You were magnificent, Kohei Horikoshi. I shall never forget you for as long as I live.

Warning contains Spoilers

My Hero Academia. It’s one of those anime where even if you aren’t an anime fan you might’ve at least heard of it. MHA is one of the biggest anime in recent memory, a series that came around the right time with anime exploding back into mainstream popularity with shows like Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, superhero media was hitting mainstream with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and two of the Big 3 which being Naruto and Bleach coming to an end in Weekly Shonen Jump (the magazine MHA is serialized in).
Kohei Horikoshi himself never knew what the series would end up being as in the first volume alone he didn't expected to remain popular. Boy talk about a comment aging like milk. Not only would it become a hit but as of the writing of this review it’s the 10th longest running series in Weekly Shonen Jump. Talk about an accomplishment.

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History: I got into anime around late 2017 thanks to reading a volume of the Naruto manga at my middle school’s library. The only animes I’ve seen up to that point were Dragon Ball Z, the first Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X, Pokémon, Doraemon, and an anime that most of you don’t know about called Superbook. Because I was raised in a christian family there was one point in my life where I was only allowed to watch christian shows.
I have a couple of manga prior to Naruto like I read a random Dragon Ball volume (I had no idea at the time Dragon Ball Z was based on a manga), The Legend of Zelda manga adaptations, and a soccer manga called Whistle, but Naruto was the series that started my interest in anime.
But how I heard about MHA was through reading one of the Naruto’s volume at the end where Viz Media recommends other manga to check out which includes the other two members of the Big 3 (One Piece and Bleach) as well as other series like Psyren, Bakuman, or Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. I was reading one of the volumes and at the end where Viz starts recommending manga MHA is advertised. It’s funny to believe but at the time I planned on writing an action series in a school setting so I might've not gotten the best impression at the time. Then later I went on Youtube when I was gradually getting into anime there was one particular anime where everyone and their mother can’t shut the hell up about that being MHA. 2017-2018 MHA was impossible to escape from if you’re an anime fan. I watched a couple clips on the series on youtube and there was one particular thing that caught my interest. That being the Deku vs Shoto fight, that fight in particular was one of the biggest reasons that I became the MHA fan I am right now.
And also I tried the free trial for the Shonen Jump Magazine (this was 2018 before the Shonen Jump app existed) where the series was at the School Festival arc. I also got to saw The Whole Cake Island arc of One Piece, the Goldy Pond Arc of The Promised Neverland, and Jujutsu Kaisen's first chapter which is crazy to believe but I remembered where I was when that happened because there was no school that day.
I binged the anime and fell in love with both its setting and its characters.
After around the time the third season ended I managed to binge the manga as well I was at the time a volume only reader because most of the sites where I wanted to read the manga were either filled with porn ads or blocked by my school’s computer (I didn’t got a phone until late 2019 and I used to have a personal computer at the time but it broke down and my parents didn’t want to get a new one for me)
I became up to date with the series around the pandemic right when the Paranormal Liberation War was happening.
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Story 9/10
The series is set in the future where 80% of the population has superpowers called quirks and 20% don’t and our main protagonist Izuku “Deku” Midoriya is one of the 20%.
He gets bullied by one of his classmates Bakugo as a result of this with him referring to him as “Deku” (which means useless person). Despite being quirkless Deku still dreams of becoming a hero and wants to become a great hero like his idol All Might. Deku will eventually meet All Might after he saved getting from the sludge villain but even then he was told he had to be realistic about his goals but after that same sludge villain went after Bakugo, All Might realizes that Deku does has potential to become a hero.
All Might has a quirk call One for All which is a quirk that passes from one person to another and in order for Deku to receive All Might's quirk Deku has to go through training to receive it which he would.
The beginning of the series was just the introduction to the characters and the setting of both it's Superhero world and UA High which is where Deku and Bakugo would attend school.
The series Growing The Beard moment would be the USJ (Unforeseen Simulation Joint) Arc introducing us to League of Villains members Tomura Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and (One of the many) Nomu(s)
This was the start of what was to come for the rest of the series.
From this Arc up until Joint Training we will see Deku and the rest of Class 1-A go from either participate in a Sports Festival, Do Exams, and have training and then they will have to save the world from the League of Villains in the next arc.
And it does a pretty solid job doing this. However while doing this is starts to build it's Myth Arc which being the history of One for All and what lead to it's creation that being All for One giving his brother a quirk. All for One is the main villain the series has been hyping up from the beginning and how he groomed Tomura Shigaraki into being his “successor”. We will also see how he affected other characters like he was the one who gave Yuga Aoyama his quirk and made him report what UA was doing and if he refused both him and his family would die.
Over the course of the series we will see the development of both heroes such as Deku, Uraraka, Bakugo, and Endeavor as well as the villains such as Shigaraki, Toga, and Spinner.
For the Villains we were shown characters like Shigaraki, Dabi, Toga, Kurogiri, and Twice's backstories. How all of them became the people they are now and they with some have one particular thing in common: No one bothered to helped them. Toga was treated like a freak for her quirk, no one bothered to help Shigaraki, the Todorokis thought Dabi was dead for years, yeah.
This leads to a question: should these characters be saved?
Deku, despite everything Shigaraki has done, wanted to save him because he saw a sad little boy inside and the same thing happened with Uraraka with Toga.
The final arc is an arc that has some of the highest highs. I love Uraraka and Toga's fight, Shoto and Dabi's fight, and Endeavor fighting AFO. Then we have moments like the racism subplot and Edgeshot reviving Bakugo which came out of nowhere because Bakugo and Edgeshot never had a relationship in the series until Edgeshot decides to revive him.
Despite my minor problems I still enjoyed the final arc, and although I initially didn't like this at first but how this was built up I felt like it was fitting that the reveal being AFO planned out Shigaraki's entire life because of how much of a mastermind he is.
Seeing Deku start to lose OFA and kick AFO's ass was cool.
And the last couple of chapters do a solid job concluding the subplots such as the Todoroki plot line. The final chapter was pretty good as well as while it wasn't perfect I felt like it was a solid ending for the series.
The final arc is never something I can hate despite minor problems.
Overall the story is pretty good and that's all I need to say.

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Characters 9/10

I think it's fair for me I love the (most) of the cast of MHA
Deku is a great protagonist and I love how he develops throughout the series.
Bakugo is one of those characters I don't exactly like but respect his development throughout the series.
Uraraka is one of my favorites she's be both pretty friendly and can be an understanding person
All Might is an amazing character and is another one of my favorites in the series. I just love this guy.
Shoto is a solid character even though he's not one of my favorites I love his dynamic with the rest of his family.
Class 1-A is an odd bunch there are characters I don't like (cough cough Mineta), characters I don't really care for (Sato and Ojiro), and then there's characters I actually do like (Mina, Aoyama, Momo, Iida)
Class 1-A as a whole aren't characters I really care for even though I do like bunch of them.
Same thing with Class 1-B outside of Kendo, Monona, Kinoko, and Ibara I do not really care about any of them.
I don't care about any other UA student outside of Nejire, Tamaki, and Mei.
That's what I have to say about the students.
For the Pro Heroes Endeavor's arc was amazing as he was a terrible father but when realizing how wrong his actions were and trying to atone for them made him one of my favorite characters. He knows what he does was wrong, he even told Natsuo that he doesn't have to forgive him. That's what I love about his character.
Aizawa is solid character. I like his relation with Present Mic and Oboro in his backstory which explained how he became the person he was.
Present Mic himself was pretty cool.
Hawks is a solid character. He's not one of my absolute favorites but solid written character for sure.
I love Mt. Lady she was one of my first anime crushes and she still is to this day. But simping for her aside she's proof that Stain's ideology was bullshit.
Midnight was whatever outside of her appearance.
Gran Torino is a solid character but I felt like he would be better off died and the fact that he's still alive by the end of the manga is shocking.
Mirko is awesome. That's all I have to say about her.
Edgeshot just existed and then when he revived Bakugo was the peak of his character. That's it.
I don't really care much about the other Pro Heroes to talk about them.
The Villains are something special.
Shigaraki is a tragic character who was groomed into becoming a villain his entire life and despite that he still becomes a villain in the end. Despite Deku seeing a trapped little boy inside Shigaraki still sees himself as a villain. This is one of the reasons why Shigaraki is one of my favorite characters. Your past doesn't excuse the actions you make.
Toga is another tragic character as she was viewed as a freak because her quirk involves turning into other by sampling her blood. Her fight with Uraraka was pretty amazing and emotional and seeing that she died in the end was sad.
Dabi is Shoto's brother and Endeavor's son who Endeavor initially wanted to surpass All Might but it goes wrong and the Todorokis for years thought he was dead. He's a prime example of the consequences of Endeavor's abuse towards his family. I wouldn't say I like Dabi but he was a pretty interesting character.
Twice is a pretty interesting character he starts out as some Deadpool looklike but ends up becoming his own character in the end.
Spinner is MHA's interesting take on discrimination on people with mutant quirks. I love how Spinner developed throughout the series.
Kurogiri is fine. I like his relationship with Shigaraki and that's about it.
All For One. I initially thought he overstayed his welcome but when rereading the last arc his character was truly something. He was a hater since day 1 and sees everyone else as pebbles to him. His God complex is probably one of the most entertaining parts of the final arc. I couldn't expect to love him the way I did but I did.
There are other Villains I like that aren't from the League
Gentle Criminal and La Brava are probably my favorites out of all the villains as Gentle tried all that he could to become a hero but he struggled with school and when he tried to do something heroic because he didn't have a hero license it got him expelled and his parents kicked him out of their house so he gave up becoming a hero so he became a villain who films himself on the internet while La Brava is a character after she got rejected by a boy she lost motivation In herself but after seeing Gentle's videos she wanted to help him.
These 2 are one of the biggest reasons why The School Festival arc is one of my favorite arcs in the series and seeing that they ended up becoming heroes in the end was bittersweet.
Stain is a person who thought people only want to become heroes for recognition only in response to kill those heroes. Stain's ideology is really stupid as shit. But I love how he realizes how wrong his actions were in the Dark Deku arc which is something I respect.
Lady Nagant was once a person who worked for the Hero Public Safety Commission as an assassin but was later arrested for killing the chairman of the HPSC. What I love about her character is that it shows us that the hero society has some dark secrets they cover up. Deku himself when discovering her past realizes that everything isn't black and white. I love that she manages to help out in the Final arc as well.
Overhaul was a pretty interesting character. He did not care about anything with the exception of the Shie Hassaikai. His failure to acknowledge others was what led to his downfall at the end. I'm no fan of his but I like how he was written.
There's also the previous One for All users
I enjoyed all of them with my favorites being Nana, Banjo, and Yoichi respectively. All of them did a great job telling Deku how to utilize his multiple quirks.
That's all I have to say about the characters (that was a long one)
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Art 10/10

Needless to say MHA has one of my favorite art styles in any medium I've seen. So I don't really need to say anything else. Just look at the earlier chapters and compare them to now and look how much Horikoshi evolved as an artist.

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Enjoyment 9/10

I love reading MHA and it is one of my favorites series that I've read. I love watching/reading stuff about Superheroes and MHA being a Superhero story was one of the biggest reasons why I fell in love with it.
I didn't enjoy every part of it but I enjoyed most of it none the less.

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Impact on my life

MHA had a huge impact on my life. MHA was not my first anime but If it weren't for MHA, I would not be the anime/manga fan that I am today. I wouldn't have gotten into series like Mission: Yozakura Family, Undead Unluck, World Trigger, Soul Eater, Love Hina, Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Gachiakuta, Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, Re:Zero, JoJo, and many others if it weren't for MHA.

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Overall 9.5/10

MHA is an amazing series which I enjoyed start to finish. I'm gonna miss this series. Thank you Kohei Horikoshi for everything.
My overall rating on this series is a 9.5/10.
You were magnificent, Kohei Horikoshi. I shall never forget you for as long as I live.