My Hero Academia's resident heroine Ochako Uraraka is well known for her bubbly, upbeat personality that matches her Zero Gravity Quirk quite well. While floating to show she's on cloud nine is all fine and dandy, any villain who underestimates this perky hero will be in for a world of hurt. There's far more to Uraraka's Quirk than meets the eye. Here are five particularly interesting and important facts about this Quirk.
Uraraka's Quirk Simulates Zero-Gravity -- But Doesn't Get Rid of Mass
At its most basic, Uraraka's Zero Gravity appears to do nothing more than stop gravity from affecting an object or person. Because the air around the object is still affected by gravity and the Earth's centrifugal forces, this causes objects to float of their own accord. This makes it easy for Uraraka or others to manipulate these now seemingly weightless objects -- but weightless does not equal mass-less, meaning that they're also easily weaponized.
Usually, an object has a weight that is a result of a simple formula: force is equal to mass times acceleration. The "acceleration" for a static object is the pull of gravity, creating the "force" of weight. By creating a zero-gravity environment, Uraraka has now put herself in charge of the object's acceleration, meaning that she can pick up giant pillars and swing them like baseball bats. What this also means is that she hits like a truck. Because an object's mass is independent of gravity, this means that she has the potential to swing that object faster than gravity's acceleration.
This means that should the object connect with its target, the force exerted could feel like being hit with something that weighs much more than that object under regular gravity! The only limits to how hard Uraraka can hit are her own muscles and air resistance.
Uraraka's Zero Gravity has a Weight Limit
Initially revealed through a character splash page in Volume 3 of the manga, Uraraka can only float up to three tons of weight at a time, which is not good news for the character. Three tons is a lot less than people realize, as the average car is just over one ton in weight, and larger construction vehicles can get up to 20 or 30 tons. Thus, while she may hit like a truck, Uraraka won't be hitting with one anytime soon. This severely limits her, as lightening high-mass objects that could serve as good makeshift weapons (either through strategic timing for returning gravity or using her own acceleration to hit hard) will exhaust and nauseate her faster.
This also limits her versatility as a rescue worker, as the three-ton limit refers to the cumulative weight of everything she's floating, meaning even moving rubble for a rescue could quickly bring her to her knees. That particular weight limit is also outdated, thanks to the class' training with the Wild Wild Pussycats. By making herself float inside a hamster ball and roll down a hill, she's greatly increased her nausea tolerance and the total weight she can affect.
Weight is the Only Number Keeping Uraraka's Quirk Down
Aside from the cumulative weight limit, Uraraka has no limits on what or how many things she can float. This opens up some unique strategies using low-weight items like grains of sand. She can easily put up a "smokescreen" by simply using her Quirk on the beach and throwing weightless sand at her opponents. She could immobilize all her opponents making them weightless, or use her environment to her advantage; by making rubble and stones float, she can create traps like she did when she fought Bakugo, or team up with others like Tsuyu to create projectiles.
And, when working with projectiles her Quirk has an added layer of versatility -- by strategically timing the release of her Quirk, she can add gravity back into the mix to further accelerate a descending projectile beyond even the speed at which it was thrown!
Similarly, it doesn't appear that Uraraka has any range of effectiveness. Once she's applied her Quirk, the object will continue to act as if it's in a zero-gravity environment until she releases it, no matter how close or far away she is.
Uraraka's Finger Pads are the Source of her Quirk
In order to activate her Quirk, Uraraka must touch all five of her finger pads on either hand to an object -- which can make activating it at arm's reach rather difficult. Despite the fact that her Quirk creates plenty of cannon fodder for ranged attacks, Uraraka herself is forced to be a close-combat hero. Making things even more difficult that is the fact that activating her Quirk also causes her finger pads to glow a vibrant bright pink, a dangerous tell at close range.
While only one hand is needed to activate her Quirk, Uraraka needs both hands to release it -- or use it on herself. When releasing objects back to the pull of gravity, she must touch each finger-pad to its match on her other hand simultaneously. However, to use her Quirk on herself, something that she has been shown getting better at throughout the series, she touches each finger to its opposite. However, in Chapter 102, she accidentally starts floating when flustered, so it doesn't seem that this unique hand position is as necessary for activating her Quirk as her usual position for releasing it is.
Releasing Uraraka's Quirk is All or Nothing
Uraraka's shown great creativity with a seemingly simple ability, but when it comes to releasing the effects of her Quirk, the ability to pick and choose which items are released would take her to another level entirely. Currently, Uraraka can use her Zero Gravity strategically when activating it, but the same is not true in reverse.
What this means is that she cannot lay traps for people by sending up huge amounts of rubble, then release the pieces one-by-one to herd them to a certain location, or even keep some objects in reserve in case the first barrage is unsuccessful. Had she been able to do this, it's possible she could have won against Bakugo in the sports tournament.
