WARNING: the following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Chapter #325, by Kohei Horikoshi, Caleb Cook and John Hunt, available now in English from Viz Media.

Society itself hangs in the balance in My Hero Academia as Izuku Midoriya and the handful of remaining heroes clash with the endless army of villains, and Izuku faces yet another challenge: inspiring the angry crowd of frightened civilians who gather at U.A.'s front gates. It's not enough for Izuku to fight; he must also serve as an inspirational symbol.

Ochaco Uraraka made her passionate speech to the crowd, prompting Kota Izumi to rush forth and take Izuku's side. Izuku has become Kota's All Might, and Izuku must become the All Might for the rest of the crowd, too. His time to become a universal symbol of peace has arrived.

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The crowd wants Izuku gone to prevent him from luring villains to U.A. and overrunning it, and Ochaco argues that this is Izuku's last refuge where he can rest and recover. Ochaco's speech takes a moment to sink in, and at first, the flaming hero Endeavor doubts that the crowd will side with the heroes. Then, as Hawks points out, the crowd shifts, and a particular man speaks up on Izuku's behalf to continue what Ochaco started. He argues that only pro heroes can bring back the stable, happy world everyone once inhabited, and Izuku can only win back that world from the villains when he rests at U.A. before the final fight with Tomura Shigaraki.

The man also argues that All Might had been more than a fighter; he fought for the hearts and souls of all people, uniting the masses in an intangible form of One For All. All Might is out of the picture, so it falls to Izuku, the bearer of his symbolic legacy, to inspire the people as the world's last, best hope. Civilians, for their own sake, cannot afford to remain on the sidelines. They and Izuku must fuel each other, a symbiotic relationship between the One For All Quirk and the intangible, secondary meaning of "One For All." The civilians must become Izuku's pillar, united as one. As hoped, the people unite under Izuku's banner and make room to admit him into the school.

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This latest development further proves that heroes and villains aren't fighting in a vacuum just to prove whose ideology is dominant. Even the strongest heroes and villains need the support and loyalty of the masses, or else their ambitions mean little. The battle of hero vs. villain is really a contest to see who can control society, playing tug-of-war with the heart of modern civilization. Each side is effectively a populist movement, and the people can "vote" based on whether they support heroes or villains. In My Hero Academia #325, Izuku wins the "votes" of the entire crowd a U.A., and if he can keep that up, he may shift the overall battle's tide in his favor.

Generations ago, All For One had similar goals when he swapped people's Quirks around to earn their loyalty and make them happy. All For One knew that villains were defined by their support by the masses, not just their Quirk firepower, and he sought to transform society, with himself at the top. Izuku and All Might have similar goals but for different reasons, and Izuku just took a big step toward winning over society -- not to rule it, but to protect it as a symbol. My Hero Academia's struggle has always been an election between All For One's platform and All Might's, and Izuku just won a bunch of votes as the newly realized symbol of peace.

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