My Hero Academia world's wasted potential, not Deku's, is Horikoshi's greatest mistake

Modified Nov 19, 2024 12:30 GMT

My Hero Academia wasted its potential (Image via Shueisha).

My Hero Academia ended its manga a few months ago and fans and critics alike have been looking back at what the series succeeded and failed at. In that regard, one major aspect that most people agree with is that the world of the anime was underdeveloped.

Author Kohei Horikoshi made a lot of effort in My Hero Academia to establish a world where people have superpowers and being a hero is a profession, with all the ramifications that entails.

However, when it came to further developing those ideas and not focusing all that much on combat, that is what the story failed at and struggled to develop concepts that should have been pivotal.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda as a publication.

Explaining how My Hero Academia's world-building was completely wasted

Several elements of the series were not developed (Image via Bones).

The series established elements that were quite interesting and important to the overarching themes of the story that weren't developed. For example, during the Stain arc, it is shown that there are heroes who lost the point of being heroic and were making commercials and business ventures instead of maintaining those classic values.

However, author Kohei Horikoshi never went further with this concept and no major character fit in this category.

During the final war arc, Spinner's battle with Shoji introduced the concept of Quirk users with animal features being judged by society, which was never a major aspect of the story prior to that event.

Neither Spinner nor Shoji (or any other character with these traits) were seen being insulted or judged because of their looks, making this element of world-building feel forced and underdeveloped.

There is also the fact that Quirk users such as Katsuki Bakugo received preferential treatment because they have powerful abilities, leading to people like Izuku Midoriya suffering constant bullying for being Quirkless.

However, the epilogue shows Izuku helping a kid going through a similar issue at UA, which means that no one really made a significant change in that area.

More issues with the series

Deku and Shigaraki are two main driving forces of the series (Image via Shueisha).

Another element that makes My Hero Academia feel underdeveloped is that the bulk of the story happens during Deku's first year at UA.

While he spent a year prior to that training with All Might, that happens in a couple of chapters, and the time-skip during the epilogue happens in the final chapter, making the main story feel rushed and unrealistic, all things considered.

All in all, Kohei Horikoshi crafted a dynamic world where superpowers have been assimilated into people's everyday lives and explored some ramifications of that, but he never truly followed them through.

Another example is how the likes of Hawks and Lady Nagant worked for the Hero Public Safety Commission doing shady jobs but the role of the government in hero society is never explored in detail.

Even going beyond Japan, the idea of international heroes never got the attention and care they deserved, especially because Star and Stripe was the only prominent example and was quickly removed from the story.

It is even more telling because All For One was a worldwide threat and no other international hero contributed to the plot.