My Hero Academia anime

Given how popular hero stories have become, it's maybe not so strange that there are now two very popular manga and anime series, One-Punch Man and My Hero Academia. This review is for the first season of the My Hero Academia (MHA) anime, which ended recently.

A few generations ago, children were born who showed strange characteristics which became known as quirks. As time went by, quirks spread throughout the human population, until at the time MHA begins 80% of the world's human population, and even some animals, possess some kind of quirk. In this developing world of super-powered folks, some people use their quirks to commit crimes, which means that there are also superheroes who use their quirks to fight these criminals.

Izuku “Deku” Midoriya is a boy who grew up idolizing these superheroes, especially the most powerful one of all, All Might. But Deku was one of the unusual people who was born without any quirk, which meant that his hopes of becoming a superhero himself were essentially nil. But an encounter with All Might opens up a way for him to acquire a powerful quirk and continue to pursue his dream at the the hero training high school, UA.

Much of this first season is about Deku getting into the school, participating in various class activities, and meeting other students. But towards the end, he and his classmates get into real battles with villains who invade the school grounds.

It might be interesting to compare MHA to something like X-Men, because they are opposites of each other in a lot of ways. In X-Men, mutants are the abnormal ones, the ones who are seen as been different and dangerous. In the MHA world, quirkless humans have become abnormal, and growing up Deku suffers from being one of those few people around who have no quirk. A boy he grows up with, Katsuki “Kacchan” Bakugou, looks down on and bullies the quirkless Deku when his own explosive quirk begins to show and develop.

This not-quite-friendship, not-quite-rivalry between Deku and Baku is one of the main elements and sources of tension in the story.

Deku is an intriguing character to have as a main lead for this story. Even before he was given his quirk, he is shown as being intelligent and analytical, as well as courageous. In many ways, his quirk is more of a problem for him up to this point then a help, as whenever he uses it his body is still unable to handle the power it unleashes in him.

Not all content is what would be called “family-friendly”. Some of the humor is suggestive and crude, and a few of the outfits are revealing.

With the anime appearing to be very popular and season 2 already being announced, one good thing to know is that the manga is very far ahead of the where the anime is now. Hopefully viewers of the anime will not need to deal with fillers for some time. While the tone of this first season has been mostly lite, if it continues to closely follow the manga then that will change. With almost 100 chapters already finished in the manga, there have been at least two story arcs that have been very intense.

I enjoyed this first season of the anime, and recommend it.

http://www.hulu.com/my-hero-academia

This is kind of a general manga/anime question. Do most series in either medium have an intended ending from the start that creators stick to regardless of popularity? In other words, do creators usually end a series when they had originally planned rather than drag something out because it's popular?

The latter is certainly done in American media, but I've noticed British shows do this less and wondered if the same is true for manga/anime. I actually like the idea of a great story running its course and ending when the storytellers think it best for the story.

My own observation, limited as it may be, is that for a lot of manga authors there is a kind of ending in mind for their stories. For example, I've recently seen somewhere that the series One Piece, which has been going on for about 20 years, will end in about 8 or so years. Another long series, Bleach, is suppose to be ending very soon, maybe even this year.

There might be exceptions. Dragonball comes most readily to mind as a possible exception. Then there's Naruto, where the original Naruto story has ended but it's being continued now with the focus on Naruto's son Baruto.

But I don't think they do what a lot of our comics do, where they essentially take one character or team and stick with them for decades on end, the kind of things that are done withe Batman and Spider-man stories.

It might be interesting to see how that works with One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, though, since they are very much like American hero comic stories. There is so far little hint in OPM of any kind of an ending, and while MHA has set up the heroes and villains the story could be said to just be starting, even after almost 100 chapters.

jazzact13 wrote: One Piece, which has been going on for about 20 years, will end in about 8 or so years.

Ho...lee...crap...

That's impressive.

It's a wiki page, so it's claims may not be the best, but here's something about how One Piece might have expanded from the original idea.

http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/One_Piece_(Manga)

"Originally, Oda wanted his series to run for 5 years (meaning One Piece could have ended in 2002), but he went longer than expected and has no idea how many more years his story will be. However, it should be noted that Oda has stated that the end of Chapter 597 marks the end of the first half of One Piece. Oda has already planned the ending for One Piece. Despite how long it will take him to complete it, he will end One Piece the way he planned from the start."