My Hero Academia

• 1. A Hero Without Powers

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  My Hero Academia is a Japanese manga series by Kōhei Horikoshi, and its hero starts with nothing. Izuku Midoriya is a boy born without a Quirk, one of the superpowers that have become ordinary in his world. He dreams of becoming a superhero anyway. By April 2024, the manga had over 100 million copies in circulation, spin-offs included. That total places it among the best-selling manga series of all time. How does a powerless boy carry a story that far? What shaped the artist who drew him? And how does a series about heroes decide when to stop?

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• 2. A World of Quirks

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  About 80% of the people in this world have superpowers, which the story credits to recent human evolution. These abilities are called Quirks, and they can be genetically inherited. Some are small in scale and others are god-like. Most carry a drawback, such as a usage limit or self-injury, and a few show up as permanent physical mutations. A Quirk generally appears just after a person's toddler years. Society has reshaped itself around them and largely turned them into commerce.

  Some Quirk users earn the title of Hero. Heroes cooperate with authorities on rescue operations and on arresting Villains, the criminals who abuse their Quirks. They work from Hero Agencies, which serve as both a base of operations and a business. An agency may be led by a Hero with lower-level sidekicks, or run by Heroes as equals. Successful Heroes become celebrities and are ranked by popularity on the Hero Billboard Charts. The first reported Quirk appeared in China, and characters from the United States sometimes join the story.

  U.A. High School in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan is considered one of the most prestigious places to begin Pro Hero training. Students study combat and rescue operations, and learn to blend their skills and overcome their drawbacks. Companies sponsor them, mainly by building, repairing and remodeling hero suits and support gear. Pro Heroes also scout students for internships. A student who has passed the Provisional Hero License Exam can act as a sidekick, which can lead to a full-time sidekick job after graduation.

  The Hero Public Safety Commission first enlisted vigilantes, people who had volunteered for heroic duties without permission, to do its dirty work. It later abandoned that idea and recruited Pro Heroes instead. Students who have acted as vigilantes are barred from hero work by Quirk restriction laws. Vigilante costumes are sewn from regular clothes and everyday items, because vigilantes cannot reach the support companies that serve heroes.

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• 3. The Inheritance

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  Izuku, who goes by Deku, idolizes Japan's No. 1 Hero, All Might, and hopes to enter the Hero Course at U.A. High School. One day he tries to save Katsuki Bakugo from a villain. Bakugo is a childhood friend who bullies him for lacking powers. All Might, injured earlier by the Villain All For One, sees the attempt and chooses Deku as heir to his Quirk, One For All. That Quirk lets its holder stockpile raw power and pass it on to others.

  Nearly a year of physical training later, Deku becomes the ninth holder of One For All. He passes U.A.'s Entrance Exam by saving Ochaco Uraraka. Deku, Ochaco and Bakugo land among the twenty students of Class 1-A, taught by Shota Aizawa, who goes by Eraser Head.

  The League of Villains attacks Class 1-A and All Might during one of their classes. It is led by Tomura Shigaraki, All For One's apprentice. Shigaraki is also the grandson of Nana Shimura, the deceased seventh holder of One For All.

  At a televised Sports Festival, Deku helps classmate Shoto Todoroki move past his resentment of his father, the No. 2 Hero Endeavor, who abused Shoto and his family. Bakugo wins the festival. During the internships that follow, Class 1-A's Representative Tenya Ida chases revenge against Stain, a villain who believes most heroes are fake. Stain had crippled Ida's older brother. Deku and Shoto help Ida defeat Stain, but his ideology spreads. Many of his believers join Shigaraki's League, including Dabi, Himiko Toga and Twice.

  At Summer Training Camp, Classes 1-A and 1-B are ambushed by League recruits, who kidnap Bakugo hoping to recruit him. Deku and four friends rescue Bakugo, who refused to join, while All Might fights All For One. All For One is defeated and imprisoned. All Might spends the last embers of One For All and retires. Suspecting a traitor, U.A. moves the students into dorms. Bakugo later deduces that One For All can be transferred, but Deku and All Might persuade him to keep it secret.

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• 4. The Wider War

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  Sir Nighteye, All Might's former sidekick, takes Deku as an intern alongside Mirio Togata, one of U.A.'s top-ranked third-years known as the Big Three. Nighteye's team investigates the Shie Hassaikai, a yakuza group experimenting on its boss's granddaughter Eri to produce Quirk-Destroying Drugs. In the raid to save her, Nighteye is killed, Mirio loses his power, and the League steals the remaining drugs. Aizawa adopts Eri, and Class 1-A performs a rock concert at a School Culture Festival to help her overcome her trauma.

  Endeavor, now the No. 1 Hero, tries to make amends with his family. The new No. 2 Hero, Hawks, spies on the League of Villains. During a battle exercise with Class 1-B, Deku awakens One For All. He can now communicate with the vestiges of earlier holders and slowly acquire all of their Quirks.

  The League next fights the Meta Liberation Army, another villain group. Twice, Toga and Shigaraki awaken their Quirks, and the two groups merge into the Paranormal Liberation Front. Shigaraki regains memories of accidentally killing his family when his Quirk, Decay, first appeared. He then undergoes a procedure to obtain All For One's Quirk of stealing and transferring other Quirks.

  When the war begins, Hawks kills Twice, and Shigaraki goes on a massive destruction spree. Eri restores Mirio's Quirk. Dabi reveals that he is Toya, Endeavor's oldest son, long presumed dead. He broadcasts Endeavor's abusive past along with Twice's death, and the public's trust in Heroes collapses.

  Thousands of villains, All For One among them, break out of prison. Deku and All Might reveal the truth about One For All and leave U.A. to hunt the escapees. The hunt leaves Deku in physical and emotional ruin, so his classmates bring him back to U.A., which is now a refugee camp. Bakugo apologizes for his bullying. Ochaco pleads with refugees protesting Deku's return, telling them that Heroes need saving too.

  Yuga Aoyama of Class 1-A turns out to be the suspected traitor. He reconciles with his class and helps the Heroes lure the Paranormal Liberation Front into a trap that scatters them across Japan. Shoto defeats Dabi, who rises again for a suicidal attack on the refugees. The entire Todoroki family extinguishes the slowly dying Dabi.

  Toga creates an army of Twice clones and stabs Ochaco. The two girls come to an understanding, and Toga dies saving Ochaco through a fatal blood transfusion. All For One takes a modified drug made from Eri's Quirk. It restores his youth but will eventually kill him. He tries to reach Shigaraki to fuse with him permanently, but many Heroes stall him, including All Might in a powered exoskeleton. A critically wounded Bakugo finally kills him.

  Deku then fights Shigaraki, who frees himself from All For One's control. Unable to win physically, Deku forcibly transfers One For All to damage Shigaraki's soul. That carries him into Shigaraki's memories, where he comforts Shigaraki about his family's deaths. All For One's vestige reveals that he engineered Shigaraki from birth to be his vessel, including by giving him Decay. With hero reinforcements, Deku destroys Shigaraki's body. The vestiges of Shigaraki and the past holders destroy All For One's vestige.

  Eight years later, Deku is Quirkless again and teaches at U.A., while his former classmates are Pro Heroes or Sidekicks. All Might gifts him a powered suit that replicates his old Quirks, funded by those classmates. Deku uses it to return to hero work. One month later he and Ochaco begin a relationship, and six months after that he becomes the Number 4 hero.

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• 5. Horikoshi's Influences

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  Barrage, Horikoshi's previous series, was canceled after just two volumes. He was depressed and out of ideas. To find new ones, he revisited a one-shot he had published in Akamaru Jump, and it became the basis for My Hero Academia.

  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, Star Wars and X-Men fed his imagination, because Horikoshi is an avid fan of American films and comics. Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto is the main influence on his art, and it gave him a love of drawing hands. He also cites Dragon Ball, Ultraman and Kamen Rider. He is a fan of the kaiju franchises Gamera and Godzilla too, and has referred to them in several comments.

  Hitoshi Koike, the series' editor, said Horikoshi already had a general story in mind. Even so, many story ideas were rejected, and Horikoshi dismissed some himself. The first three chapters took longer than those of many new serialized works. Koike and Horikoshi worked on character designs while finishing the storyboards, and Koike was excited by the designs before he knew their roles in the plot.

  Kengo Monji, the second editor, said Horikoshi had a difficult time writing chapters at first. Monji saw the manga as mixing the flair of Japanese shōnen manga with "heroes", a concept he thought a wide audience could understand. He also complimented the cartoon-style artwork.

  Horíkoshi says the main theme he focuses on is "what makes a hero". He likes stories with bad endings, and horror stories too. Those are hard for him to draw, because the mood of his stories follows his own current mood. To keep the mood up, he adds silly-looking characters such as Fat Gum.

  He has said he was inspired by the idea of a world where anyone, whatever their background or abilities, could become a hero. He wanted to show that even people without powers can make a difference through hard work. As a result, the heroes in the series are passionate people with clear goals rather than egotistical ones. In a world where superheroes are regulated and sold as brands, Izuku still finds their actions inspiring.

  Reviewer Creamer noted the series' positive view of heroes. He wrote that "in the modern world, we often challenge heroic ideals, and the motivations of the people who pursue them". He traced American media from the optimism of the Silver Age of Comic Books to the ambiguity that followed Watchmen. Even in Japan, he noted, unquestioned heroism is challenged in modern revisions of older series such as Yatterman and Gatchaman.

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• 6. The Long Goodbye

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  One Piece was the yardstick Horikoshi first used when he talked about length. He said My Hero Academia would not run as long as that series, because he felt he lacked the stamina, and he preferred to stay concise compared with other shōnen manga.

  In April 2021, he said the series had continued longer than expected but was still heading toward the ending he had chosen before it began. In December 2021, at Jump Festa '22, he said: "if things go smoothly, the manga will meet its goal to end in one year. If it doesn't go smoothly, I think Izuku's voice actor Yamashita will be reading out the exact same letter from me at next year's Jump Festa." He also teased that Bakugo would soon get a "big scene".

  The 34th volume carried a note from him in which he wrote: "I feel like I can finally see the goal in sight. It's a rather strange feeling getting to this point." He added: "Change is scary as you grow older."

  In October 2022, Horikoshi rescinded the Jump Festa statement and chose to take longer on the final arc. By December 2022 he admitted his estimates were wrong but said the ending was "very close". In December 2023, he repeated that message and added that he still wanted to draw many things beyond the battle then underway. He joked: "if the series continues until next year's Jump Festa, we will hold a Dogeza Festival on the stage."

  In June 2024, Shueisha announced in the 27th issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump that the manga had entered its "epilogue" with the 424th chapter. Horikoshi commented that a story's conclusion is usually short, but this is not the kind of manga to end right after the villain falls. It would go on "a little longer", he said, and "return to its title". Later that month came the announcement that the series would end in five chapters, after a ten-year run, on the 5th of August 2024. He thanked the fans who made it possible for him to draw Deku and the others.

  The manga had begun in Weekly Shōnen Jump on the 7th of July 2014. Its chapters were collected in 42 tankōbon volumes, released from the 4th of November 2014 to the 4th of December 2024. The final volume includes 38 pages of new material set after the original ending, among them a bonus chapter numbered 431. That chapter would later become a bonus television special, which premiered on the 2nd of May 2026.

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• 7. A Franchise Takes Shape

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  Bones produced the anime adaptation, which was directed by Kenji Nagasaki and written by Yōsuke Kuroda. Yoshihiko Umakoshi created the character designs. The first season aired from the 3rd of April to the 26th of June 2016. The seventh season aired from the 4th of May to the 12th of October 2024, after four "Memories" recap specials the month before. The eighth and final season aired from the 4th of October to the 13th of December 2025.

  My Hero Academia: Two Heroes premiered at Anime Expo in Los Angeles on the 5th of July 2018, before reaching Japanese theaters on the 3rd of August. Three more films followed. Heroes Rising opened in Japan on the 20th of December 2019 and World Heroes' Mission on the 6th of August 2021. You're Next opened on the 2nd of August 2024 and began screening in the United States on the 11th of October 2024.

  Moviegoers received manga as well. The first one million attendees on the 3rd of August 2018 were given a prequel one-shot by Horikoshi about All Might's past and Nana Shimura. The booklet handed to You're Next attendees in Japan on the 2nd of August 2024 had a limited print run of 1.5 million copies. It included a seven-page prequel titled A Piece of Cake, centered on Class 1-A students.

  Three spin-off manga followed the main series. Hirofumi Neda's My Hero Academia: Smash!! is a comedy that ran in the Shōnen Jump+ digital app from the 9th of November 2015 to the 6th of November 2017, collected in five volumes. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is a prequel written by Hideyuki Furuhashi and illustrated by Betten Court. It ran from the 20th of August 2016 to the 28th of May 2022 and filled 15 volumes. Yōkō Akiyama's My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions gathers side stories and ended on the 4th of January 2025.

  In October 2018, Legendary Entertainment acquired the rights to a live-action adaptation. In August 2021, it was revealed that Shinsuke Sato would direct, with Alex Garcia and Jay Ashenfelter overseeing the project. Toho is set to distribute the film in Japan.

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• 8. Sales, Praise and Controversy

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  In 2014, the first volume reached seventh place on Oricon's weekly manga chart with 71,575 copies sold, and its first printing sold out almost immediately. Volume two reached sixth place with 167,531 copies. By March 2017, the manga had over 10 million copies in circulation. It passed 50 million by April 2021, with 37 million sold in Japan and 13 million in the rest of the world. It passed 85 million by February 2023.

  The year 2018 brought the series' strongest showing in Japan. It was the second best-selling manga of that year, behind One Piece, with over 6.7 million copies sold. In December 2024, the 42nd and final volume sold 1 million copies in its first week. That made My Hero Academia the fourth manga series to reach that mark in a single volume, after Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Attack on Titan and One Piece.

  Viz Media licensed the series for English-language release in North America and published the first volume on the 4th of August 2015. That volume debuted at fourth place on The New York Times Manga Best Seller list. According to NPD BookScan, My Hero Academia was the best-selling manga series in the United States in 2020. By 2022 the first volume alone had over 1.2 million copies in circulation, and the franchise as a whole had over 10 million in the United States.

  Nick Creamer of Anime News Network gave the first volume a B rating. He called Horikoshi's artwork "absolutely professional" and "consistent and highly polished". Leroy Douresseaux of Comic Book Bin said the series proved that "manga can do superhero comic books that are every bit as imaginative as American superhero comics". Not every review was glowing. Michelle Smith of Soliloquy in Blue felt some female characters did not get enough spotlight, and Manga Bookshelf found too much narration in places. The series has won several awards, including the Sugoi Japan Award and the Harvey Award for Best Manga.

  Before the anime premiered, Masashi Kishimoto, creator of Naruto, praised Horikoshi's work and said it must be a great feeling to see it animated. He added: "And they aren't making me say this, it's the truth." One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda also praised the series.

  Fans took the characters into cosplay. A survey by the retailer Zavvi counted Instagram hashtags for franchise names followed by the word cosplay. My Hero Academia came first worldwide with 2,377,476 posts, ahead of DC Comics, Marvel, Disney and Star Wars. Izuku placed fifth among characters with 224,429 posts. On Tumblr's Year in Review, the series ranked first in the Top Anime & Manga Shows category from 2018 to 2021.

  In early 2020, a character's name set off a controversy in South Korea and China. The name was alleged to reference Unit 731, an infamous Imperial Japanese army unit known for brutal experiments on prisoners of war. The series was removed from digital platforms in China, and the name was changed. Shueisha and Horikoshi each issued apology statements on Twitter. The bilibili platform told the news service Abacus that the removal was "in accordance with China's policies". Both the publisher and the creator said the reference to war crimes was wholly unintentional, and Shueisha promised to deepen its understanding of historical and cultural matters. In June 2025, there were multiple reports of cosplayers portraying characters from the series being attacked in China.

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