My Hero Academia S1E1: “Izuku Midoriya: Origin”

This review was commissioned by QueequgTheater.


Shonen manga and anime have a lot in common with American superhero and adventure comics. While there was probably some early cross-pollination there, the two are also stylistically distinct enough that I think it's mostly convergent evolution. During the last decade though, there seems to have been a minor bloom of Japanese media that consciously takes after western superheroes. The international reach of recent-ish superhero films likely had something to do with this. Generally with better results than that time in the 2000's when the opposite happened.

My Hero Academia seems to be one of the more popular of these. As the title implies, it's about someone attending a training program for superheroes. And, since it's anime, I assume that said training program is going to look and act a lot like a Japanese high school. Most of the people I know who have seen this show have described it as somewhere in the neighborhood of "good, but not great," with a smaller number calling it an overhyped flavor of the year that people will be ashamed of having liked soon enough. I've also seen claims that it borrows a little too heavily from One Punch Man for its own good, but aside from some broad similarities in art style I haven't heard what the basis for that accusation is. From what I gathered, it's at least not as comedy-focused as OPM.

And, that's as much as I know about MHA. With that disclosed, it's time to start the pilot, whose title suggests that it's going to be about the origins of someone named Izuku Midoriya who is likely the series' protagonist.


Opening on some character and city art that certainly looks quite a bit like ONE's work, intentionally or otherwise.

Three bullies are trying to pick on someone, and the third party pictured above is interposing himself an trying to get the bullies to back down despite his obvious fear. This is even braver of him than it seemed at first, as he - unlike the bullies - is "quirkless." The three manifest a variety of comic book-like powers and extra limbs, and then we cut to the intervener, Deku, having been beaten up in lieu of their original target.

So, in this world most people have superpowered "quirks," and only a minority do not. That definitely makes this a bit different than usual for either superheroes or their traditional shonen counterparts.

Deku learned an important lesson on the playground that day; all men are not created equal, no matter what platitudes society feeds him on the subject. We then see a montage of him throughout his childhood exercising rigorously, struggling to develop enough mundane strength to defend himself from his superpowered classmates.

One day, while a 12-ish Deku is jogging his way to school, he sees a giant musclebound thing stomping around in the middle of a freeway. A crowd is gathering, and police are trying to keep people at a safe distance.

I guess either it's only a specific (younger?) population that "quirks" are common among, or else the vast majority of quirks aren't much use in combat situations more serious than a kindergarten brawl. Otherwise, the giant monster causing trouble would be immediately subdued by a dozen other giant monsters who just want to get to work on time.

The kid is then named by caption as the titular Izuku Midoriya. I guess Deku is a nickname or something.

The OP rolls here, and I'm not going to say much about it because there's not much to say. It's a perfectly generic anime intro. Generic direction, generic music, generic imagery. I'm not sure if I can clearly remember anything from it thirty seconds later.

After the OP, it's history time! Some decades ago, the superhuman patient zero - a baby who constantly generated bright light around itself - was born in China. Unusual choice for a piece of Japanese media, and appreciated.

Since then, more and more children were either born with powers and mutations, or started manifesting them at early ages. At this point something like 80% of the world's population has a quirk. Okay, that probably answers my previous question. Even if 4 out of 5 people have powers, 9 out of 10 of them might just be on the order of "human flashlight."

There's some really cool imagery here of a lunar orbital view of earth, showing the sun setting on the world that was and rising again on the world of the supermen. It's better looking AND more effective visual communication than anything in the intro, for sure. Deku's voiceover explains that the cause of quirk proliferation remains unknown, but the planetary framing makes me think a cosmic answer will be forthcoming eventually.

Anyway, social order started breaking down due to the sudden introduction of vastly disparate powers. With the existing institutions unprepared to handle ill-intentioned superhumans with overwhelmingly powerful quirks, it fell to well-intentioned ones to volunteer. And, soon enough, the superheroes stopped being mere volunteers and were recruited into legally sanctioned agencies. As Deku narrates this part, a trio of heroes - the super-strong Death Arms, the hydrokinetic Backdraft, and the plant conjuring Kamui Woods (wait, shouldn't the guy with tree powers be nicknamed "Deku?"  ) - arrive at the scene and begin subduing the unruly giant.

Deku asks some of the other onlookers how this started, and the answer is puzzling.

As the onlooker points out, a man with a quirk as powerful and useful as turning into a giant shouldn't be resorting to petty theft. There's something weird going on here.

Kamui Woods takes point against the giant, and informs him that he's under arrest for unsanctioned quirk use on a highway during designated rush hours, in addition to theft and assault resulting in bodily harm. He also tells him that this makes him "pure evil," which makes me wonder just how badly Woods' brain would break if he ever confronted a serial killer. For all the bombast though, Woods and his colleagues seem to be doing a pretty professional job here, cordoning off the civilians, minimizing infrastructure damage, and slowly bringing the giant down with little harm to anyone involved using various restraining and entangling powers.

Right up until a woman the size of a passenger jet comes leaping out of nowhere and kicks the perp literally right out of Woods' grasp, damaging the freeway, totally crushing one of the streets near it, and knocking the suspect out at the very least.

Woods, Backdraft, and Death Arms look about as pleased with this development as you'd expect. Unfortunately for them, most of the onlookers seem to care more about spectacle than they do about excessive force, reckless endangerment, and gratuitous damage. The interloper also knows how to play to a crowd, quickly making herself the hero of this situation for beating up a perp who was obviously already under control. She introduces herself as Mt. Lady, a brand new superheroine starting her first day on the job, and endears herself further to the crowd by doing this:

I assume the wordplay works better in Japanese.

I think I can confidently say that this is less One Punch Man and more Empowered.

Also, she's oversexualized, cringey, and has big curving horns, so I hereby rechristen Mt. Lady as Bowsette.

Deku takes notes on the city's newest addition to its superhero roster in a little notebook he carries around, wondering to himself how adjustable Bowsette's size is and how her quirk might actually be pretty bad for policework for the reasons we just saw. Sharp kid. Sharper than most of the adults present, at least. A middle aged man whose quirk is to have weird geometric shapes sticking out of his face sees Deku's enthusiasm, and tells him that he can tell he's going to be a superhero himself someday. Deku beams, but there's a little hint of hesitation in his expression. Very subtle on the artist's part. Really, the OP does a disservice to this show's art quality and direction.

After the episode's title card, we reopen on Deku's junior high school later that morning. Deku must be a couple years older than he looks, because he and his classmates are due to graduate this year and then move on to vocational high schools. They're supposed to start deciding on prospective careers now, and the teacher accurately predicts that everyone in the room thinks they're going to be a superhero.

He doesn't do anything to disillusion them of this. Probably because he knows it won't work, and they'll have to grow up a bit more before facing reality on this issue. Hell, after the mention of superheroics he can't even get them to stop manifesting their quirks in the middle of class.

One of the students does step up to the plate here, but it's not exactly to his own credit. He just says that everyone else is stupid for thinking they can make it as heroes with their common low-powered quirks, when only exceptional individuals like himself are powerful enough to actually do it. Oh, it's that kid. There's one in every eighth grade classroom. In this case, he's a smarmy looking blonde boy by the name of Katsuki Bakugo. He's the one with his feet on the desk in the middle right of the last screenshot.

Everyone tells the wanker to stfu, but he retorts that they're just jealous because they know that superhero-grade quirks like his are rare. He's applying to an exclusive high school equivalent training center for superheroes, and he fully expects to get in. The idiot teacher then remembers aloud that Deku is also applying for that school, which results in the entire class laughing at Deku and the teacher ineffectually trying to stop them without seeming to realize his own fault here. Sadly believable. He then proceeds to not do anything at all when Katsuki starts physically threatening Deku, possibly because he's afraid of the kid himself.

Deku babbles out that you don't technically need a quirk to go to superhero school, if you have good enough grades and you ace the civics test. It's unprecedented, but possible.

Cut to somewhere else in the city, where a guy who can turn himself into a semiliquid monster form is dashing around on a looting spree. Some onlookers mutter about how the incident this morning has a lot of the authorities distracted, so criminals of various sorts are taking advantage. There's a growing problem of people with moderately powerful quirks who can't cut it as superheroes and don't know what else to do with their powers turning to crime, apparently. Looking at the culture that this world's version of Japan seems to have developed around the heroes, with them being lionized to the exclusion of almost everyone else and most people actually liking the more reckless and destructive ones the best, I can see how supervillainy might seem like a tempting alternative to many. As people wonder what to do about this new situation, a massive hero pushes his way through the crowd and announces that the situation is already resolved, because he is here.

Then we cut back to Deku finishing his day at school. Okay.

Surprisingly, despite knowing he has the attention of bullies, Deku doesn't seem to have taken measures to avoid being alone, and we see Katsuki and a pair of flunkies catch him as he's the last one leaving a classroom. The teacher is nowhere in sight, of course.

Also, I just noticed that Katsuki and Co are the same bullies who he had to deal with in kindergarten. The same three have been tormenting him for pretty much his entire life from age 4-13. That's...actually kind of nightmarish.

Anyway, apparently Katsuki is annoyed at not being the only applicant from this school trying to get into the prestigious hero academy. He really wants to have a reputation as this rags-to-riches wonder, and it would rain on his parade if there were TWO recruits from his backwater little town in the same year. To make the point, he uses his pyrokinetic touch to burn Deku's superhero notebook before throwing it out the window, and then strongly implies that he's going to burn him to death unless he withdraws his application.

Hmm. This really is starting to remind me of Empowered now, just with 99.5% less cheesecake.

Cue another flashback. Kindergarten-aged Deku is watching footage of world renowned hero All-Might rescuing people from a fire, and telling his mother he wants to be just like that when he grows up. His mother is, of course, encouraging. But then, some time later, she takes him in to the hospital to see why his quirk is taking so long to manifest. Children usually have variations or combinations of their parents' quirks, and both his parents are third generation power-havers with fairly obvious quirks (his mother has minor telekinesis, and his father can start fires). It doesn't usually take this long.

The doctor determines that Deku is the product of some vanishing - but still extant - recessive genes combining. It's diagnosable by an unusual feature of his left foot that happens to be gene-linked to quirklessness.

And, it's strongly implied that he's one of the only people of his generation to not have a quirk. The 20% of humanity that lacks a quirk consists almost entirely of older people. There's nothing that can be done.

We then return to the present, with Deku being told to just kill himself and hope he reincarnates as an actual person with actual power. Holy fuck, these three are effed in the head. They finally leave Deku alone, and Deku goes outside to find what's left of his notebook in the fishpond it landed in. It's actually in surprisingly good shape, considering it's been burned and then soaked. Katsuki's pyrokinesis might not be all that impressive after all if he can't even burn paper thoroughly (sure, he might have been holding back, but why would he bother doing that if he was going to throw it outside anyway?).

Then the flashback resumes. The night after his diagnosis, Deku watches the All-Might vids again ("I'm here now" seems to be All-Might's catchphrase. Hmm...), and asks his mother, with tears in his eyes, if he can still be like that when he grows up.

Her response is to break down crying herself and repeat the words "I'm sorry" over and over again.

As the flashback ends, Deku muses that this is NOT what she should have told him. I'm inclined to agree. What I think she should have said is that no, he can't become like All-Might, just like 99.99% of children can't grow up to become like All-Might; everyone wants to grow up to become a superhero, but almost nobody actually can. That as far as heroing goes, all that's been denied to him is an unrealistic fantasy that would almost certainly have just led to disappointment. Unfortunately, that's not what she said to him. Instead, she acted like he was diagnosed with a crippling disability that ruined all his dreams, and this effected him.

Deku walks home from school, and happens to pass through a tunnel. As he shouts into the echoing tunnel to make himself feel bigger than he really is, the thieving gooman who we saw before emerges from a sewer grate, grabs Deku, and tells him that he will make a perfect disguise to shake this hero who's after him with. Then he starts forcing himself in through Deku's mouth and nostrils.

Oozeman assures Deku that he'll die of suffocation and/or organ damage within the minute, and it'll stop hurting then. It's better not to struggle, as he'll just prolong it. This guy is clearly way more twisted than the mere opportunistic thief he first came across as. Given the dominant attitudes in the surrounding society, I suspect that individuals like him might be unfortunately common.

As Deku realizes that he's going to die and there's really nothing he can do about it, the hero who we saw starting to chase slimeboy before emerges from the sewer after him. And yep, it's All-Might.

The ensuing battle is short and one-sided. All-Might uses his curiously named "Texas Smash" attack to fill the tunnel with pressurized wind that tears oozeboy into chunks while merely staggering Deku's solid body. Given that oozeboy was in the process of murdering a child, I don't think I can really call this excessive force.

When Deku recovers, All-Might has taken him out of the tunnel and made sure he was unhurt. All-Might apologizes for chasing a dangerous criminal in his direction; he was off-duty and in an unfamiliar place, so his pursuit was clumsier than usual. Between the "unfamiliar place" and "Texas Smash" details, I'm pretty sure All-Might is supposed to be American, which continues to be a pleasant surprise for a shonen piece. Both the first superhuman and the world's most famous current hero are non-Japanese. Also, he's gathered gooboy back together and imprisoned him in a bottle (he's still alive, apparently. Resilient fellow), and took the liberty of preemptively autographing Deku's notebook, which Deku promises to never part with now.

All-Might then crouches down and spends a weirdly long time bending and unbending his knees in preparation for flight. Not wanting to let him leave without asking a few things first, Deku latches onto his leg like a remora and doesn't let go no matter how bad the air resistance gets.

I like that All-Might has to hold his ridiculous bangs out of his face while flying. Rare attention to detail.

All-Might can't just land again, as his "flight" turns out to be more like very long ranged jumping + gliding than the usual hovering power, but he can steer himself down toward a tall rooftop and land there for now so he can dislodge Deku safely (Deku has to point this out to him. All-Might seems like an alright guy, but he's not the smartest). When he does so, Deku uses the opportunity to ask the big question before All-Might can fly away again.

End episode.


"Good but not great" is an accurate assessment, I would say, but honestly it came a bit closer to greatness than I was expecting. The tongue-in-cheek social commentary was solid, and the episode does a really good job of building up a man vs society conflict without being too preachy and hamfisted about it. The humor was both solid, and not really a ripoff of ONE at all as much as I can tell; there's some tonal and visual influence for sure, but the writing, characters, and attitude are their own beast.

Overall, cute little show. Wouldn't mind continuing.