For this entire last arc of My Hero Ive repeatedly thought Wow this is cool I bet this would really land emotionally for most readers So why does it not work for me lover of superheroes shounen and sappy shit? I decided to delve DEEP into my brain lands to try to see if there was a reason I could put into words. Warning: this review is not written logically at all and is more like an aggregate of like three different posts I made about this series. IN THE BEGINNING My Hero has probably one of the most perfect first chapters at least in Shonen Jump. A while back I was reading a Kieron Gillen newsletter about first issueshttps://kierongillen.substack.com/p/078firstitandsecondit and he brought up the point that many hit comics open with first it second it. In simple terms as far as I can understand it do keep in mind Im not a very smart person this is high concept/pitch hook/heres why you should care. In My Hero the first it that you know like three pages in is that the majority of the population has superpowers and the most exceptional of these people get to hog the limelight as superheroes. This is pretty cool by itself but then Horikoshi throws in the second it the All Might Twist This ones good enough for me to write a whole section about it in this review. If thats not enough it goes for the two main reactions one can get reading a shounen manga: crying Deku risking his life to save Bakugo even though he has no powers and Bakugos an ass and saying fuck yeah Detroit Smash. And THEN they hit you with the roadmap for the rest of the series: AllMight will turn weakass Deku into the greatest hero. ON THE AUDIENCE In my experience Ive found that most fans of MHA at least in the spheres I lurk in fit into two groups. The first group is more into manga or anime than superhero comics. And on a surface level this is a really refreshing take compared to the most visible pieces of superhero media your Marvel movies and what have you. Unfortunately Ive been wading through the sea of American comics for as long as I can remember. Ive seen superheroes played straight Ive seen parody Ive seen deconstructions Ive seen deconstructions of deconstructions. The second group Ill be straight with you these are mostly adult men who write comics are extremely into superhero comics but dont really touch battle shounen manga. Im not quite in this camp either while Im not a shounen expert MHA certainly isnt my first. And as a shounen it hits the necessary beats fine with the occasional incredible moment whenever All Might shows up but more on that later ON THE XMEN A buddy of mine used to call MHA backwards XMen which I think is extremely off base. The only consequence of being quirkless is not being able to be a superhero whereas the consequence to being a mutant is being hunted by robots bigots the US government time travellers and racist robot American time travellers. This isnt to say the mutant metaphor is perfect its very sloppy but the premises of XMen and MHA are not similar beyond young people who go to a school have superpowers. Whereas mutants are whatever broad marginalized group of people strikes the creators fancy the heroes in MHA are much closer to celebrities What do they do with the premise of the most powerful beings in the world are the most famous? Jack shit Deku is a fanboy and Endeavor practiced eugenics on his own children but thats about it. On the other hand something like Tiger and Bunny deals with corporate mandates consumerism etc. XStatix is a book based entirely around this premise and gets into heavy shit like TV shows and superhero teams keep one Black man on the team for optics but once he can be replaced he will die. 300https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643210410287169558/881657476527820840/image0.png ALL MIGHT All Might There have been as many grounded or subversive takes on Superman as there have been isekai novels but something about All Might just hits. The twist of All Might isnt hes evil. I thought it would be going in his weird non existent eyes imply that the setup of having somebody who is not the main protagonist as the number one hero leans toward that his creepy skeleton form and shadiness in chapter 1 kind of suggest that. And so on and so on. I went into MHA blind and I expected that. Instead he is played surprisingly straight. Hes exactly what everybody thinks he is aside from the fact that his clock is ticking. And thats what makes him interesting not a huh huh hes a fascist or whatever your Boys and Invincibles and Irredeemables and Marvelmans and Injustices and such do. All Might combines Superman feels he cant live up to his myth and Superman is dying two of my favorite types of stories and hes easily the best character. Hes one of two characters I like along with Mirio probably because they have some of the only moments where being a superhero isnt just set dressing but actually at the core of the story. Deku would be in this group too but as hes the main character hes bogged down in too much shounen bullshit with the finite number of powers and percents and on and on. Aside from that the only thing about this comic that makes me think superhero is the decompressed storytelling amirite folks???? QUICK ASIDE WHERE I EXPLAIN THAT TERRIBLE JOKE: DECOMPRESSED STORYTELLING: Theres been a trend in superhero comics especially recently where like nothing of substance happens in an issue but it moves the story forward one percent so it was still worth buying. I cant stand this shit If you can purchase a comic in that small a unit shouldnt it be at least somewhat satisfying on its own? Of course this is only a problem if you read as it releases it all tends to come together once its all collected. But man is it a slog dealing with that every month. Anyway My Hero does this but on a weekly basis. Ive talked to a bunch of people about this and a good number have said they wait for a bunch of chapters to build up and then binge and I think thats really the only way to read this so in some ways it really is the premier superhero manga. ok next up i spoil events from recent chapters so uh avoid that if you want THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP I hope you liked my gushing over a My Hero Academia character because I think the rest are all just dreadful. In the most recent arc all of Dekus classmates show up to try to help him with all his edgy shit and a number of them have the moment of oh Deku you helped me with X Y and Z. Thank you my friend. 300https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643210410287169558/881676908792807504/image0.png fuck tail guy fuck tail guy fuck tail guy This isnt even something I necessarily dislike its just that I forget who 90 of these people are. Instead of feeling like Dekus friends showing up to help him it feels like an awkward school assignment where you have to say one nice thing to the kid in class you never talk to. Its fucking weird If Im expected to care about how any of these characters feel Id appreciate more than three pages of them throughout the entire run of this series. An interesting thing that Ive found with My Hero fandom is how some people can just latch on to these nothing characters. Maybe they just like the design? My working theory is that at some point they exhausted discussion about the real characters and started going wild with headcanons until the perception of that character was something wildly new. Uh back to the moment at hand the only one of these to work is Bakugo because its actually motivated by character and not boxchecking. 300https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/643210410287169558/881676909157699584/image1.png?width=481height=564 THE ONE WHERE THEY TALK INSTEAD OF DOING ANYTHING Dekus sufferin and getting yelled at Hows the gang gonna get out of this one? By getting scolded of course 300https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643210410287169558/881677054905565245/image0.png So Uraraka shows up and talks about how cool and important civilians are and how they need to support heroes. A good number of my favorite superheroes are or have been generally despised by the public so Im not super into this. Wealth and fame theyre ignored but action is their reward. Im not even saying that support from civilians is a bad thing in superhero comics but this example was so insipid and weak. This kind of moment actually occurs in a lot of my favorite superhero stuff but there its actually good. Why? I think its because the victory is never Superhero got the public to be nice to them. Instead its Superhero inspired the public to take action despite typically being powerless whether its something like everybody runs to generate enough energy for the Flash to outrace a cartoon mouse or something as simple as random New Yorkers throw garbage at the Green Goblin. People point to Frank Millers Batman as being fascist but again and again Bruce and Carrie turn the symbol of the Bat into a social movement and unite the people to defeat a tyrant. 300https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643210410287169558/881669822545530890/image1.jpg Of course this doesnt happen though because we only see how superheroes inspire ordinary people like one to three times in this series. To use an example outside of superhero comics Dragon Ball does the same shit 300https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643210410287169558/881669822105137202/image0.png But again this moment isnt cool because of stupid shit like clap your hands if you believe in Goku its great because a formerly scummy weakling like Mr. Satan becomes just as useful as Goku and Vegeta by using the lie that he told the entire Earth to save the universe. Its a nice little redemptive moment even if hes already had like three in that arc. In this latest My Hero chapter the victory is Uraraka yells at people and they shut up long enough for Dekus fanboy to run at him. It just fizzes out when youve seen the same thing done better. HOWEVER If they did shift this entire chapter to a POV of the random Deku fanboy I probably would have liked it if only it meant being spared the stupid speech about how its on thousands of random people to make sure Deku smiles again. Im not even against superheroes being vulnerable or crying all the time but I wish it was done in a less everything can be solved with a speech way. Perhaps I simply prefer the hero relies on the people they protect moment to be exciting and not pitiful? I dont know. Ill at least give it points for being different though I rarely ever see a teen hero this reliant on randos to make him feel better if this scene played out anywhere else Uraraka would have just told all the civilians to go fuck themselves and move on. OH I ALSO JUST REALIZED ONE PUNCH MAN DOES THE SAME THING BETTER MULTIPLE TIMES: Like after the Sea King arc everybody starts shit talking the other heroes for getting beaten but instead of preaching at them Saitama lies and says the other heroes weakened the Sea King enough for him to one shot him thus saving their honor but making him a lame cheat in the eyes of the public Now thats a cool hero. TLDR My Hero barely says anything interesting about what it means to be a superhero/celebrity and what it does say is very much not for me. Oh and there are far too many stupid characters I dont give a shit about. Its a serviceable battle shounen with fantastic art and some real highlights here and there but thats about it. A friend of mine had a theory that all battle shounen are the same thing and your enjoyment depends on which gimmick you vibe with the most. I dont think thats true but My Hero is the closest weve come as a species to proving it. Id say read this series if youre not as jaded about superhero shit as I am otherwise I think you can skip it. EDIT: Dekus fanboy was actually an established character and I just didnt remember. This should speak to either my stupidity or the quality of the characters in this series