On July 7th, Kouhei Horikoshi’s manga, My Hero of Academia, celebrated five years of serialization. Since the first chapter was published back in 2014, the series has spawned three spin-off manga series, an anime adaptation, a stage production, four-light novels, six games, and one feature film with another set to release at the end of this year, and has become a smash hit (pun intended) all around the world.
If you’ve spent more than ten minutes with me, you’d also know that it’s a series very near and dear to my heart. I’ve met some of my best friends through it, get closer to my little sister through it, cosplay its characters whenever I get the chance and own a frankly obscene amount of merchandise for it without shame. All the pictures in this article only exist to reflect that. I’m actually about to start rewatching the whole series to get ready for the anime’s fourth season in October, and I’m so ready for the cozy feeling of seeing all my favourite characters again to get me through the sophomore slump.
Over the three and a half years I’ve been an MHA fan, I’ve also learned plenty of things from the manga/anime itself. Here are just a few:
1. There’s never just one way to achieve your goals.
One of the overarching questions My Hero Academia tries to answer is, “What does it mean to be a hero?”. And the answer to that question isn’t really clear, because the series presents us with so many different characters, all taking their path to answer it for themselves. Some heroes are dedicated to saving as many people as they can, and there are heroes dedicated to being a beacon people can depend on when there’s danger of losing hope. Some heroes don’t fit the stereotypical image of what a superhero “should” look like. For example, the heroes involved in disaster relief or medicine. All of these characters have the same overall goal, but each of them has different ways of getting there, and the places they end up might not be the places they intended when they first started.
And even if you think you know your path and what you’re going to do to get there, the series also tells us that roadblocks and diverging pathways are going to pop up at every step of the way and that there isn’t necessarily one right way to get past them. Deku constantly has to deal with the strain of his quirk on his body, but he spends plenty of time developing new strategies to minimize that strain and become a more effective fighter.
2. Everyone has their own strengths, and the key to being successful is to figure out what yours are and how to use them.
My Hero Academia takes place in a world of quirks – superpowers that about eighty percent of the population is born with. These powers might be something small, like being able to bend your fingers more than most people can, or they might be something incredible, like being able to create objects out of thin air. The important thing is that they’re mostly individual, or at least family-based.
UA, the high school where most of the series takes place, isn’t just a school for kids who want to be heroes when they grow up, but it’s also a place for those kids to experiment and find out what their quirks can do. Just like in real life, it portrays school as a place not just to learn about the world around you, but also to learn about yourself and where you can see yourself thriving.
3. Take risks, but remember the impact those risks may have on you and the people close to you.
One particularly underrated scene takes place right after a summer training camp gone wrong when Deku is about to go back to school, and his mother, Inko, asks him, “Do you really have to go to UA?”
Deku has spent the whole series up to this point throwing himself into danger and breaking his bones to save people, some of whom he doesn’t even know. And while we as viewers/readers see that and marvel at the action and fight choreography, we have to understand that behind every punch, his mother is scared out of her mind about what might happen.
So by all means, live your life, do things that scare you, and take chances. But remember that there are people who care about you, and those changes might leave an impression on them, too.
4. Remember that your idols and role models are human, too.
In a world where being a superhero can function as a professional career (that can pay pretty handsomely), it’s easy to put people on a pedestal. Some of those people may be much less than heroic behind closed doors, but behind the mask, most of them are just… people.
As early on as the very first episode, we see the number-one hero, All Might, dubbed the Symbol of Peace, as just a normal guy. Despite his image of having everything under control (“It’s fine now! Why? Because I am here!”) he has his struggles, too, especially when it comes to being a mentor to Deku.
People aren’t infallible, and they make mistakes. Holding them to impossible standards will only make it harder to bear when they do mess up. And they will mess up, eventually, because nobody is perfect. But that’s okay.
5. Don’t give up.
No matter how bad things might seem, something better will always come your way. It might be small, it might be big, but it’ll always be something. Whether it’s the power you as a quirkless kid have been dreaming about for fourteen years or just a supportive group of friends, the world is a weird place, and good things can come out of nowhere just as much as bad things can.
I’m lucky enough to have met some of the greatest people in the world through Sky High: The Anime, especially since I started it at one of the darkest points in my life. I know all too well that the fandom has a disastrous reputation, but there are little pockets of sunshine there (see my piece on fanfiction from last semester) that I can call my third home with complete certainty (after Seattle, Washington and Waltham, Massachusetts). So I leave you with a bonus takeaway: Don’t be ashamed of the things you like, because they might lead you to amazing places.