Toru Hagakure: Agent 007 [My Hero Academia 335]

Seriously, is she Number 7?

And here we are. After years of speculation, it finally happened. Toru Hagakure is revealed to be the U.A. traitor. No surprise to me and a number of the community, but that’s expected. The clues were there. No, like with the Toya/Dabi reveal, it’s not about the who as much as the why and how. Not to mention the general repercussions and Horikoshi’s decision to reveal the traitor to us, the audience, before learning her true identity along with Class A.

I’ve got several questions. Let’s see if any can be answered as of now.

Is Toru a Number? For those who don’t know, a Number is what I believe are experiments specially meant to help All For One achieve a new stronger body unaffected by quirk singularity. Tenko Shimura is the tenth experiment. Nine, from the second My Hero Academia movie, is the ninth and Number 6 from My Hero Vigilantes is the, well, sixth experiment. If Toru’s among them, then it’s safe to say she has more than one quirk. A revelation that would help explain how she escaped exposer by someone as smart as Nezu other than simply no longer communicating with AFO or Ujiko after AFO’s defeat at Kamino.

Does Toru have bomber cells? Bomber cells (as shown in My Hero Vigilantes) allow a person to blow up parts of their body and change their appearance. That could come in real handy if our Invisible Girl can actually turn visible. That’s right. Toru could’ve been lying about not being able to turn visible this whole time! It’s a brilliant way to not only give her quirk a faux restriction, but hide her other ability to look like anyone else. Toru could turn visible, change into Aizawa, and waltz right into U.A.’s faculty room with no one noticing!

How old is Toru? If the U.A. traitor can indeed change her appearance, she could be much older than we think. Forget 7 or 8. For all we know, Toru could be Number 4 or 5! Again, it would help explain how she avoided detection for so long. This wasn’t some teenager with an unperfected quirk Nezu was looking for, but an adult who mastered her quirks long ago. This is All For One we’re talking about. Do you really think he’d send some dumb kid to spy on a superhero school lead by a genius principle? No, there’s more going on here.

All that and NO ONE at U.A. knows Toru is the traitor, yet. I hope this means we’ll get inside Invisible Girl’s POV within the next few chapters. One thing I felt Horikoshi dropped the ball on is developing Toru as a fully fleshed out character along with several other students for Class A. But, if he can give her that much need development now, it’ll go a long way to making this reveal worth the wait. But I will give Hori a cookie for showing Toga back at AFO’s hidden party cave, removing the possibility she could be Toru in disguise.

This was a great chapter! All thanks to the U.A. traitor reveal. I’m very excited about how this plot point will be handled from now on. This was a moment built up from all the was back in the USJ arc. Horikoshi has been sitting on this for years; I’m hopeful this will have a huge payoff by the end of the series. Or…not. Class A has been leveling up since Deku left. Maybe a camouflage Froppy catches Toru texting All For One, then beats the snot outta her. A bit anticlimactic, but somehow still satisfying. Call me Froppy!