welcome to my digital memorial for my favorite mha character since 2021 and also the love of my life, tomura shigaraki.
i am a selective sharing tomura riako and have been since may-ish of 2025, and i should mention that due to the nature of this shrine and tomura's character, there will be a lot of spoilers for all of mha in here!

tomura shigaraki is the main antagonist of the my hero academia series, and is the leader of the league of villains as well as being all for one's successor. when we first see him, in chapter 11 of the manga/episode 8 of the anime, he is roughly 19 years old, and a man child with little control of his emotions and little care for other's feelings and interests besides his own. he doesn't think things all the way through and lacks subtlety, preferring to get rid of things that bother him by killing them and lacking much of a real plan as a villain. he stages his attack on the USJ without prior knowledge on the quirks of the students of class 1-A and he underestimates the strength of each of the students, instead choosing to focus on finding all might and killing him despite not having a team that's suited for the task.
tomura's primary motivation throughout the beginning of the series is to take down all might, the number one hero- but, following the ua sports event, he decides izuku must be his next target. both of these motivations are rooted in a deep and understandable hatred for hero society, which began in his childhood following the manifesting of his decay quirk. when all for one took him in, this hatred was further nutured to turn tomura into the villain we see in my hero academia.
tomura is the successor of all for one, having been raised by him since elementary school/since his quirk manifested. thus, he has a lot of respect for afo and calls him his "master" (eng dub) or "sensei" (jp). however, as we see once he and afo merge following the manifestation of afo's quirk(s) in his body, this desire of his to succeed his master was as vain and miscalculated as all his plans used to be, though, this time, through no fault of his own. having been groomed since his youth by afo to be the "perfect successor", he never realized afo didn't have tomura's best interests at heart. tomura dreamed of a world without heroes, but when that world was at his fingertips, he was so consumed by confusion and despair at the loss of his own self identity that he felt alienated from his own goal, his own consciousness no longer his alone.
tomura places a large emphasis in his desire for publicity, made most clear during the hero killer stain arc. when stain's ideologies spark a new wave of villains and a sort of mini-revolution within japan, tomura resents it, encountering izuku midoriya at the mall and interrogating him on why stain is so loved, while tomura isn't. izuku replies that stain had conviction and never backed down from it, unlike tomura. while episode 38 (encounter) is an incredibly sexy moment for tomura and had a large and lasting influence on tomura x reader fanfiction, it also had a massive influence on tomura himself, being a turning point for his career as a villain. tomura decided on a conviction; to destroy hero society through killing all might.
following the retirement of all might, tomura's takeover of the paranormal liberation front (previously the meta liberation army), and his own uncovering of his past memories of abuse and trauma, his conviction grew from the destruction of hero society to the destruction of society as a whole, claiming to "hate everything that breathes". that being said, he still reassured the members of the league of villains that there was always room for their own desires despite his own, displaying a level of respect and affection for those in the league.
tomura's character tomura shigaraki is childish and immature, especially in the earlier seasons. this is made clear not just through the way he acts but the way he's drawn, maintaining a childish look in his eyes when his expression isn't manic or angry. he's also only four years older than the students of class 1-a, which further shows horikoshi's intention for tomura to be seen as a "manchild".
it's clear in the way that horikoshi writes him and the differences between tomura and his master, all for one, that tomura was always intended to be somewhat of a sympathetic villain, and still meant to be seen as human despite his crimes, unlike all for one, who is meant to be purely evil. he plays video games and is somewhat of a neet/hikikomori as shown through his messy, disorganized bedroom.
fanon vs. canon tomura shigaraki faces the same burden many other characters experience in fandoms, that being blatant mischaracterization in fanon. he's often portrayed as an incel with no respect for women, though it has to be noted that, first of all, if tomura was sexist as people make him out to be, magne and toga would never have joined the league. tomura's criticism of toga for being a "brat" is pushed aside when he addresses dabi, saying that "at least toga has manners".
generally speaking, his treatment of toga throughout the series and its spin-offs is all you need to see to realize how wrong fanon portrayals of tomura are. he outright refuses to play toga's girlfriend in a 4-koma about the league of villains putting on a play, saying it feels creepy. he holds so much compassion for those in the league despite being hostile to them when they first meet, which is honestly understandable considering tomura was raised with essentially no human contact and no real friends.

tomura's always been my favorite character and had an undeniable influence on my life and my type in general, because i first fell in love with him in 2021 when i was only 12 years old (it was january so i hadn't yet turned 13). even after i fell out of love with the series, his influence remained heavily in my life and the phase that followed my heroaca obsession, that being an obsession with the old internet, moe anime, and early 2000s otaku culture, is a phase that was directly influenced by my love for him and a phase that is still painfully obvious in everything i do. for that alone, i'd say tomura made me who i am today. all my aesthetic interests are a result of the awakening i had to 2000s otaku culture in 2021, and my taste in women both in real life and in media is influenced heavily by the crush i had on him so early on in my life.
even beginning to explain my love for tomura is a difficult task purely due to the fact that its evolved so much over the years and turned into a much more abstract concept than i could hope to explain- still, i'll begin with just how well i think our personalities would work together. tomura was raised as an involuntary shut in following his "adoption" of sorts by afo, and i also grew up with few friends, experiencing the loss of friends and family members from a young age, though my experience wasn't as traumatic as his, not by a long shot. but as a woman who loves women, i've never craved physical intimacy or romance with a man. i think tomura wouldn't even inherently want to be romantic or intimate with me, because it's not something he's ever been given or been used to and thus, isn't something he'd probably consider to be normal or natural for him. we both live similar lifestyles outside of his obvious occupation as a villain, being hikineets, gamers, and generally losers with few real life friends. i imagine we'd live together in mutual silence and solitude, and talk about games or anime over dinner or something.
tomura is just such a human character to me, too. i find his scratching of his neck to be so, so endearing, and every form of his is absolutely infatuating for me. idk if that's correct grammar. however, i most of all love blue haired, pre-awakening tomura, when he was a lazy man child who didn't really care about anything besides killing all might and deku.

tomura's name is actually tenko shimura, with the name tomura shigaraki being given to him by afo. tenko shimura was a much different boy than the one we see in mha, having dark black hair, but with the same skin condition. he had friends and admired heroes, though it's worth noting that his father, who despised heroes due to his own trauma, discouraged this and was abusive to tenko because of it. he was very fragile due to this abuse, but he was nonetheless still compassionate and kind. he cared for others, such as his friends, sister, and dog, mon-chan, and housed no hatred.
an incredibly important point about tenko is that his quirk was, in fact, not decay. while the manifestation of his decay quirk was what led to him becoming the symbol of fear and becoming afo's successor, that quirk was given to him by afo. instead, tenko was born with a quirk called "flying circle", which allowed him to generate rings that propelled him through the air. maybe now you see why i chose let down as the song for this page? this fact about him is not mentioned in the manga but was mentioned by horikoshi following the completion of mha. personally i don't fully believe this to be canon compliant, but it does make sense and also just makes tenko's backstory that much more sad.
tenko shimura's decay quirk manifested at age five (i think), when his father hit him. in the backyard of his house, he was holding his dog and sobbing, when suddenly his dog turned to dust in his arms. his sister went to find him, and he accidentally decayed her, too, and then his mom. however, the death of his father was not an accident, and was his first time murdering someone; and the first time the constant itching of his skin stopped.
following his self-induced orphaning, he was left to wander the streets, with no one ever trying to help him. he found himself crying in alley when all for one found him, and thus, he became tomura shigaraki.