My Hero Academia's Paranormal Liberation War Arc stands as one of the most ambitious and emotionally charged storylines in modern shonen manga. Spanning from Chapter 258 to Chapter 306 of Kōhei Horikoshi’s manga and adapted across the second half of Season 6 of the anime, this arc unspools a massive-scale conflict that forever alters hero society. In this comprehensive timeline breakdown, we map the sequence of events that define the war, highlight the character turning points, and explore the thematic weight that makes it a defining chapter in the series. For a detailed chapter-by-chapter reference, you can consult the My Hero Academia Wiki timeline and the official chapter releases on Viz Media’s Shonen Jump.

Setting the Stage: The Paranormal Liberation War Arc in Context

Before diving into the timeline, it’s essential to understand the forces that set the war in motion. After the Shie Hassaikai Arc, the League of Villains had suffered significant losses and needed to regroup. During the Meta Liberation Army Arc, Tomura Shigaraki merged with Re-Destro’s massive organization, creating the Paranormal Liberation Front (PLF). With over 100,000 members and the ideology of “liberation” twisted into a doctrine of destruction, the PLF became the greatest threat Pro Heroes had ever faced.

The Hero Public Safety Commission, having uncovered the PLF’s existence through Hawks’ undercover mission, devised a preemptive, simultaneous strike on two key locations: the Gunga Mountain Villa, where the PLF leadership and thousands of members resided, and Jaku Hospital, the secret laboratory of Dr. Kyudai Garaki, where All For One’s master plan to bestow his Quirk upon Shigaraki was nearing completion. The stakes could not be higher, and the timeline of the war arc moves with relentless urgency.

The Full Chronological Timeline of the War

Pre-War Phase: Espionage and Strategic Preparation

The arc doesn’t start with explosions—it starts with shadows. Months of preparation unfold before the first strike. Hawks, the No. 2 Pro Hero, infiltrates the PLF at the behest of the Hero Commission, feeding intel about the group’s structure, leadership, and internal dynamics. His double-agent status allows him to gain the trust of Dabi and Twice while secretly mapping out the mountain villa’s defenses. Simultaneously, the heroes conduct a thorough analysis of the information captured from the previous Nomu attacks and Dr. Garaki’s known locations.

  • Infiltration of the Paranormal Liberation Front: Hawks provides continuous reports on the PLF’s movements, leading to the discovery of the Gunga Mountain headquarters.
  • Intel on Jaku Hospital: Through analysis of All For One’s past activities and the transportation of Nomu, the heroes pin down Dr. Garaki’s hospital base.
  • Heroes’ Joint Planning Sessions: Top heroes including Endeavor, Mirko, Edgeshot, and many others coordinate the dual raid with surgical precision.
  • Student Placement Decision: Initially, hero course students are withheld from the frontline; this decision becomes a major point of contention and ultimately breaks down as the situation spirals out of control.

The Opening Salvos: Hospital and Villa Raids Begin

The war officially commences with the simultaneous execution of the hospital and villa raids. The timeline splits into two parallel threads that later converge in catastrophic fashion.

Jaku Hospital Assault (Front 1): Endeavor, Mirko, Present Mic, and a squad of elite heroes storm the hospital to apprehend Dr. Garaki and stop the completion of Shigaraki’s body modification. Mirko charges ahead with brutal intensity, destroying several High-End Nomus in close-quarters combat. She succeeds in critically damaging the tube containing Shigaraki before he can reach 100% completion, but not without severe injuries that cost her limbs. The incomplete awakening triggers Shigaraki’s devastating Decay wave, which spreads across the city, toppling buildings and killing thousands. As the heroes desperately try to contain the destruction, they force Garaki to cooperate, but the damage is already done.

Gunga Mountain Villa Raid (Front 2): The main Pro Hero force, including Edgeshot, Midnight, and a large number of sidekicks, attacks the PLF stronghold. The PLF’s leadership, including Re-Destro, Trumpet, and Skeptic, scrambles to mount a defense. The villains’ sheer numbers temporarily stall the heroes, but the real chaos begins when Gigantomachia, the giant loyal to Shigaraki, awakens and begins rampaging toward the hospital with the League of Villains members on his back. The villa raid rapidly degrades into a desperate survival mission.

Escalation: Shigaraki Awakens and Gigantomachia Rampages

With Shigaraki’s incomplete awakening, the villains gain a terrifying new power. Possessing All For One’s original Quirk and now a body that can steal and wield multiple abilities, Shigaraki becomes a virtually unstoppable force. His Decay wave not only destroys the city around the hospital but also triggers a teleportation chain: the heroes at the mountain villa soon face him directly after he is warped to the PLF headquarters by his master’s machinations.

Meanwhile, Gigantomachia’s rampage carves a path of destruction from the villa to Jaku City. With the League of Villains atop his back, he ignores all obstacles, crushing forests, villages, and any hero who tries to stop him. Midnight stands as one of the final lines of defense, but she is overcome, and her death marks one of the war’s earliest and most painful losses.

At this moment, the arc delivers its first massive thematic blow: the hero society is not just under attack—it is breaking. The scale of civilian casualties and the visual of Gigantomachia tearing through Japan shatter the illusion of safety the heroes once provided.

Class 1-A Enters the Fray and the Battle Against Shigaraki

Ignoring orders to stay back, Izuku Midoriya senses the danger through One For All’s vestiges and rallies his classmates to intervene. Led by Bakugo Katsuki, Todoroki Shoto, and Uraraka, the students of U.A. High join the teachers and pros in an all-out assault on Shigaraki and the High-End Nomus. This phase of the timeline is a rapid-fire series of team-ups, Quirk awakenings, and immense personal sacrifice.

  • Deku and Shigaraki’s First Clash: Midoriya taps into multiple One For All Quirks—Float, Blackwhip, and later Danger Sense—to avoid Shigaraki’s touch while landing powerful blows. The conflict between the successor of All Might and the vessel of All For One becomes the symbolic center of the war.
  • Bakugo’s Sacrifice: When Shigaraki skewers Midoriya, Bakugo pushes the hero in training out of harm’s way and himself gets impaled through the stomach. His near-death experience and Deku’s subsequent rage lead to an uncontrolled outburst that nearly costs them the battle.
  • Endeavor’s Relentless Assault: The No. 1 Hero unleashes everything he has, using Prominence Burn and Flashfire Fist in an attempt to incinerate Shigaraki, but the villain’s regeneration keeps him standing.
  • Shoto’s Flashfreeze Heatwave: Todoroki utilizes his perfected ice-fire combination to neutralize the Nomu while dealing critical damage to the regenerating villain.

Despite these combined efforts, Shigaraki’s power seems limitless. The heroes only manage to hold the line long enough for a tactical retreat to be organized, but the cost in lives, limbs, and morale is staggering.

The Broadcast: Dabi’s Reveal and the Fall of Endeavor’s Legacy

One of the most carefully orchestrated moments in the war timeline is Dabi’s public broadcast. Using Skeptic’s technology, Dabi records a video detailing his true identity as Toya Todoroki, Endeavor’s supposedly dead eldest son. The footage includes his scars, his past abuse, and the family’s hidden tragedy. Dabi reveals that Endeavor’s relentless ambition to create a child who could surpass All Might led to physical and emotional torment that culminated in Toya’s “death” at Sekoto Peak.

The broadcast airs live across the nation, immediately after Endeavor has been pushed to his physical limit fighting Shigaraki. The timing is devastating. Public trust in heroes, already fragile from the war’s destruction, evaporates. Endeavor’s reputation crumbles, and Shoto’s world is rocked as his family’s darkest secret becomes national news. The Dabi revelation is not just a character twist; it’s a narrative earthquake that reshapes the entire societal framework of the series.

The Retreat and Immediate Aftermath

With Gigantomachia finally collapsing under a combined assault of sedation and sheer damage, the heroes scramble to extract their wounded. Shigaraki, despite his damaged body, is whisked away by All For One’s machinations, and the League of Villains escapes. The heroes are left to count their losses: multiple Pro Heroes dead or permanently disabled, entire urban areas leveled, and the public’s faith shattered.

The arc closes with a series of haunting images: families mourning, citizens demanding answers, and heroes turning in their licenses. The Hero Public Safety Commission’s influence wanes, and the vacuum of leadership pushes Japan toward a state of chaos that directly sets up the Dark Hero Arc. The war’s timeline may have ended, but its ripple effects define the remainder of the series.

Character Developments Within the War’s Timeline

Every major character undergoes a transformation during the Paranormal Liberation War Arc. Following the threads of their personal journeys reveals how the timeline isn’t simply a sequence of fights but a crucible that reshapes their identities.

  • Tomura Shigaraki: The arc completes his evolution from a broken boy into All For One’s inheritor. His agonizing transformation and the gradual reawakening of his memories connect the war to the series’ deepest lore about the origin of Quirks and the perpetual conflict between One For All and All For One.
  • Izuku Midoriya: Forced to confront the lethal reality of heroism, Deku sees his mentor All Might’s legacy in a new, more fragile light. His desperate fight and the vision of Bakugo’s near-demise trigger a darker resolve that will later propel him into his vigilante phase.
  • Katsuki Bakugo: His heroic sacrifice rewrites his relationship with Deku. His apology at the height of battle—finally vocalizing his regret for years of bullying—marks one of the most cathartic moments in the arc. After surviving, Bakugo carries the guilt of seeing Deku lose control because of his injury.
  • Shoto Todoroki: The Dabi broadcast forces Shoto to reconcile his own trauma with the public’s condemnation. He must decide whether to save his brother or condemn him, and the arc marks the start of his mission to stop Toya without losing his own humanity.
  • Hawks: The morally gray hero pays the price for his espionage: he loses his Quirk (temporarily) and kills Twice, a villain he had come to empathize with. The act haunts him and underscores the arc’s theme that war spares no one’s conscience.
  • Mirko: Her relentless assault on the High-Ends, even as she loses limbs, epitomizes the sheer determination of the Pro Heroes. Her sacrifice buys the precious seconds needed to interrupt Shigaraki’s completion, even though it comes at a permanent physical cost.

Thematic Depth Woven Through the Timeline

The Paranormal Liberation War Arc is a narrative that goes beyond spectacle to ask hard questions about hero society, legacy, and the cost of peace. Understanding the timeline means recognizing how these themes emerge sequentially:

The Illusion of Absolute Safety

The early raids are predicated on the belief that the heroes can contain the villain threat before civilians are harmed. Shigaraki’s Decay wave obliterates that confidence in seconds. The timeline shows hero society as a house of cards, where a single breach brings everything down. This theme persists through the subsequent arcs, as people realize that heroes cannot guarantee protection.

The Cycle of Abuse and Legacy

Dabi’s broadcast peels back the curtain on the Todoroki family, but it also reflects a broader systemic problem. The pressure to create “ultimate” heroes, the neglect of mental well-being, and the glorification of individual strength all contribute to the fractures visible in the timeline. Endeavor’s attempt at atonement and Shoto’s journey to break the cycle become central to the story’s moral core.

The Blurred Line Between Hero and Villain

Hawks’ execution of Twice raises uncomfortable questions. Is killing a villain justifiable if it saves thousands? Does the hero system produce its own monsters by valuing utility over empathy? The timeline forces viewers and readers to confront these ambiguities without easy answers. Even the Pro Heroes’ collective decision to withhold full information from the public after the war echoes the same corruption they claim to fight.

The War’s Impact on the Manga Release and Anime Adaptation

For those following the series weekly, the war arc was a relentless emotional rollercoaster. The manga chapters, originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, were marked by cliffhangers that sparked intense fan discussion. The anime adaptation, produced by Bones and streaming on Crunchyroll, captured the arc’s scale with some of the most fluid and impactful animation the series has ever seen, particularly during Mirko’s hospital raid and the Deku-Shigaraki confrontation.

The production team had to compress an enormous amount of material into cour 2 of Season 6, yet the adaptation largely succeeded in preserving the timeline’s pacing and emotional beats. The voice acting, especially Nobuhiko Okamoto (Bakugo) and Daiki Yamashita (Deku), added layers of vulnerability that further elevated the source material.

Conclusion: Why the Timeline Matters

Decoding the timeline of the Paranormal Liberation War Arc is not just an exercise in chronology—it’s a way to appreciate how meticulously Horikoshi constructed the turning point of his entire narrative. Every event cascades into the next, each battle clarifies character motives, and the cumulative effect is a story that refuses to let its heroes off the hook. By the time the dust settles, My Hero Academia has transformed from a tale about aspiring heroes into a sobering exploration of what happens when the pillars of society crumble.

For fans who wish to revisit the source material, the arc begins at Chapter 258 in the Viz Media digital vault and concludes with Chapter 306. The fallout continues to resonate through the final saga, making this timeline essential reading for anyone who wants to fully grasp the depth of the series. As the anime moves forward, the lessons learned in these bloody months will shape the final confrontations and, ultimately, the kind of heroes that emerge from the wreckage.

For further episode-by-episode breakdowns, the My Hero Academia Wiki season 6 page offers a complete guide to the anime’s adaptation of the war, including production notes and key differences from the manga.