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Boku no Hero Academia, otherwise known as My Hero Academia, is going on to its seventh anime season sometime in 2024. As of the time of its writing has hit over 400 manga chapters. The series started in July 2014, is nearly a decade old, and is on its final arc as of chapter 343 from February 2022.
The series has had quite a run since it started, spawning a media franchise including three feature-length films, and nine OVAs. It has also had several video games, and guest appearances in games like Fortnite, among other things like spin-off manga and stage plays.
The manga has over 85 million copies in circulation, making it at the time of writing the 25th best-selling manga that outsold stories like Fullmetal Alchemist or Berserk. However, as the tides ebb and flow, so too has My Hero Academia's popularity over the years.
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While it doesn't have the divisive reputation of Attack on Titan, nor near-universal praise like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, it's clear something has caused My Hero Academia to dip in popularity.
Disclaimer: This article will discuss My Hero Academia spoilers, anime and manga alike. All opinions belong to their respective holders, including the author.
My Hero Academia's Rise to stardom and possible fall from grace explained
The year 2014 was a vastly different time for a lot of media, including the anime and manga landscape. Streaming services like Amazon Prime to rival Netflix or Hulu were just getting their start, and ongoing games like Destiny started toward the latter half of the year. Meanwhile, several anime, like Kill la Kill, and decade-long manga like Naruto were coming to an end.
My Hero Academia's manga premiered in July 2014 and got several recommendations. It also got kudos from One Piece's mangaka Eiichiro Oda and Naruto's mangaka Masashi Kishimoto. The first printing of the first volume sold out almost immediately.
The manga drew acclaim for its dynamic writing, expressive protagonists, and refreshing feelings of hope in every chapter. In a manga landscape where stories like Attack on Titan or Berserk or others that attempted to emulate the dark magical girl series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, My Hero Academia was a breath of fresh air.
The manga also handles the tonal shift better than the anime for some people, going harder on the darker shades, increasing violence, and featuring a dirtier, grungy aesthetic as the series went on. It helps that the series has maintained that optimism even in the darker moments.
The anime explodes onto the scene
My Hero Academia exploded into mainstream popularity two years later when the anime premiered in 2016. The anime not only received numerous awards but also recognition even outside the anime community. It was called a worthy successor to the Big Three, especially filling the hole left behind by Naruto.
Many anime viewers are also superhero fans, so seeing the fusion helped to cement the anime's success. The anime was seen as a fresh start for contemporary shonen, without the need for long filler arcs or many episodes as the anime could focus on adapting the manga.
While the fight scenes were an obvious pull for audiences, the humor and characters and variety of powers and personalities drew audiences in with the animation and music adding to the charm. The ensemble of Class 1-A, despite being mainly shown from Deku's perspective, only helped its popularity.
The anime was popular enough to spawn three movies, with a fourth movie on the way and hitting Japanese theaters in August 2024. It likewise created a large fandom that continues to this day and is eagerly awaiting season 7 after the Dark Hero Arc adaptation in season 6.
A large fandom emerges
Like with many anime that accrue in popularity over time, My Hero Academia gained a huge fanbase with the anime's release. Cosplays, fanart, and AMVs flooded conventions and the internet as so many other anime like Naruto have done in the past.
The fandom still has millions of people hooked on it, it's still a presence at conventions, in online spaces like Tumblr, X, and Reddit, and in art communities like DeviantArt. My Hero Academia hasn’t bled fans the way other long-running shonen anime like Naruto or Bleach have done in its nearly decade-long run.
Some fans have been overzealous over the nearly decade-long run, but that's every anime fan in existence. To put this point simply, to say that fandom can ruin shows for people whether through toxicity or zeal is a matter of perspective. Oftentimes, those people are a very loud but very small minority of fans blown up due to social media presence.
This happened with many fanbases over the years as the anime settles or as people watch or draw more. Every fanbase has its bad eggs, no one fandom can truly be considered "the worst" any more than any other fandom can because most fans aren't loud or on social media and enjoy the show quietly.
The new wave of shonen anime vs. the old wave
One of the larger reasons for My Hero Academia's success and popularity is that it is part of the new wave of shonen anime that differentiated itself from its descendants of yesteryear. Alongside Hunter x Hunter, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Black Clover, My Hero Academia was one of the many new shonen that broke the mold.
The mold was previously established by the Big Three of Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece alongside other popular anime like Dragon Ball. These included entire filler arcs, two to three episodes for a single fight scene and multiple episode tournament arcs, multiple flashbacks mid-fight, and other trappings. These were the things that came to typify shonen anime at the time.
While My Hero Academia hasn't avoided some of these pitfalls, it was largely considered one of the turning points for shonen anime. No longer would fans have to suffer through fights that took up more than an episode or two, or long periods of filler boredom.
My Hero Academia earned the name "the deconstruction anime" for deconstructing particular tropes like the shonen rival or the hero's self-sacrificial tendencies being a good thing. Unlike more well-established and well-known shonen rivals like Sasuke Uchiha or Vegeta, Bakugo was never evil, never turned evil, and dropped the rivalry with Deku a lot faster.
My Hero Academia's inevitable replacements
Of course, like with every show, there's an ebb and flow to the popularity of My Hero Academia. Much like how Attack on Titan's multiple-year hiatus caused people to forget the series for a while, so too did the emergence of different series cause My Hero Academia to go on the back burner for many anime fans.
The emergence of newer, and some fans dare to say better, shows like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vinland Saga, and Chainsaw Man stole the spotlight. There was likewise a general sense of malaise about superhero media, especially during 2022-2023, but that wasn't big enough compared to other shows taking the spotlight.
These shows came out swinging hard and quickly attracted a lot of attention for their action scenes and intrigue that got to the point. It's worth noting that even popular shows aren’t immune to the changing tides of hype. This is because something new always comes along like Oshi No KO!, Spy x Family, Bocchi The Rock!, Dungeon Meshi, and Solo Leveling, among other examples.
As a measuring stick, the most recent season of My Hero Academia ranks at the time of writing #247th in terms of popular anime on MyAnimeList. Meanwhile, the top 10 feature Attack on Titan’s final season, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End as some of the top picks for all the anime archived there.
With great popularity, comes great criticism
As of the time of writing, My Hero Academia doesn’t have any real huge controversies that tanked its popularity. Attack on Titan faced a huge uproar over its ending, while Seven Deadly Sins and One Punch Man saw animation downgrades in their second seasons. However, My Hero Academia has coasted along without any major controversies that tanked it.
There’s criticism galore from fans of all types, from the treatment of the female characters to the final arc dragging on too long. This goes alongside the larger criticism of the Japanese work system and mangaka Kohei Horikoshi’s health. All this is amidst all the work needed to be done to get the manga out on a weekly schedule and the constant breaks needed to get it out.
These are but a few criticisms that My Hero Academia has had in its decade-long run. Others include that the anime is overrated, the handling of the anime adaptation by Studio Bones, and the censorship. Some more include how people didn't like Bakugo at first which tends to fade out as time goes on.
Even so, there hasn’t been anything huge that caused vast swaths of people to drop the series outright. Unlike The Promised Neverland season 2, My Hero Academia's anime has followed the manga with only minimal changes. Unlike Attack on Titan, the manga is progressing at a fairly decent pace despite the author’s health problems and doesn't seem to be rushing toward a twist ending.
The elongated final arc test's fans' patience
One key reason for the manga's downgrade in some fans' minds is the final arc taking so long to finish. For the record, the Final Act Saga began with the Dark Hero Arc in chapter 307 on March 29, 2021. It has continued into the Final War Arc which is in chapter 414 on February 19, 2024. That's well over 107 chapters in nearly three years.
The Final War Arc in particular has been ongoing for well over two years at this point, starting with chapter 343 on February 14, 2022. That's 71 chapters in two years. As a measuring stick for one of the older Big Three in Naruto, the Fourth Shinobi World War Saga started with the Five Kage Summit arc in chapter 454 on July 20, 2009. However, it didn't end until chapter 699 on November 24, 2014, meaning 245 chapters over five years.
The length, however, may not be the problem as final arcs are expected to be long. The problem fans have is that Horikoshi doesn't seem to know where to stop certain fights to logical conclusions. They state that the mangaka is unable to properly set up certain moments, and artificially extends the saga with fights that nobody cares about like Spinner vs. Shoji and Koda.
The Shoto vs. Dabi fight could've ended at Kamino Ward with Shoto's victory, for instance, but was extended to include the Todoroki family all having to pitch in to stop Dabi from going nuclear.
Horikoshi's health issues haven't helped this, with some fans annoyed at the waiting period between chapters. However, more than a few other fans understand and either want Horikoshi to rest for a while until he's fully healed or otherwise just end the story sooner. Health issues in the manga industry have killed people before, like Berserk's creator, hence the concerns.
Studio Bones' handling of the series draws ire
One specific thorn in anime fans' sides is how the studio adapting My Hero Academia's anime, Studio Bones, has been handling the series. Some complaints are garbage, like one where shippers say "Bakugo was erased" from season six's opener. However, other more valid complaints include the censoring of the heavy blood and gore and rushing the pacing ruining the impact of certain scenes.
The complaints about censorship have been there for a long time. It was especially egregious during season 5 with the Paranormal Liberation War having relatively clean moments. This included Tomura's torturous treatment by Dr. Tsubasa being free of any blood as compared to the manga that upped the blood and gore and emphasized the tonal shift better.
The pacing issues during the Dark Hero Arc were a subject many fans weighed in on, especially Class 1-A's ordeal in bringing Deku home. The Bakugo apology, while still having an impact, came in the same episode that Class 1-A all told Deku what he meant to them vs. the manga spacing it out chapter by chapter.
While there were concerns that the anime movies took away from the series, the movies themselves have been referenced and characters showed up in the manga before. However, some may believe the movies take away from the series proper, especially the animation budget, plenty of others like the movies as something to watch between seasons for the fun of it.
Final Thoughts
Despite the prevalence of the above-mentioned complaints, it's worth noting that many fans consider these either non-issues or forgivable in the long term. The fact is, as the last 10 years have demonstrated, so many anime and manga have come and gone that My Hero Academia got eclipsed.
This, however, hasn't meant anything to fans of the series. The complaints about the series (from the pacing to censorship and others) aren't unique to it and have been seen in Shonen anime before. The series is still popular enough to warrant another upcoming movie and a seventh season.
There are always going to be fans and haters and those in between when it comes to any anime becoming popular. This goes double for My Hero Academia which can be considered one of the new Big Three of anime, given its popularity. It hasn't gone anywhere, hasn't gotten worse, nor has it had much to detract from it that doesn't amount to viewer's expectations that weren't met.
The point is that My Hero Academia is still going and probably will still be going for at least a couple more years for the anime adaptation to catch up with the manga and finally conclude. Come what may, it's clear people will still be enjoying My Hero Academia even after the conclusion.
