Terakoya is a heroic elementary school where children are trained to control their Quirks and become Heroes.[1]
History#
Terakoya is a private hero school located on Oku Island. Mashirao Ojiro and Toru Hagakure are sent there on a Team-Up Mission to give a lecture to the students. Once they arrive, Mashirao and Toru find a rope set across a path. When Mashirao inspects it, he ends up getting caught in a net trap set by one of the school's students, Ikkaku, who introduces himself as a future Hero. Ikkaku's teacher soon shows up and apologizes to them for the boy's behavior, but Mashirao assures him that they're happy to be there while Toru asks Ikkaku if he can teach her to make a trap like that. The teacher tells Ikkaku that these two have come from U.A. High School, which Ikkaku believes makes them awesome.
They go inside to find all the children rough-housing with their Quirks. The teacher soon gathers all the students' attention, saying that two students from U.A. High have arrived to give them a presentation. Mashirao soon introduces himself as Tailman, to which Ikkaku asks what his Quirk is. The students anticipate that he may have a flashy Quirk, but Mashirao states that his Quirk is his Tail. The students believe that U.A.'s Hero course isn't like others, having heard that they fuse Quirk Factors together and have secret labs that conduct genetic experiments, but Mashirao tells them none of that is true. One of the students asks Mashirao what the trick is to becoming a Hero, to which Mashirao replies with daily training and studying hard. The kids are bored by him however, with Ikkaku finding Mashirao to be super plain.
Ikkaku says that cool Heroes are all about flashy Quirks and killer Ultimate Moves, and eagerly asks to be shown stuff like that, believing that Heroes are awesome people who can do awesome stuff. Toru decides to take the stage, using her Invisibility to create a bright light that gets the children's attention. Unlike Mashirao, the students find Toru to be amazing and ask her for pictures and to show off her Quirk. Ikkaku decides to tell Toru about Oku Island's secret, that somewhere on island is a secret treasure waiting to be found and whoever finds it will earn total respect from everyone. Ikkaku is determined to find the treasure once he becomes a hero and asks Toru if she wants to be on his team. Toru asks if Mashirao can join them too, but Ikkaku says that he's too plain, insulting the Tail Hero.
Once school ends, the students all head home. Ikkaku hops on the fence to stand out, despite his classmates reminding him that he bumped his head doing that. Upon sensing something with his horn Quirk, Ikkaku hops from the fence, intending to do an awesome landing pose, but ends up tumbling down into the island's ruins. Inside Terakoya, the teacher offers the U.A. students drinks while saying that most of them go nuts over exciting Quirks. Mashirao tells Toru that she won them over in a flash while believing that they hated him, but Toru says they just gave him an ordinary talk.
Ikkaku's friends come in, alerting the teacher that Ikkaku's gone missing and they can't pick up his phone. Realizing that he came across the ruins, Mashirao and Toru set out to rescue him. Upon entering the ruins, Mashirao is forced to avoid many traps before finding Ikkaku. It is revealed that Ikkaku constantly shows off to make up for his own Quirk just being a horn that can only sense some things. However, the hero students encounter a graverobber who came for the treasure and fights them. Mashirao defeats him, making Ikkaku realize that he's strong despite only having a tail for a Quirk.
With Ikkaku saved, the three return to the school with the boy boasting over how he found the ruins. Despite this, he soon learns that being a hero is all about honing one's natural skills, not just their Quirk, showing that he learned his lesson while taking inspiration from Mashirao.
List of Known Students#
Trivia#
- Terakoya means "temple school" and refers to the real-life private institutions that taught children how to read and write during Japan's Edo period before the compulsory school system was established.
- Not counting Masegaki Primary School, Terakoya is the only hero school in the series to be an elementary school, whereas all the others are high schools.