On My Shelves: My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia)

     "It is all right now. Why? Because I am here." – All-Might

 

In a world like this one, but some undefined time in the future, civilization has been drastically changed by the emergence of strange powers, called "Quirks". At first very rare, by now over 80% of humanity has some form of Quirk – which can range from extendible fingers to invisibility, ability to project energy, and so on. In the younger generations, almost everyone has a Quirk.

Due to the nature of these new powers, the profession of superhero became reality; for those seeking to either become heroes, or to at least learn how to use and exploit their Quirks, various schools offer training and even specific Hero Courses. Of these, none is more prestigious than UA, the school which has graduated more of the top heroes than any other, including All-Might, the most powerful and admired hero of all.

Izuku Midoriya is an idealistic believer in Heroes, an obsessive fanboy who wants nothing more than to be a great Hero himself; he studies every villain and hero, analyzing their actions, their powers, their strategies, so that he might understand all of them when his time comes. But Midoriya has one terrible problem: he is Quirkless. Pure, vanilla human being without even a minor special power (like his mother's low-level telekinesis). Learning he would never have a Quirk nearly broke him as a child, but he in the end refused to accept that this made it impossible to become a Hero.

Being Quirkless has caused him to be subjected to numberless humiliations, including at the hands of Katsuki ("Kacchan") Bakugo, a childhood friend/acquaintance who gained a spectacular Quirk (controlled explosions) and a hell of a lot of arrogance. Bakugo doesn't understand Midoriya's drive to be a hero even though he is powerless, and threatens and belittles him at every encounter, especially when Bakugo hears that despite having no powers Midoriya is applying to UA.

One day, following another dismissive beating by Kacchan, Midoriya is attacked by a supervillain – a slime-creature who can take over and control bodies. Just before he can be overwhelmed, none other than All-Might appears and rescues him. Confronted by his greatest idol, Midoriya catches hold of All-Might as he departs, desperate to ask him the burning question: can a Quirkless become a hero?

His interference turns out to have consequences, however; first, he distracted All-Might and caused him to lose track of the container in which he had secured the slime-villain. Second, by prolonging the conversation, it turns out that he has reached a secret limit to All-Might's power: without warning, the huge, handsome, heroic All-Might suddenly changes into a wasted, thin, cadaverous man.

All-Might had suffered a terrible injury in the recent past, one that nearly killed him, and now he can only safely be in his heroic form and use his power for three hours a day; any more risks further injury. In truth, All-Might should really be resting and doing very little, but he refuses to; he is called the Symbol of Peace for a reason, and takes his responsibility to appear to be unharmed and always available seriously.

This first conversation with All-Might shifts some of Midoriya's perceptions; he realizes how little he understood of the circumstances surrounding the greatest hero, and how his own careless behavior could have multiple consequences. Still, this does little to reduce the pain of All-Might's answer to his question, which is to say that being a hero is not merely a matter of a Quirk, but that for someone like Midoriya, it would be wiser to choose a different profession.

This gentle yet firm rejection by his idol nearly breaks Midoriya for the second time in his life. He makes his way towards home, unsure as to whether he should even retain the notebooks of heroes and villains, whether he has wasted all his life in dreaming something that was impossible.

Meanwhile, All-Might, in his weakened civilian form, finds himself at a horrific scene – the slime villain returned, and now slowly taking over control of another young man, this one with a powerful and destructive Quirk that is keeping the available heroes from approaching. All-Might stares, furious at his own weakness and inability to act, frozen.

And then Midoriya arrives at the same alley… and recognizes the trapped young man as Katsuki Bakugo.

Midoriya bursts from the crowd and races forward, a part of him wondering what the hell he's doing, but the rest charging without pause or hesitation. He whips his backpack around and over, sending a hail of objects including his notebooks out; one of these hits the slime-villain in the eye, actually causing it to wince, as Midoriya desperately scrabbles at the shapeless sludge, trying to dislodge Kacchan. "I saw your eyes and it looked like you were asking for help!" he says.

His actions force the other Heroes to act… and All-Might to look once more at himself. "Pathetic," he thinks, and then springs into action, risking his life by taking up the power once more.

Afterwards, as Midoriya finally makes his way home, All-Might appears to him once more. "Young man, I come with thanks, a correction, and a suggestion."

The thanks are for showing All-Might once more why he was a hero. "I would have become a man in a bodysuit who was nothing but talk."

The correction: "You can become a Hero."

The suggestion: "You are worthy to inherit my power."

And so the boy who was born without a quirk… may have the chance to become the hero he most admired in the world.

 

This is a beautifully done series – fun, well-written, heartwarming. One of the things that makes it work is that it takes its time to get to the key points. All-Might doesn't tell Midoriya that he can become a hero until the very end of the second episode, after almost crushing (without malice) Midoriya's dreams. Midoriya doesn't actually get All-Might's power until the fourth episode, and as it turns out, being GIVEN the power doesn't mean you can control it. For quite a while, using "One For All" (the name of All-Might's power) literally breaks Midoriya's body every time he uses it.

Emotionally this series understands how to project feelings better than almost any I've seen. The scene described above, where All-Might finally acknowledges Midoriya and tells him that he can achieve his dream, is heartbreaking in a wonderful way. Partly this is because it realistically depicts Midoriya's whipsawing mood, a person who has fought for a dream they knew was hopeless, then finally begun to accept it was hopeless, and then, suddenly, seeing that terrible hope before them, so bright and painful that instead of laughing they must cry, a tearing, agonizing sobbing that releases all the hurt and uncertainty they had in their life. I don't cry easily, but I have watched that scene several times now and EVERY time it brings tears.

The characters are interesting, too. All-Might could so easily have been a parody of the hero, and his very catchphrase – quoted at the beginning of this review – could have been one for a self-important jerk. But the more we learn about All-Might, the more we learn that, really, he's EXACTLY what he presents himself as. He and Midoriya connect because they have the same ideals, to "save people with a smile".

Kacchan could be the typical rival – and in some ways, he is – but at the same time he's not quite what I expected at first. He's definitely a jerk, but he doesn't appear to be taking the actual Villain Path, which the typical tropes of the show would make you expect.

We meet many new characters as Midoriya enters UA, and this begins to fill the void in his life that he never really knew was there. The way in which he becomes part of a group, and they come to accept him, is also really well done, building through the various episodes.

Naturally, there really are supervillains around, and eventually they make their move on UA campus itself – because they intend to kill All-Might. Class 1-A finds itself suddenly trapped and under siege by a nightmarish assemblage of villains, and their teachers' heroic defense may not hold out…

I highly recommend this series!