My Hero Academia seemed to be on the top of the world as a new-gen shonen anime all the way back in the halcyon days of 2016. It managed to gain a massive following, becoming one of the best-received of the newer Shonen Jump titles. It also managed to tackle a lot of very interesting themes relating to legacy, generational trauma, and discrimination. In many ways, MHA followed in the footsteps of X-Men that came before it while adding its own special twist. A lot of thought-provoking and fun events happens in the early parts of the manga and the anime.

Unfortunately, due to the “My Villain Academia” chapters not being that popular in Japan, a lot of those more interesting pathways and themes seemed to just drop away with very little explanation. The manga somehow manages to wrap itself up while not actually addressing a lot of the foundational problems presented with the world at large. It’s not always easy to end a manga in a satisfying way, but My Hero Academia managed to put a lot of fans off. This, ultimately, begs the question of if MHA is doomed to repeat the mistakes of other beloved shonen anime before it or if Studio Bones will do what needs to be done and change the ending.

The My Hero Academia Manga Ending Disappointed Many Fans

Important Plots Were Just Abandoned

Much of what makes the earlier parts of My Hero Academia great are the ways in which it plays with the world it establishes at large. Superhuman society is presented as the norm, with 80% of the population having a myriad of powers that either make them unkillable gods or give them cacti for heads. In many ways, the statistics are the inverse of the X-Men because being without powers or “Quirkless” is seen as being the abnormal state, something Deku experiences fully. And the early part of the story really manages to set this up quite well, showing a part of this society that is deeply inequitable — but it doesn’t stop there.

The existence of the Todoroki family itself is a massive red flag as to the sustainability of this universe. Endeavor’s pathological need to be the #1 hero is something he projects onto his children, a fantastical version of something that happens in real life every day. Dabi is a direct result of this, the pressure of his father’s expectations and his inability to meet those expectations, fully breaking him psychologically and sending him down the path of being a murderer. This is also without mentioning the discrimination heteromorphs like Spinner experience and the instincts certain Quirks give to their users, like Himiko Toga. The series doesn’t shy away from the fact that superhuman society is less than perfect, and many of the villains the audience sees are shaped by that society rather than the need to hurt others.

What MHA does very well is something many superhero comics in the West have done for decades; it takes real-life injustices and dresses them up in the primary colors of superheroes to make the topics more palatable to a general audience. For example, the original Civil War event in Marvel Comics came about during the era of the Patriot Act in the United States, where personal freedoms were infringed upon in the name of safety. The conflict between Captain America and Iron Man in the comic is a direct reflection of the debates happening in real life at the time. My Hero Academia follows in this tradition and shines a light on several societal ills prevalent in multiple societies, like discrimination and economic disparity, along with inaccessibility to mental health resources. The problem, though, is the manga makes the choice to do away with tackling these topics in the end for the most part to have a big, shonen anime war arc.

My Hero Academia’s Manga Tossed Important Themes of Inequality Away

This inequality impacting the world so heavily is exemplified by Deku and main antagonist Shigaraki. Deku proclaims he is going to save Shigaraki, that he’ll do something about his predicament. Shigaraki himself was really given absolutely zero chance in this world, between his abusive father and the intensely dramatic formation of his Quirk. Deku is actually able to recognize that and does, indeed, want to help him. But most of that goes out the window with how the manga itself ends.

Shigaraki ends up dying, along with the majority of the villain cast, with Spinner acting as the exception, and he goes on to write a book about his experiences from the villain’s point of view of the final war. The war itself ends with Deku losing One For All, left only with the fading embers as he rejoins his classmates, and it feels almost anti-climactic and a lot of this starts right at the end of “My Villain Academia”, when the pacing of the manga goes from zero to sixty.

​​​​​​Up until those chapters, the anime had been moving at a relatively good pace, giving room to breathe and offering up a lot of good character moments. Until that point as well, the villains only had a certain amount of characterization behind them. These were the chapters that opened up their stories, even before Dabi’s famous reveal, and gave them a lot of background, especially characters like Toga and Twice. The sad thing, though, is these chapters were well-received in America but not as much in Japan, and this is where the pacing ramps up speed. So many of the themes that were established have to get thrown away because it is a race to the finish line from that point onward. It almost feels as though Kohei Horikoshi was trying to outrun public opinion turning on the manga and needing a big enough event to end it all.

The epilogue chapters do try to address some of this, but it feels like too little, too late in many ways. Epilogue chapters in general tend to feel very tacked on, especially when an anime has sprinted its way to the end and this is very true in this case as well. Everyone’s lives have moved on, obviously, and there is an impact of the villains on the heroes as they do their work but it feels like an afterthought. Ultimately, there is something realistic in the slowed changes of the world, but other than Spinner, is that work being attributed to some of the victims of the society around them or are the heroes still shining too brightly?

My Hero Academia’s Manga Ending Is Impacting the Anime’s Legacy

My Hero Academia’s Anime Finale Can Fix the Manga’s Mistakes By Making Subtle Changes

Changing an ending can be a bit of a harrowing proposition. Sometimes it can be for the better; in other cases, it can be an act of hubris that is more than a little bit of a problem. For another comic comparison, Watchmen had a major shift between the graphic novel and the movie and the change was ultimately for the worse, as it betrayed the themes of the original comic in a way that cannot be underestimated. This is also not something uncommon in anime as, many times, the anime outpaces the manga, and anime studios need to wrap it up as best as they can.

With My Hero Academia, in particular, it may be the best option. The opinion on the ending of the manga has been mainly mixed to negative, and there are a lot of ways in which it could be improved. One of the major criticisms was the fact that the time skip glossed over the end of the war and how society rebuilt. This could be an opportunity for the anime to show more of that, showing the impact the villains and their struggles had on the world at large. Another critique was related to Deku and his continued presence in hero society. It seems like after he loses his powers, he gets sidelined until he gets his mecha suit. This could be a chance for the anime to open up more about what happens to him and how he really does become a great hero in spite of his circumstances.

Ultimately, the My Hero Academia anime has a major chance to give fans more of what they wanted to see, maybe even a resolution to Deku and Uraraka’s budding romance, too. The manga and anime had so much amazing potential and threw away most of it to slam toward the end of the story. Not every anime has to be One Piece, but opening up the world is something Studio Bones has the option to do if they so choose. Only time will tell if the anime will withstand the test of time to become a classic, or end up a flash in the pan.