My Hero Academia is a superhero shonen anime with a huge cast of characters who are all competing for screen time in each episode and season. Some characters are much more important than others, and the anime usually gives them screen time accordingly. For some heroes and villains, though, this is out of whack.
Certain MHA villains like Tomura Shigaraki, All For One, Dabi, and Himiko Toga deserve all the screen time they get due to their excellent character arcs and heavy impact on the plot, while other villains barely earned any screen time at all. The least important villains often just feel like filler and don’t need much screen time, though they may still get a little more screen time than they deserve to help fill out a scene or please anime fans who like these characters.
10 Moonfish
The minor villain Moonfish took part in the forest battle against classes 1-A, 1-B, and the Wild, Wild Pussycats as part of the League’s vanguard squad. Moonfish had no character arc, however, and did not say anything of interest during his time in MHA‘s anime.
Moonfish was there just to provide another fight scene, giving Bakugo, Shoto, and Fumikage a tough and scawry foe to fight. That battle was indeed fun to watch, but it also felt like fluff, and in hindsight, Moonfish didn’t really justify his time on-screen while more important things were happening.
9 Magne
The burly melee villain Magne could have had a more substantial character arc and thus justified her time on-screen, but it didn’t turn out that way. Magne was just another filler villain who was ushered on-screen to provide more fight scenes, and little more.
Magne fought Tiger in the anime, but that battle was inconclusive, and Magne also failed to make good use of her magnetism-based Quirk. Then, Magne was killed off when the villain Overhaul appeared, ending Magne’s character arc before it had a chance to get any better.
8 Geten
The ice-themed villain Geten was introduced as a member of the Meta Liberation Army, and he’s one of many MHA villains who only exists to provide more fight scenes. Geten ranks among the most powerful members of the Army and the Paranormal Liberation Front, but that doesn’t mean he’s important.
Geten fought the flaming villain Dabi and later took part in the large-scale fighting in Season 6, but he has little to show for it. His fights almost feel like a waste of screen time, since he never said or did anything of serious importance. He also failed to tie into MHA‘s major themes.
7 Muscular
Muscular is an aggressive, bloodthirsty villain who only loves violence and murder. He does not represent any major themes and has very few personal connections to other characters, so he feels completely irrelevant outside of his fight scenes.
Muscular fought protagonist Izuku Midoriya – a lengthy fight that had relatively little impact on the overall story. In Season 6, Muscular appeared again for a brief second fight, but that fight served even less purpose, mostly just to give Dark Deku someone to test his powers against – and Lady Nagant did it better.
6 Mr. Compress
Mr. Compress is a clever, tricky villain who uses his Quirk to compress people and items alike into small marbles for a variety of reasons. Mr. Compress has appeared often whenever the League or Paranormal Liberation Front are involved, though he only plays a supporting role at best.
In a few scenes, Mr. Compress was important, like when he helped capture Katsuki Bakugo. Otherwise, he feels more like filler. Mr. Compress has since been captured and imprisoned, so now the narrative can focus on more consequential villains like Shigaraki and Dabi.
5 The Hooded Nomu
At the time, the Hooded Nomu felt fairly important as a villain who tested Endeavor’s worth as the new #1 pro hero. MHA Season 4 spent its final episodes showing Endeavor fighting desperately against this creature, and he eventually triumphed.
On a rewatch, though, the Hooded Nomu may feel like it takes up too much screen time. This villain has no character arc and isn’t very memorable, nor does it have thematic relevance. Some fans might be tempted to skip over this fight and save their screen time for the next story arc instead.
4 Giran
The minor villain Giran was introduced as a logistical support villain who could find and recruit people, being a pencil-pusher criminal who didn’t like fighting that much. He could have become more important, but recent MHA arcs actually diminished Giran to the point many fans might have forgotten about him.
Looking back, most of Giran’s scenes feel wasted, since he didn’t make that much of a difference after all and his potential was largely wasted. It’s a shame, too, since MHA needed to round out its narrative with villains who don’t need weapons or Quirks to attack hero society and promote crime.
3 Gentle Criminal
Season 4 of My Hero Academia introduced the well-dressed villain Gentle Criminal, a hero student washout who wanted to make his mark on society somehow. Gentle decided to become a social media star and draw in the crowds with his minor criminal antics, but then Izuku Midoriya took him on.
Gentle’s story arc provided some neat commentary about the emotional burden of being labeled a washout or reject, but it also took up a lot of screen time. Given how minor and self-contained this arc was, perhaps it could have been one episode shorter.
2 La Brava
Gentle Criminal’s lovestruck sidekick, codenamed La Brava, had some thematic ties to Gentle Criminal to make her more sympathetic and relevant to that mini-arc. It was a refreshing change of pace to have a villain like her, though she still wasn’t that important.
On a rewatch of My Hero Academia, La Brava’s flashbacks and scenes feel like padding, and fans might be tempted to just skip it. La Brava has a bit more relevance in recent manga chapters, but otherwise, it’s tough to justify much screen time for her.
1 Spinner
My Hero Academia fans might say the gecko-themed Spinner is the least important villain who appears the most often. Spinner has yet to win a fight or accomplish much for either the League or the Paranormal Liberation Front, though he keeps showing up anyway.
Spinner is committed to the League’s and Front’s ideologies, but he’s all talk, and it’s getting repetitive. By now, it seems Spinner has survived this long and got promoted by sheer chance, reinforcing the idea that his screen time is nearly always wasted on him.
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