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My Hero Academiais undoubtedly one of the most, if not, the most popular shōnen anime and manga franchises ofthe “Post-Big Three Era"of Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. The manga ended in 2024 after a ten-year run, while the anime is set for its eighth and final season, which is set to premiere in October. The series' spin-off,My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, debuted in Shueisha’s Jump GIGA in August 2016 (where Yuki Tabata’sBlack Cloverwill publish a new chapter every quarter) before moving to Jump’s digital counterpart, Shōnen Jump+, in October that same year.
The series, written by Hideyuki Furuhashi and illustrated by Betten Court, is set 6 years prior to the events of the main story featuring Deku and gives interesting context to some of the major events that take place over the course of the main series' run. With its more traditional approach to heroism and justice, gripping plotlines and incredible use of some of the main series' characters,My Hero Academia: Vigilantesis actuallybetter than the main series. Here’s why.
What is My Hero Academia: Vigilantes?
The Opposite Side of the Pro-Hero Coin
My Hero Academia: Vigilantesis the spin-off of Kohei Horikoshi’s smash-hit manga inspired by western comics and superheroes. Unlike the main series, which focuses on the development of the protagonist, Izuku Midoriya, into a professional hero, Vigilantes explores the other side of this hero-crazed society as it follows the lowest rungs of the hero-aspirant ladder. Vigilantes, purveyors of justice acting in contravention of the well-established laws concerningheroism in theMy Hero Academiauniverse.
The protagonist, Koichi Haimawari(Alias: The Crawler | Quirk: Slide ‘n’ Glide)is a mild-mannered college student who dresses up in an All Might-inspired costume to do acts of service in his neighbourhood of Naruhata, when one day, he sees the limits of his own abilities and the danger inherent to dishing out justice on the streets when his friend,Kazuho Haneyama(Alias: Pop☆Step | Quirk: Leap)is attacked by a group of thugs. Koichi tries to intervene, but things get very dicey, and both he and Kazuho are helpless in the face of genuine malice. Just as things get dire, an older man who goes by the alias “Knuckleduster” appears and, with his mighty brass knuckles, saves Kazuho from a horrible fate. From that moment on, Koichi is roped into Knuckleduster’s brand of justice, dished out on the streets and alleyways in blind spots where pro-heroes may be too preoccupied to intervene.
The premise ofMy Hero Academia: Vigilantesismore in line with what we’ve historically seen in western superhero comicsfrom the major publishers of DC and Marvel, in which the heroes in question are not embraced by society but operate with relative secrecy, in the shadows, sometimes away from the eyes of the law. For most western heroes, their very existence and their taking the law into their own hands gives them a kind of notoriety that superheroes just don’t have in theMy Hero Academiauniverse, albeit, there are different complications within the society that the main series delves into over the course of its run. In essence,Vigilantesis more in line with the comic inspirations of Kohei Horikoshi’s story in that the main heroes aren’t individuals with prestige, but agents operating on the streets on a much less visible level than the pro-heroes do.
Let’s Talk About Visual Identity
Vigilantes Leans Further Into the Franchise’s Inspiration
While it isn’t a point of conversation when comparing the manga of both series, the anime adaptation ofMy Hero Academia: Vigilantesboasts something that the original series has, albeit not as in abundance: a visual identity that is closely related to the comic book inspirations of the franchise. With more crisp visuals and animation, as well as the clear markers of a comic-like visible sound effects (“BOOM”, “POW”, “THWACK”), which add something toVigilantesthat makes it feel a little more self-contained even though it isn’t. The visuals could even be described as grittier at times, which can fit into the perception ofVigilantesas darker than the main series, which fits into the thematic composition of the series very well, consideringwhat vigilantes embody or represent in theMy Hero Academiauniverse: society’s underbelly.
Speaking of inspiration,My Hero Academia: Vigilantesalso features several interesting references to characters and narratives in western comics, anime and manga, like how Tensei Iida (Ingenium) is made to look something like Ben 10 in his anime appearance, while one of the villains he takes down is a catbus, like the one in Studio Ghibli’s heavily celebratedMy Neighbour Totoro. There are also several Dragon Ball references in the form of Oboro Shirakumo, while series protagonist Koichi Haimawari is basically Spider-Man.Knuckleduster is clearly inspired by Batman or The Punisher, Overclock is The Flash, while Pikachu and Red make a palette-swapped appearance early on in the series and there’s a blatant Mazinger reference in the form of the Mazinger Brothers, to name a few.
Exploring the My Hero Academia Universe More Closely
Vigilantes Offers Insight Into Aspects the Main Series Glosses Over
The fact that being a vigilante is not as glamorous or as documented in theMy Hero Academiauniverse is part of the greatest charm ofVigilantes, as it presents the franchise an opportunity to get closer to some of the biggest events on the ground (literally). The spin-off explores the spread of the performance-enhancing drug that rapidly evolves Quirks, Trigger, which appears in the fourth season of the main series duringthe Shie Hassaikai arc, with the organized criminal organization dealing in the drug to fund their experiments.
What we don’t really get much of is the impact of Trigger on the average person, despite the fact that it’s obviously lucrative, thus in abundance in theMy Hero Academiauniverse, but the impact of the drug’s use is painfully understated in the main series.My Hero Academia: Vigilantesalso does really well to incorporate characters from the main series in interesting ways, starting with the vigilante known as Stendahl,the individual who eventually becomes the Hero Killer Stain. We also get to see Ingenium, whose role in the main series is to fall to Stain and thus spur his younger brother to take on the mantle of Ingenium
Seeing how interactions with Knuckleduster put Stendahl on the path he eventually takes is brilliant work to bringVigilantesand the main series together beyond name and cameo appearance, but potentially the best arc of the entire series is when it delves into Eraserhead’s time as a student at U.A. High, more specifically, the events surrounding the death of theMy Hero Academiauniverse’s Son Goku expy, Oboro Shirakumo, better known asthe Nomu that is Kurogiri.
The Nomus as they are seen in the main series are well documented and explored in Vigilantes, with a villain known as “Number 6” becoming an overarching villain in the series, long before the introduction of the first Nomu in the main series. The Villain Factory, the primary antagonistic organization inVigilantesof which Number 6 was part, was actually an undertaking bythe overarching antagonist of the main series, All For One. The exploration of Eraserhead’s biggest trauma, and how it connects to the concept of Nomus, which is in turn connected to several major events in the main series, and Shirakumo’s horrific fate, is one of Vigilantes', no, one of My Hero Academia’s best arcs.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is available onCrunchyroll. The manga is available to read on VIZ Media’swebsite.
