Who Really Controls Japan? [My Hero Academia]

Roughly 80% of the population in My Hero Academia has a quirk. We know that impacts a person’s future career because, at the very start of the series, All Might suggests to the quirkless Deku he joins the police. This infers either a good chunk of law enforcement don’t have quirks, or, at the very least, have quirks not suited for battle. Okay, you probably knew that. So what’s my point? It’s simple.

The quirkless rule Japan.

I can think of two reasons for this:

1. There’s not much else they can do.
Think about it. Most people with awesome quirks will find jobs where their powers can be utilized. Whether being heroes or construction or what have you (I wonder if entertainers can use their quirks?). At this point, we don’t exactly know which jobs authorize the use of quirks and which don’t. All we know is public quirk use is strictly regulated. Well, on paper anyway. We’ve seen in My Hero Vigilantes that while using your quirk in public is officially against the rules unless you’re inconveniencing others, regular citizens don’t care. Look at The Crawler or Pop Step, those two blatantly use their quirk but you don’t see anyone going narc on them.

In any case, it makes sense they’re other fields besides hero work where quirk use is allowed but also regulated. If you have a quirk that fits that field, then why not do that job and make easy money? The quirkless have no choice but to pick “normal” careers and you can’t get more normal than working an office job. A government office job makes sense in that regard.

2. All For One

We don’t know the details, but All For One controlled Japan from the shadows for a time. All For One, a quirk user, THE quirk user, ruled the entire country from the shadows. There had to have brought consequences. Maybe the Japanese government doesn’t want a quirk user in top political positions, official or otherwise. Fear. The fear another like AFO could come along and take over might fuel a general distrust of quirk users holding such influential positions and actions were taken to prevent that.

But, isn’t that racist, you ask? Yes. And, for all we know it could be measures taken off the record. Major policial parties not supporting a quirk user is an easy way to keep them out of top positions. Even adjusting campaigning rules like, for example, a candidate can’t use their quirk while running for office could be enough to influence voters who’d follow a person with a cool quirk. We’ve seen examples of real governments using the law to fuel sexist and racist agendas. Who’s the say the MHA world doesn’t do the same?

Now, what does this all mean? Can a charismatic person who happens to have a quirk ever become Prime Minister? Who IS the current Prime Minister? Is there a secret government faction actively against government quirk users? Who knows. But, maybe, somewhere down the road, Japan traded one powerful totalitarian for another. But unlike, AFO, this one doesn’t need a quirk. He only needed fear and opportunity.