My Hero Academia #1-11

My Hero Academia #1-11

Originally released in 2014

Written by Kohei Horikoshi

Art by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia seems to be coming to an end soon, going by the events of the latest chapters, so this seems like the time to revisit the series. The series focuses on Izuku "Deku" Midoriya, a big fan of superheroes in a world where superheroes are real.  Unfortunately, Deku is one of the small handful of people born without a superpower, or "quirk".

However, a chance encounter with the number 1 hero All Might leads to Deku discovering his hero's secret - All Might's power is something that was passed down throughout generations, an ability known as One For All. Upon proving his heroism, even without any special powers, All Might makes Deku his successor, transferring the power of One For All to him.

That doesn't mean it will be easy for Deku, however.  He needs almost a year of training before his body can even handle One For All, and that's on top of his studies.  Deku's tendency to overwork himself doesn't do him any favours, but he earns the ability to withstand One For All.

One of Deku's middle school classmates, and the only one from his school who makes it into the prestigious U.A. High School along with Deku, is Bakugo.  Bakugo's powers involve generating explosions, and his personality is as fiery as his powers.  He's the most popular character in the series by a good margin, though I don't see why; he's extremely arrogant, viewing everyone around him as extras/background characters and automatically assuming that he's better than everyone else.  He outright tells Deku that, if Deku doesn't like not having a quirk, he should kill himself - the bullying stops after the first chapter, when Deku saves him, but his attitude and ego remain, and he makes no attempt to apologize or repent for his actions.

The entrance exam requires prospective students to defeat robots and save others using their powers... which is difficult for Deku, since he doesn't know how, having only gotten his powers a few hours earlier. Ultimately, he is successful with saving others, making some friends along the way.

Aside from Deku and Bakugo, there are eighteen other students in their class, though so far, only Ochaco Uraraka (an easy-going girl who can control the gravity of whatever she touches) and Tenya Iida (an extremely serious young man) have gotten any focus. Fittingly, the four of them are grouped together in a 2 versus 2 exercise where one side plays heroes infiltrating a base and another side plays villains who are protecting a bomb.

The exercise goes a bit off the rails as Bakugo goes out of his way to target Deku, out of annoyance that Deku (as far as he knows) has been hiding a quirk from him all this time.  Meanwhile, Deku doesn't have much control over his quirk, since using it usually ends with broken bones and he can't use it on a living person without the risk of killing them.  It makes for an interesting fight where Deku has to closely analyze Bakugo's fighting style and use his quirk to damage the area around him rather than hitting Bakugo directly.

Chapter 11 ends by introducing a group of villains who are out to crush All Might, who is now a teacher at Deku's school.  The first few chapters still hold up well, with the art being fairly clean. Deku's a good main character, and a nice change of pace from the Goku archetype that seems so commonplace. The series is still finding its footing (there are some oddities in terms of design, like how Todoroki, who becomes a major character later on, has the left side of his body covered in ice at all times), but I can see why it got popular so quickly; it's a different take on the superhero genre and a good gateway for people wanting to get into manga.