The Big 3

The label marks out the three students standing at the summit of U.A.'s entire body in terms of power. Mirio Togata, Tamaki Amajiki, and Nejire Hado held it during the events of the series, and they were regarded as the finest hero prospects the country had. Mirio and Tamaki had been friends since childhood, and Nejire joined them once all three were admitted to the school.

Their beginnings gave no hint of it. None of them handled their abilities well at first, which showed plainly in the U.A. Sports Festival a year before the story opens, where none of them placed well, and their peculiar personalities left a strong impression on everyone regardless. What each of them did have was a Quirk of enormous power and flexibility, and one year of serious work was enough to bring those under control. Nejire and Tamaki drew national attention first during their third year. Mirio arrived last and immediately eclipsed them both. Unknown to him, he had also been a leading candidate to inherit One For All as its ninth holder, and was passed over.

Agencies competed hard for them in the Hero Work-Studies. Mirio went to the Nighteye Agency, Tamaki to the Fat Gum Agency, and Nejire to the Ryukyu Agency.

Shota Aizawa brought the three in to meet Class 1-A after the second term orientation, with the stated purpose of explaining the Hero Work-Studies that students take on by their own initiative. Mirio chose demonstration over lecture and fought nearly the whole class by himself, beating them, then explained how the work-studies had turned him into U.A.'s best student. The class left impressed.

Every one of them was then hunted for a work-study place. Mirio took Izuku Midoriya, Tamaki took Eijiro Kirishima, and Nejire took Ochaco Uraraka and Tsuyu Asui. Soon after, all three played major parts in the Shie Hassaikai Raid beside those four students, each holding off powerful members of the organization including Kai Chisaki himself. The price was Mirio's Quirk, which he lost. Even without Permeation, the trio proved a versatile powerhouse during Class 1-A's hypothetical emergency drill.

Eri's power eventually restored what Mirio had lost, and the three reunited during the Final War for the first time in months to face a fully completed Tomura Shigaraki, a villain far beyond all three of them combined. Once the war ended, they graduated from U.A. in June. The group is no longer official, but the three stay in close contact, and all of them now rank inside the top twenty heroes in Japan.

The trio are recognized as the three strongest hero students anywhere in Japan. The work-studies let them sharpen their skills and master formidable Quirks unusually young, and even as high schoolers they were rated above most working professionals and treated as certain future top heroes.

Nejire Hado wields Wave Motion, a ranged power with wide application, and her command of it is solid enough that she can overwhelm top-tier villains without help. Tamaki Amajiki has been described as having potential beyond the majority of professionals; his personality holds him back, but Manifest's versatility and his practical use of it speak for themselves, and he outclasses most villains he meets. His mentor, the BMI Hero Fat Gum, rated him the most capable person present at the raid, ahead of himself, ahead of Tamaki's own friends, and ahead of Ryukyu, then ranked ninth in the country.

Mirio Togata once struggled so badly with his Quirk that he nearly abandoned heroics altogether. Training under Sir Nighteye changed that and made him the single best student at U.A. He overpowered Class 1-A effortlessly, a group considered prodigies by first-year standards and a match for Class 1-B, and was judged a serious candidate for the number one spot, implying he inspired more than Endeavor and Hawks, the top two at the time. He proved it in the years after the Final War by reaching number one himself.