Character · My Hero Academia
Izuku Midoriya
The nickname started as an insult meaning useless. He kept it, because a girl in his class heard a different word inside it.
In Otakana the clue reads: Quirkless fanboy who inherited the number one power
- Type
- Character
- Series
- My Hero Academia
- Letters
- 4 · Easy
Izuku Midoriya was born without a quirk in a world where four people in five have one, and he filled thirteen notebooks with analysis of professional heroes anyway. That habit is why the story happens at all. All Might, the top-ranked hero alive, watches a quirkless boy run at a villain with no plan and no chance, and decides on the spot that this is who he wants to hand One For All to.
One For All accumulates. It has passed from holder to holder, each adding their own strength before giving it on, so Izuku inherits a century of stockpiled power in a body nowhere near ready to hold it. His early wins end with him being carried off on a stretcher with his own fingers broken. Working out how to use a percentage of the thing is the first year's real homework.
The nickname comes from Bakugo, who read the characters of Izuku's name a second way to get deku, near dekunobo, a wooden puppet, meaning good for nothing. Uraraka tells him it sounds like dekiru, meaning you can do it. He takes it as his hero name in that moment, which is either the most shonen beat in the series or simply its whole thesis.
Spelling DEKU
Four letters, DEKU, and it is the hero name rather than the real one; Izuku Midoriya is spelled nothing like it. The word comes from dekunobo, a wooden puppet used as an insult for someone useless. Two beats, de-ku. The first vowel is the one to watch, because people who have only heard it aloud reach for DAKU or DEKO about half the time.