My Final Thoughts on My Hero Academia
It's incredibly surreal watching an entire battle shonen anime from start to finish. I grew up with ones like Naruto and Bleach, which I saw from fairly early on sure, but not literally day one. And even if I did I was so young that I wouldn't remember many details and I obviously have nostalgia goggles for them. Plus I wouldn't have experienced the discourse surrounding them much until later because I didn't get internet until 2008. Before that it was basically just me and my feels. But I think My Hero Academia is the first time when I started watching a battle shonen that became relatively long running, viewed it to completion, and I recall much of the discourse throughout its run. And similar to Naruto and Bleach with me, an entire generation of people grew up with this series and currently have nostalgia for it, are watching their favorite childhood anime come to an end. It sounds strange to say, but the manga did start in 2014 and ended in 2024, and the anime started in 2016 and ended last year. 9 years is more than enough time to call it a generational defining anime, but to me it's through the admittingly slightly jaded, more critical lens of a grown adult. Of course I'll eventually repeat this experience when Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen's anime adaptations are finished, and Chainsaw Man, if it does get more anime and concludes its adaptation, and also Attack on Titan when I actually decide to watch the finale that already exists. But I had to make note of this first as this is a first experience for me.
My Hero Academia had a lot of really high highs and really low lows. But overall I thought it was great. Of course anything that gets popular is going to get hate, whether that hate is deserved or not. This series does have flaws, there's no doubt about that, many of which I outlined in my various posts about the series over the past week. I felt that Horikoshi focused too much on the privisoinal license exam and thought he should have done what Kishimoto did when the Chunin Exam was interrupted in Naruto. In that case the judges failed everyone to become a Chunin except for Shikamaru, and at the start of Shippuden most of the characters were promoted to Chunin due to an off screen Chunin Exam. The problem is that I don't think most readers/viewers were as invested in the exam than I think Horikoshi himself was. The original exam was fun because we never saw it before, and it had the awesome battle tournament arc where the characters got to face off with one another, and the part of the training where students paired up in teams of two and fought a pro hero. But it never had the same magic each time. I also commented that Overhaul, while a fine villain in and of himself, was sandwiched between two much better villains, and that I didn't really care about Gentle Criminal and the girl that was obsessed with him that much. Also the way Bakugo survived at the end was kind of a deus ex machina because I don't recall that usage of Edgeshot's stitching Quirk being stated or foreshadowed earlier.
Those are genuine flaws that prevents this anime from being a full on, perfect masterpiece. But it has so many amazing moments that I almost don't care. This doesn't invalidate the art of critique, and that's important for any piece of art, but I've also reached the point in my life, at 31 years old, that entertainment has become one of the main reasons for consuming media. With anime in particular I've consumed so much of it and have a general idea of what I like and what I don't like. I love analyzing it, the act of art analysis is so much fun for me, but sometimes it is just a vibe. The final battle between Deku and All For One is one of my favorite anime moments of 2025, and it is hard for me to explain why other than just saying "it gave me chills and I loved it." It'll be weird to not have more My Hero Academia be coming out anymore, aside from the spinoff Vigilantes, because this series has been one of the anime that's dominated anime discourse for over a decade. I suppose you could say this is the end of an era.
My Hero Academia had a lot of really high highs and really low lows. But overall I thought it was great. Of course anything that gets popular is going to get hate, whether that hate is deserved or not. This series does have flaws, there's no doubt about that, many of which I outlined in my various posts about the series over the past week. I felt that Horikoshi focused too much on the privisoinal license exam and thought he should have done what Kishimoto did when the Chunin Exam was interrupted in Naruto. In that case the judges failed everyone to become a Chunin except for Shikamaru, and at the start of Shippuden most of the characters were promoted to Chunin due to an off screen Chunin Exam. The problem is that I don't think most readers/viewers were as invested in the exam than I think Horikoshi himself was. The original exam was fun because we never saw it before, and it had the awesome battle tournament arc where the characters got to face off with one another, and the part of the training where students paired up in teams of two and fought a pro hero. But it never had the same magic each time. I also commented that Overhaul, while a fine villain in and of himself, was sandwiched between two much better villains, and that I didn't really care about Gentle Criminal and the girl that was obsessed with him that much. Also the way Bakugo survived at the end was kind of a deus ex machina because I don't recall that usage of Edgeshot's stitching Quirk being stated or foreshadowed earlier.
Those are genuine flaws that prevents this anime from being a full on, perfect masterpiece. But it has so many amazing moments that I almost don't care. This doesn't invalidate the art of critique, and that's important for any piece of art, but I've also reached the point in my life, at 31 years old, that entertainment has become one of the main reasons for consuming media. With anime in particular I've consumed so much of it and have a general idea of what I like and what I don't like. I love analyzing it, the act of art analysis is so much fun for me, but sometimes it is just a vibe. The final battle between Deku and All For One is one of my favorite anime moments of 2025, and it is hard for me to explain why other than just saying "it gave me chills and I loved it." It'll be weird to not have more My Hero Academia be coming out anymore, aside from the spinoff Vigilantes, because this series has been one of the anime that's dominated anime discourse for over a decade. I suppose you could say this is the end of an era.
Commentaires
BTW, Edgeshot constantly messes with the inside of people's bodies, it's his primary battle style, I don't think that is much of a deus ex machina.
Edgeshot was always shown to be capable of saving Bakugo. It’s simply an application of what he already does to one shot people. Folding his body to such an extreme degree that he can enter people’s bodies and play around with their insides. Now he just stayed in his folded form and sutured Bakugo’s heart.
Still some an instant Uno Reverse Card for Bakugo, but as far as explanations go this one was a logical extension of his quirk.