My Hero Academia's final arcs highlight Horikoshi's biggest oversight

Modified Nov 21, 2024 19:00 GMT

While My Hero Academia's Final War Arc was really good with several plotlines finally meeting their long-awaited conclusions, it also made fans aware of one huge oversight on the part of manga creator Kohei Horikoshi.

Evidently, the Final War Arc saw the Heroes fight the Villains in a country-wide battle. However, despite the existing risk of a nationwide massacre, as depicted by the manga, the Japanese Government did nothing to assist the Heroes.

Under normal circumstances, a nation's military force would immediately take action in any calamity and try to assist the citizens to safeguard their lives. However, in My Hero Academia, the Government made no such efforts.

This was senseless because such a development would have been a huge help for the heroes. Instead, the story saw teenagers taking the frontline and fighting the most dangerous villains all by themselves.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from the My Hero Academia manga and reflects the author's opinion.

Why does Horikoshi's oversight in My Hero Academia make no sense?

Deku as seen in the anime (Image via BONES)

As seen in the manga's Final War Arc, the entire country was in a civil war. Not only were the Heroes fighting Villains, but also rebel anthromorphs were attacking hospitals, putting the general citizens in danger.

Nevertheless, the manga did not show the Japanese government deploying a single soldier, military vehicle, or aircraft to help the citizens. While one could have tried arguing that militant groups do not exist in the Hero Society, evidence from previously released anime suggests otherwise.

US Aircrafts helping Star and Stripe (Image via BONES)

Most evidently, US Military aircrafts were shown in My Hero Academia season 7 itself. This meant that the Japanese government might have also had a military group at their disposal but did not deploy them. Instead, they chose to rely on a bunch of 15-year-olds to keep the country safe from world-threatening villains.

This also begs another question: why did militant groups not try and nuke the U.A. Flying Fortress when Shigaraki Tomura was trapped inside it? Evidently, Shigaraki's Decay Quirk was the biggest threat. This is why they tried to keep him away from the ground, having him float in the air. However, despite having the firepower to do so, the militant groups made no effort to take out Shigaraki.

Shigaraki Tomura as seen in the anime (Image via BONES)

Even if fans were to somehow ignore the existence of militant groups in the Final War Arc, the manga never explained why no police officers were seen with a gun in the previous arcs. Had the police officers equipped guns, characters like Stain would have been a joke as police could have stopped them immediately. This makes it evident that 90% of the problems in My Hero Academia only came to fruition because militant groups were virtually non-existent.

While one can argue that Kohei Horikoshi might have not involved firearms and military forces in the manga to make Quirks more relevant, there were much better ways to do it, as seen in international superhero comic books.

Skeptic as seen in My Hero Academia (Image via BONES)

In such comic books, heroes and their powers stay relevant even while being amidst militant powers because the story sees the antagonists take action against such preventive measures.

Similarly, My Hero Academia's Final War Arc could have shown minor antagonists being assigned to make the government's work hellish by taking control of their systems. Otherwise, the manga could have at least raised the stakes to the point that such militant groups were useless against the antagonists' forces. Such small plot devices could have made the story free of such plot holes.