In the superhuman society, more than 80% of the world's populations are gifted with "superhuman" abilities that are known as "quirks." Many people use these powers to reach their goals, but heroes and villains are just a cut above the rest.
As obvious as it sounds, villains wreak havoc with their quirks. Some of them were simple and petty criminals who snatch items, rob banks, or vandalize property. But of course, there are others who just really want to see the world burn for whatever reason. By the end of Season 5, the League of Villains and the Meta Liberation Army formed an alliance and created a 100,000-strong force of villains led by Shigaraki himself. As hard as it is to understand, their goal is pretty noble: to change the world and create a society where everyone is equal.
Heroes, of course, use their quirks to prevent villains from getting their way. They create "agencies" to legitimize their work and patrol areas to keep people safe. However, for all their fame and glory, many heroes are just doing hero work for the prestige and money. It's why villains like Stain who wants to weed out faux heroes rose to popularity. Class 1A students seem to brand themselves as future heroes who will follow All Might's footsteps. It might mean that no matter how hard it is, they will do everything in their power to restore peace.
They Have a Strong Drive to Get Stronger
Since heroes and villains use their quirks to further their goals, they also want to get stronger. They get in each other's way all the time, so they need to muster the strength to fend off their enemies. The difference, perhaps, is the way they improve their abilities.
Heroes are trained at a young age and go to schools to hone their skills. They have the avenue to learn and state-of-the-art facilities and equipment to help them in their training. More than that, though, they are guided by other professional heroes and assist them in developing their quirks. Their mentors teach them how to be more creative and use their quirks to their fullest potential, as well as how to have supplementary skills that will surely aid them. Tokoyami, for example, discovered how to "fly" through Hawks's tutelage, while Uraraka learned how to use martial arts by interning under GunHead. Heroes get stronger at the very comforts of the institutions that coddle them.
Villains, even though they often band together, are still alone. While heroes improve their skills through intense training, villains simply get stronger simply by surviving. Both heroes and villains encounter real-life battles; the difference, however, is that heroes go to battle when they are ready, while villains have no choice but to get ready when they go to a battle. In short, villains get stronger because they have to. This is what happened in the last few episodes of Season 5. Toga discovered that he can actually copy quirks not just faces, while Twice finally overcame his trauma and made hundreds of clones in an instant. The one with the most improvement is Shigaraki himself who, with just a tough of his fingers, can now destroy a whole city block.
They Want to Protect Something
The main reason villains and heroes need to get stronger is the fact that they want to protect the things that are important to them. For most heroes, like All Might's students, they want to protect the very peace that they are experiencing. They want to create a world where they can see their friends and loved ones smile without worry. However, for villains who never got a chance to experience peace, this lamentation of peace from the heroes is nothing but hypocrisy. What do most villains want to protect then? Their pride and their principles. They have nothing else but that, after all. #
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