Manga Retrospective: My Hero Academia
Last week, the long-running shounen manga series My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) by Kouhei Horikoshi finished its publication in Weekly Shounen Jump. So it’s time to look back fondly at this homage to Western comic book-style superheroes.
In the world of the story, several decades ago, a glowing baby was born, the first publicly known metahuman. It quickly became apparent that more people had mutations that altered their appearance or gave them unusual abilities; these mutations became known as Quirks. While there was a strong genetic component to Quirks, and they could be passed down from parent to child in some form, often a person with no known Quirk-bearing ancestors would develop one, while other times a person from a known Quirk family would be born with no Quirks whatsoever.
The latter is the case for Izuku “Deku” Midoriya. An obsessive superhero nerd, he desperately wants to become a superhero himself. But being in the 20% of Earth’s population that has no Quirk, it’s unlikely that he’ll even be accepted into a hero training trade school, let alone pass the rigorous licensing requirements. His former childhood friend Katsuki Bakugo, has nicknamed him “Deku”, “no good qualities”, and bullies Izuku for daring to aspire to the heroic path. Part of this is because Bakugo has an awesome explosive Quirk, and is considered “most likely to succeed” at their middle school, and he finds Deku’s ambitions insulting to his superior talents.
One day, Izuku runs into the world’s greatest hero, All-Might, and asks if there’s any way he can become a superhero despite his handicap. The hero is initially dismissive and discouraging, but after witnessing Izuku attempting to save Bakugo from a muddy supervillain, realizes that this child has the heart of a true hero.
It turns out that All-Might was himself born with no Quirk, but was gifted with One For All, a Quirk that can be passed down from one person to another, stockpiling power with each iteration. All-Might is secretly dying from wounds received in a terrible battle, and needs a heir. He physically trains Izuku for a year to be able to withstand the transfer, then gives the boy One For All on the morning of the entrance exam for U.A. High School, the top magnet school for prospective superheroes.
Despite struggling with his newfound power, Izuku’s heroic instincts and good heart earn him entrance into the hero program. He also meets a girl named Ochaco Uraraka (soon to be known as Uravity), who turns his nickname “Deku” into meaning “never gives up.” So Izuku keeps it as his hero name.
Deku joins Class 1-A and starts making friends. Bakugo is also in the class, but quickly learns that in a group of actual peers, they’re not nearly as impressed with his nasty personality. He never entirely loses the personality, but does stop the bullying after a couple of volumes. And this is the story of how everyone became the greatest hero.
There’s a lot to like about this series. For starters, everyone in Deku’s class has a distinctive appearance, personality and power set from day one. They all get moments in the spotlight (though for some it takes a long time) and chances to shine. None of this “the hero and his rival and maybe the love interest are the only people in class that matter” nonsense.
And many of the less important characters are also distinctive and have personalities. That one guy with a shuriken in his head from Chapter One? He comes back volumes later to be briefly relevant. And many others aren’t forgotten either.
And then there’s the villains, mostly the League of Villains, and their mysterious backer All For One. (Yes, that name ties to All-Might’s backstory.) They’re also distinctive, and those that stick around also have character development. Just not always positive development. Some of them develop relationships with our heroes and this affects the plot.
There’s exciting battles and rescues.
There’s also a subtheme of problems within the Japanese society as it stands. There’s prejudice against people who look “too different” or different in the wrong ways, particularly in rural regions. Children with “evil” or “disturbing” Quirks are poorly treated and sometimes abused. Civilians have become apathetic, assuming that superheroes will come along to fix any problem, even ones the civilian could step up for. The celebrity culture surrounding superheroes has led some of them to become more concerned with rankings, fame and merchandising potential than actually helping people. All of these cause issues in the storyline, and doing something to address them is treated as important…if not as immediately important as dealing with the villain of the day.
Which is not to say that there aren’t some less good things about the series. Over the course of time, the “big three” of Deku, Bakugo, and Shoto Todoroki (who has fire and ice powers) take up more and more of the focus, while the female characters of 1-A often feel neglected. (This becomes even more of a factor in the tie-in movies.)
Comedy relief perv character Mineta grated on most American readers. His relegation to out of focus status was welcomed, and when he suddenly said something that suggested he was bisexual, the same fans who normally pounce on anything that suggests a character isn’t “straight” were the first ones going “totally ambiguous language, we’re not accepting him as bisexual!”
As with any long-running shounen manga, there were a couple of storylines that went on too long or sagged in the middle.
After eight years, it was time to wrap up. As often happens, the final battles went on and on, so to close off most of the plot threads other than the villains, there had to be several coda chapters. I felt the ending hit all the important notes, if not every point I would have liked to address. It went well with the major and minor themes of the story.
In addition to the anime adaptation, there were spinoff manga series, the most interesting of which was “Vigilantes”, a prequel which featured people using their quirks for small scale heroism without licenses (which is illegal in Japan.)
There may or may not be a sequel, it’s certainly not necessary, and leaves plenty of room for fanfiction to fill in the gaps.
Currently, the entire series is available on the Shonen Jump website in North America. Recommended to superhero fans.
