My Hero Academia: Why Aizawa's Quirk Test Makes Little Sense

 In My Hero Academia, Shota "Eraser Head" Aizawa is best known for two things- putting rationality before all else and believing that only those who have what it takes to be heroes belong at the exclusive hero course of U.A. High School, where Aizawa teaches. As such, it may come as a surprise that Aizawa's personal Quirk Test is rather poorly designed and a subpar judge of a hero's potential. I will look at the test and where the problems come up, and will primarily base it off of the manga.

The Test

First, let's provide an overview of the test itself. Aizawa's Quirk Test is held on the first day of class, at a time when students otherwise would be attending the entrance ceremony or having guidance meetings with the faculty, both of which Aizawa derides as wastes of time. Instead, he tests all 20 of his students' Quirks in a multiple-event test of physical fitness, and says that the lowest-ranking student will be expelled. He silences protests by mentioning that the faculty gave him free reign to expel anyone who doesn't meet his standards and that they won't have time to goof off at U.A.

Midoriya takes the test, and is unable to compete with his classmates, who have had a lifetime to hone their Quirks, whereas he only recently acquired One For All, and none of his results are superior to that of an ordinary high schooler. Eventually, the time comes for him to throw a baseball, which would be a relatively easy task for Midoriya's superior strength provided by One For All, but Aizawa stops him. Aizawa refuses to allow Midoriya to use his Quirk unless Midoriya can prove that he can use it without breaking his arm, and Midoriya succeeds, focusing his energy into his finger and launching the baseball hundreds of meters while "only" breaking that finger. Unfortunately, Midoriya ends up placing last, mentioning that the pain from the broken finger hampered his performance in the endurance running event.

Luckily for Midoriya, Aizawa reveals that the claim that he'd expel the lowest-ranked student was a "rational deception" meant to get them to give the Quirk Test their all... except that unbeknownst to the students, Aizawa did expel his previous year's class and dozens of other students... except that unbeknownst to Aizawa's critics, he re-enrolled the students afterward... except that the expulsions are still on their records, even if they get to stay at U.A. As you can see, it's complicated, to say the least, and beside the point, since this entry is about Aizawa's Quirk Test for Midoriya's class.

It's understandable that Midoriya is the underdog, who will have to work hard to catch up to his classmates, who are both experienced with their Quirks and (mostly) hard-working. However, the Quirk Test Aizawa administers, especially its outcome, makes little sense when you think about it, and I will examine why by looking at the test's purpose, scoring methods and final results.

The Purpose

Aizawa makes no secret of how he thinks that the entrance exam's practical portion favors those with flashy and destructive Quirks, and believes his own test is a better way to evaluate students' proficiency with their Quirk. It's an understandable point, but his Quirk Test isn't much better.

For starters, the Quirk Test still favors those with Quirks that enhance their natural physical abilities instead of more support-style Quirks like Jiro's Earphone Jack (which amplifies her hearing and can transmit soundwaves), or Hagakure's Invisibility. Aizawa later describes Shinso, a boy with a Quirk that can brainwash anyone who responds to him, as the sort who wouldn't do well on the U.A. entrance exam, hence why Shinso failed the exam and ended up in general studies(apparently, since he was smart enough to use it as a backup plan), but since Aizawa himself mentions that Shinso's physical abilities are on par with or below Midoriya's, Shinso wouldn't do any better with Aizawa's Quirk Test.

The entrance exam also serves as a test of a hero's moral fiber, giving points for rescuing participants in addition to destroying the robots. Midoriya passes with flying colors despite not destroying a single robot worth any points because he destroyed the massive Zero-Pointer (which not only is worth zero points, but is also the most dangerous opponent), while Uraraka got points for saving Midoriya. Some heroes excel in fighting while others specialize in rescue operations, and the entrance exam, for all its flaws, is better than Aizawa's test in that regard.

Lastly, while Aizawa is not wrong to have high standards for his students, he should at least consider two seemingly contradictory ideals. The first is that the students are nowhere near ready to become heroes, and will need instruction to realize their potential and iron out the flaws in their Quirk usage; Midoriya especially qualifies given his potential and room for growth. The second is that the students have already demonstrated their potential in the face of intense competition and deserve a chance to study under him until they do something that would cause him to revoke that privilege. As such, his test should be more of a diagnostic to identify where his students' strengths and weaknesses lie rather than yet another means of separating the wheat from the chaff.

Of course, the test's design is not its only shortcoming. Since the goal is ostensibly to find out how the students stack up against each other and who has the lowest score, the scoring system is crucial, so any shortcomings there will inevitably skew the final result.

The Scoring

One has to wonder how the events are scored and the results are calculated in a fair way, since Aizawa claims that explaining it would be a waste of time. It's easy enough to compare the students' performance, measured by a single number, to each other in individual events, but far more difficult to rank them overall.

There are a few different translations for Aizawa's explanation of his scores, all comparably vague. I have italicized the most relevant parts.

• Viz's localization of the manga: “Your total scores simply reflect your performance in each of the events. Explaining the process would be a waste of time, so all you get are the final rankings"
  
  
• Manga fan translation: "The total is simply the aggregate sum of each of your scores. If I recited all your scores, it'd take a million years, so I'll disclose them all at once."
  
  
• Anime subs: "The total is simply the marks you got from each test. It's a waste of time to explain verbally, so I'll show you the results all at once."
  
  
• Anime dub: "I've ranked you all from best to worst. You should probably have a pretty good idea of your standing already. I'll just pull up the whole list; it's not worth going over each individual score."

With that in mind, there are a few possible explanations for the scoring system, each of which has various flaws.

The obvious idea, which is tallying students' scores to come up with their overall scores, is alluded to with Aizawa's wording. It would seem like the easiest and fairest way of coming up with a way to rank students based on their overall performance, especially when it comes to comparing one student with a single outstanding result and otherwise mediocre scores with someone who has above-average scores across the board.

Unfortunately, that idea falls apart when you consider that there are two types of events- those in which students want a result as high as possible(e.g. the ball throw), and those in which students want as low of a time as possible (e.g. the 50-meter dash), making it difficult to compare them. What's more, students' Quirks have varying impacts on their potential; Iida is able to complete the 50-yard dash twice as quickly as the students whose Quirks don't help them much,  whereas Bakugo and Midoriya can use their Quirks to throw the ball more than ten times farther than normal.

Alternatively, it's possible that students' overall rankings are based on their individual ranks, with each rank being given a certain point value, with the points added together to make the total. It would be like Mario Kart 64, in which the winner of a race receives 9 points, second place receives 6 points, third place receives 3 points, fourth place receives 1 point and everyone else receives 0. At the end of the four races in a tournament, the contestant with the highest total score wins.

Under that system, a player who wins three times and gets fourth place once(28 points) will defeat someone who wins second place three times and first place once(27 points). Similarly, someone who wins first place once and fifth or worse the other three times (9 points) will fall behind someone who wins third place four times(12 points), perhaps suggesting why Midoriya did poorly overall; despite excelling in the ball throw, he didn't do well in any other events. However, this would clearly not take into account events in which there are a large difference between the winners and the runners-up, let alone the loser.

As a third possibility, Aizawa may be less concerned with the results and more with how effectively students use their Quirks, since the purpose of the test is to use one's Quirks to pass. He may not necessarily be  only looking for students who produce outstanding results with their Quirks, but also looks for those who use their Quirks well. For example, he's impressed when Midoriya not only throws the ball farther than Bakugo, but does so without breaking his arm.

However, not only do the quantitative rankings issues apply, but also, one would have to wonder how Aizawa judges how students effectively use their Quirks. For example, on the 50-meter dash, Uraraka, Aoyama, Bakugo and Iida all use their Quirks, but end up with notably different times- 7.15 seconds, 5.53 seconds, 4.12 seconds and 3.08 seconds.  Iida is the clear winner, but doesn't have to use his imagination to use his Quirk to run fast, while Uraraka's attempt to make her clothes weightless was an example of thinking outside the box, even if it accomplished little. On the other hand, Aizawa also seems like a person who puts stock in results above all else, so it's possible he was only concerned with students' final scores, or how they stack up with their peers.

It may be possible that there is no way to fairly judge the test, but one final question remains- do the results make sense?

The Results

When you look at the results, they seem to reflect the approximate pecking order in 1-A.The top five consists of the most talented students in the class- Yaoyorozu, Todoroki, Bakugo, Iida and Tokoyami- whereas Midoriya, who can't control his Quirk yet, is at the bottom. As a result, it conveys the result that Horikoshi wants to show. However, some of the results are rather strange, especially when you consider that some of Midoriya's classmates, a few of whose Quirks are properly introduced after the test, should have done worse than he did. At this point in the story, only Midoriya, Bakugo, Uraraka and Iida have gotten significant focus, while Aoyama, Tsuyu, Shoji and Mineta are shown participating in the manga, leaving the question of how the other dozen or so students fared. I will look at a few students whose rankings in class may or may not make sense.

First up is Midoriya. As I mentioned before, he managed to get in last place despite an outstanding result in the ball throw event, in which he learned how to more effectively use his Quirk. By itself, it would make sense, but the question is whether we should believe that everyone else did better than him overall. This isn't too hard, since it requires either two outstanding results or an overall better average in the other seven events, but can everyone manage that?

Bakugo can. Since he was shown using his Quirk effectively in all the events in which he competed, it's natural that he would end up in third place. Despite being outperformed by some of his classmates in individual events (e.g. barely losing to Midoriya and being trounced by Uraraka in the ball throw), he was able to use his Quirk in a variety of situations. It goes to show that while he's hot-tempered and arrogant, he's also talented and intelligent, but there are many students at U.A. who are better heroes than he is.

Yaoyorozu, who placed first overall, is a good case study that shows how few of the higher-ranked students are shown earning their ranks. While she is extremely intelligent and skilled with using her Quirk and got in via recommendation, her Quirk, which involves creating things, seems to be of little use in Aizawa's physical fitness test. Perhaps she could throw the ball far by creating a catapult, but she's never shown doing so.

Iida performed rather well with a ranking of fourth place, but it's slightly surprising that he only got fourth. His speed-related Quirk makes him well-suited to these events, perhaps more so than the first and second placers, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki.

Uraraka's middling rank of 10th overall is relatively plausible, since there were events in which she excelled(the ball throw) and events in which she did not do well(the 50-meter dash), but it raises the question of how the results are weighted. How much did her ability to throw a ball infinite distance help her, and how much did her mediocre performance in the 50-meter dash despite using her Quirk hurt her? We'll never know.

Now for the lower half. Sato's rank of 12th seems rather arbitrary, since he can use his blood sugar to enhance his strength and physical performance. While he probably should have outperformed Ashido and her acid-based Quirk, and Koda, who can talk with animals, I can accept that he's better than Midoriya at the moment, unlike some of the students.

Then there's Hagakure, who placed 18th, but while third to last is not a good rank, one has to wonder how she even did that well. Her perpetually-active invisibility Quirk is useful in certain situations, but Aizawa's Quirk Test isn't one of them. It provides no apparent benefit to her physical capabilities, nor any way she could bend the rules to outperform a normal human in good physical shape, like Uraraka did when she made the ball weightless. As such, there's no explanation of how she placed ahead of Mineta and Midoriya.

Lastly, there's Mineta, perhaps the most despised character in Class 1-A, not to mention all of My Hero Academia. Not only is it unlikely that he could have produced above-average results in any event with his Quirk(he's shown using it in the side hop event, but to minimal effect), but he ranked an abysmal 19th place. If he and Midoriya had switched places, and Aizawa hadn't been lying about the threat of expelling the lowest ranker, he wouldn't have lasted long enough at U.A. to become such a hated character.

These are only a few of the students, but they go to show that perhaps Horikoshi did not think about all his students' Quirks in advance, let alone how they would necessarily fare on Aizawa's Quirk Test.

Conclusion

Aizawa's Quirk Test comes across as something that was not fully thought through by Horikoshi or Aizawa himself. It accomplishes its narrative purpose- proving that Midoriya is far behind his classmates and must master One For All to narrow the gap- but fails as a fair assessment of Class 1-A's aptitude to become heroes due to having poorly defined standards and results that do not mesh with what one might realistically expect. As such, the Quirk Test is one of a few parts of the early series that was not adequately planned out, and thus makes even less sense in lght of later developments in the story.