When does My Hero Academia take place? Timeline explained

One of the most popular new-generation anime and manga series is author and illustrator Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia. Set in a futuristic society where superpowers, called Quirks, are commonplace, fans follow the powerless Izuku Midoriya as he strives to become a great hero no matter what obstacles are in his way.

While there are many positive aspects of My Hero Academia that fans praise, one consistent negative aspect of the series is a lack of worldbuilding and overall lore. Although recent arcs have made significant efforts to address this issue, the series still falls short of others, both in terms in its time and previous generations.

Similarly, one of the biggest questions fans have about the series is exactly when it takes place. While no official year or date is given at any point in the series, there are some key context clues fans can pick up on to get an idea of when it takes place. Follow along as this article fully breaks down the time period in which My Hero Academia likely takes place.

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My Hero Academia’s futuristic technologies, buildings, and more give rough idea of how far into future series is

Fans witness the birth of the first baby with a Quirk in the first moments of the My Hero Academia series. Izuku Midoriya, who serves as the narrator for this introduction, explains that this baby was born several generations prior to the current timeline. This is the first indication to fans of when the series takes place, despite no specific dates being provided.

Similarly, it is later revealed that Izuku Midoriya is the 9th user of One For All, succeeding the 8th user Toshinori Yagi (hero name All Might), who wielded the power for 40 years. However, Yagi is also the first Quirkless inheritor, which means that he was able to live for so long with the power because his body wasn’t overloaded with power from 2+ Quirks.

It’s also said in My Hero Academia that the 4th user, who wielded the power for 18 years before his death, was the longest to have One For All before Yagi beat his record. Resultantly, a safe estimate for each other user’s time of possession of One For All is roughly 12-15 years. Taking the 68 years between the Fourth and Yagi, and adding 12-15x6 for the other users, gives a range of 140-158 years.

Assuming that Horikoshi “started” his story in the present day with the first Quirked baby being born when the series started, this would mean the series takes place in the mid to late 2100s. This is further supported by additional context clues, one of which also comes at the very start of My Hero Academia.

When Midoriya partakes in the Entrance Exam for U.A. High School, he and the other students find themselves squaring off against massive, military-grade robots. While students are shocked that the entrance exam is this intense, no one appears to be surprised by the existence or implementation of robots in this manner.

This would seemingly imply that the series takes place in a time in which robots are commonplace in society, even monstrous ones like these. This further supports the idea that the My Hero Academia series “begins,” at the earliest, with the introduction of the Quirked baby being set in the present day, and the main story taking place roughly 150 years later in the mid 2100s.

Another context clue that further supports this comes from the manga series’ currently-ongoing final arc. It’s revealed that the U.A. building and grounds can be transformed into modular, flying, mechanical plots of land, roughly an acre in size based on general scaling. Like the robots, students are shocked that technology is being used in this way, but not shocked that it exists.

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In summation

As a result, all current context clues in the series support the theory that the mainline story takes place in the mid-to-late 2100s, at the very least. It’s entirely possible that the Quirked baby is meant to be born beyond the contemporary, which would resultantly push back the estimate for when the main story takes place.

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