Okay, I'm going to say it right now:

I don't like how My Hero Academia's story has been told.

Now, before anyone decide to bring out the pitchforks and torches (I know that there aren't that many of you like that out there, but any of you could be like that so please forgive me for being cautious), allow me to explain my viewpoint.

My Hero Academia is a good series, with some solid bones and foundations. The story telling is good and has strong qualities and themes to it, and explores a unique society with interesting characters and ideas.

However, while it is good, I would not classify it as great.

My Hero Academia, while good, has a lot of flaws to go along with it, a lot of which I feel drag down the story and stop it from being something truly great. The pacing is all over the place, many of the characters, while interesting, feel flat and without much room to explore their depths, others are completely left to the wind, the worldbuilding leaves much to be desired, and the themes, while cool and interesting to think about, do not - in my opinion - get the time and focus that they need to truly portray the message that MHA's writer, Kohei Horikoshi, wants to depart onto us.

Now, I don't think that this is entirely Horikoshi's fault. While I do believe that he has a part to play in what I personally believe to be a lack of true quality within the storytelling itself, I do understand that his and my standards of writing may and will differ from each other.

1. No writer is the same, of course. What I view to be a flaw, Horikoshi may view as a success.

2. Standards for storytelling and themes may and will differ in different parts of the world, so, like with traditional values, what we in the West view as proper storytelling can and will differ to that of those whom like in the East.

3. Horikoshi is a Japanese author and must cater to his primary audience in Japan. I remember hearing word from Chibi Reviews that, around the times that the main villains were introduced into the series through the Summer Camp arc, as well as the My Villain Academia arc, viewership of the series began to decline and wane, so that means that, unlike those of us living a continent away, the average reader in Japan would not have that much interest in the villains as we do, and so Horikoshi would have to maintain the standard that his primary audience hold him to.

4. MHA is a Shonen series primarily, centred around battles and confrontations if I am remembering correctly (please correct me if I am wrong), and as such must cater to the needs of Shonen Jump, less they get axed due to lack of viewership in their primary audience. As such, some things will have to be rushed in order to satisfy those who work on Shonen Jump (personally, I don't believe this to be much of an excuse, but I hear that Shonen Jump is notorious for cancelling many series', so I can't say for certain).

None of this is Horikoshi's fault, and there may be other factors which I am unaware of, but I do feel that while these factors would affect his choices and desires, his storytelling still has flaws to them, and is in need of course correcting.

In my opinion, of course.

So, for now, let's go into the problems that I have with My Hero Academia. I shall do my best to try and be fair and without judgement, but as these are my personal opinions, I cannot promise that there will not be any bias within them.

So, anyways, let's get started:

Pacing:

The pacing of this series is, in my opinion, all over the place. Some arcs, such as the training arcs for the students, go flying by without barely a murmur, while others, such as the Hideout Raid Arc, stretch on with loud abandon. Some character arcs, like Dabi and the Todoroki family, are stretched out across the entire series and loose their interest the longer that they carry on, while others, such as Denki, are sped through without much thought.

Worse yet, the wild pacing means that while the story is long, it feels like there isn't much room at all to explore the themes that have been presented to us, but I will get to that later. However, what I will say is that while the themes are sped through as quickly as can be (in my opinion), but the fights drag on and dominate so much of the series' runtime for such a long time that they lose my interest within just a few chapters.

Not just that, but the storytelling itself seems rushed, in a way, especially recently with the newest chapters and arcs. We are presented with themes and characters, but there seems to be no intent to try and explore them. It's like we're on a holiday, but we're speeding through the tourist districts and attractions because the guide just wants to get to the end of the tour and go home.

However, what's worse is that some arcs are placed so close to each other that it doesn't make sense for them to do so. A tournament arc so soon after the USJ, without addressing the trauma that the students have gone through and not allowing them time to breathe? The final exam arc near the beginning of the school year? At least rename it since it's obviously not the final exam... just, these things vex me, is all.

And speaking of which...

Fights and Downtime:

The battles that take place within this series take up so much page space and control so much of the series' runtime that it leaves the rest of the series without any room to breathe. In fact, I would go as far to say that the fight scenes and how drawn out they are actually cripples the series itself (my personal opinions of the Star and Stripe Arc aside). Every arc is dominated by a central battle, and they take up so much time that we don't see much of anything else, neither characters or explorations of the world itself. While they do happen, we don't see much of it.

We know that the students are training to be heroes, and while we do see it, we don't see enough of it. We know that the villains are conducting their own operations, but we don't see them in action, or the logistics of their survival. We know that the police are looking into the villains, but we don't see them. There's so much of My Hero's world that we hear about, but we don't see enough of it. Horikoshi seems to be so focused on delighting us with the fights that he doesn't give much thought to the events and happenings between them.

(This is why I personally prefer MHA: Vigilantes over the main series. While Vigilantes does have its flaws (having Eraserhead's origins in Vigilantes rather than the main series only hurts them both in my opinion), I feel like there's more time focused on the characters and building up their relationships and connections, as well as the central stories and themes around them. Plus, it's not solely focused on fight scenes and takes its time with exploring the in between of those fights and the characters themselves, showing us the civilian side of life, as well as the police investigations into criminal activity.)

Lack of female character usage:

There are a lot of female characters in MHA that, in my opinion, are much more interesting than the male characters, and yet they are constantly being side-lined by male characters. We have characters with interesting storylines, like Yaoyorozu, and compelling personalities, like Asui ("Call me Tsu.") Tsu, sorry, and Mina, and we even have cool heroes like Mirko and Ryukyu, and even Nejire, but they are pushed to the side and forgotten in favour of Midoriya, Bakugo, Iida, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Endeavor. Hell, Ochako is meant to be one of the main characters of this story, and yet she does not get nearly as much spotlight as the boys, and even her fight against Toga in the recent arc is rushed over in favour of Dabi and Todoroki. Sure, in the more recent arcs we are seeing more prominence from the female characters, but we should've been getting that from the start.

The female characters have a lot of charm and personality to them, but because of Horikoshi's insistence on using his male characters over his female ones, we see a lot of failed potential and creativity that just never goes anywhere.

(Also, I would like to note that in the Hideout Raid arc, it was Kirishima working under Fat Gum and Suneater. Why on earth this decision was made, I will never know, because Fat Gum and Suneater need to eat in order to activate their quirks, same as Yaoyorozu and Sato, and yet do they, with the quirks compatible with Fat Gum's training, intern under him? No, it's Kirishima. It just seems so incompatible, and it doesn't make sense to me.)

Mineta:

Yeah, this is one hell of a hot topic, isn't it?

Look, I've made a whole point in another fic where I analyse Mineta as a character, where I say that while I do feel that he needs to be punished appropriately for his actions and that he needs to drink his Respect Women juice, I feel like kicking him out of almost every story and not even wanting to touch him is not going to help him as a character. I can understand that some people - particularly those on the receiving end of sexual abuse - will find him uncomfortable, but considering that Kaminari is guilty of some of the same stuff as well, I can say, as a fellow survivor of sexual abuse and assault, that I do not find him as hellish as a lot of people make him out to be.

Yes, he needs to be punished for his actions, but kicking him out of the story and doing nothing to try and redeem him as a character doesn't help. That's just character bashing...

And I don't like character bashing.

Bakugo:

Yeah, this is another hot topic.

I think it's fair to say that Bakugo should've received some sort of punishment for his actions. He's been given praise and compliments ever since he got into U.A., but hasn't received any punishment for any of his actions at all, apart from his fight with Midoriya - and they both got the same punishment - and failing the licence exam - and he failed alongside Todoroki. None of his actions in Aldera or in U.A., such as loudly screaming at and threatening other people have been addressed or taken into account, and no word has been said to him about it, and that's annoys me.

Now, I know that this argument has both sides to it, and I am aware that Bakugo has grown up and matured over the course of the series, but he's still threatening people and yelling at them without much care in the world, and I doubt that that's a good thing for a upcoming hero to have. And while he has matured and come into his own, as well as apologised to Midoriya for his actions and taken them into account, he still hasn't received any punishment for them and still hasn't evolved his personality enough for me to view him as someone worthy of all the time that he gets.

Seriously, Horikoshi and Japan love this character, and I just don't get it.

U.A.'s teaching methods:

Yeah, I don't think that it's controversial to say that U.A. has some serious problems with its teaching methods. All Might being given a teaching position without going through the proper training to do so (he's not even a teaching assistant, he's just straight up made a teacher), Nezu being a freaking sadist, Aizawa and his 'Logical deceptions' that seem more cruel and traumatic than actually formative, the teachers letting Mineta and Bakugo get away with their behaviour without doling out any actual punishment, allowing Yaoyorozu to walk around practically naked (yes that I know that she needs the room for her quirk, but it's also impractical as hell and literally just for fan service. No fifteen year old should be walking around dressed as a stripper), allowing Hagakure to walk around literally naked... suffice to say, I have some serious problems with how U.A. operates as a school.

Now, there are some reasons for U.A. to operate as it does. School in Japan is much different to what it is in the likes of Britain and America, and there is more emphasis on learning and strict school life. Pulling someone out of school would waste a child's time, clubs are treated as serious business, and when it comes to altercations, there is more blame fostered onto the victim than the instigator, so bullying is given a blind eye by teachers.

So there are some reasons for U.A. to act the way that it does, but it does not justify the other instances of incompetency that the school has shown, such as with not giving All Might any training, allowing Aizawa to create a climate of fear within his class and constantly threaten to expel them if they fail at something, not to mention actually expelling an entire class only to reinstate them later on (now isn't that a kick in the teeth), not identifying the toxic nature of Midoriya and Bakugo's relationship and taking the necessary steps to intervene and heal them. Midnight seems to be the only teacher in U.A. who is trying her best for her students, but she's just one person in an entire staff, and even then I feel like she slips up sometimes (Alien Queen is so much better than flipping Pinky and we all know it).

U.A. has a serious problem with its teaching methods and tutors, and this needs to be addressed in the main series.

But, honestly, I doubt that it ever will.

Themes and Ideas:

There are multiple themes that are present within My Hero Academia, but, much like the story itself, many of these ideas are glossed over and not given much thoughts at all. These are the themes that I feel do not get enough exploration within the series:

1. Heroes as Celebrities:

Within the series, we see that the occupation of Pro Heroes have been turned into celebrities and mythical pop culture icons. We know that Class 1-A are training to become these kinds of heroes, and while we do see some of it, I feel like we don't see enough of it. We don't see much of the heroes discussing their costumes and being told about how marketable they are and could be, we don't see much of the heroes talking about the kind of products they will sell in the future or the sponsorships that they have, we don't hear anything about how some pros look more for the celebrity aspect of the job than the saving bit. We hear about it from the villains, but we don't see it.

We know that some heroes put more thought into their fame than saving people - Uwabami and Mount Lady come to mind, but they're the only ones we're shown in this regard - but we don't see enough of it to be convinced that it is genuine within the world of Professional Heroics itself. We don't see more of Class 1-A being taught as to be celebrities as well as heroes. We see some of it, but so much of their training is focused on combat and fighting, rather than PR and human relations. We infer that these things happen in the fandom, but we don't see them in the main source material.

2. Heroes as a Business:

Like said above, we know that Pro Heroes are now a marketable business, but while we see this in the series itself, it is never given much thought. It is mostly a background aesthetic, and is almost never talked about in the series. We know that many heroes have brand deals and sponsorships, but other than Momo and Itsuka with Uwabami, we don't see the U.A. students being talked to and discussing the possibility of products and merchandising with their brand and faces on them. It's only ever in the background. We have hero schools and hero agencies and hero merchandising and hero support and business departments, but I feel like we never truly learn what that means and represents.

We know that these things exist, but they are only thought of as background information: they are never given any primary thought at all. Class 1-A only ever think of Pro Heroes as people who save others first, and everything else second, without every giving the idea of them as a business any real thought.

3. Corrupt Heroes:

We know that there are corrupt heroes out there. We know this. We know that there are Pro Heroes that do not think about helping or saving people. Slidin' Go and his fellow MLA supporters come to mind, but we really only get a brief glimpse of them. Not only that, but we know that the Hero Public Safety Commission is corrupt. Conscripting Hawks and Lady Nagant as children and having the latter murder perceived threats to society before they could become those threats - essentially, murdering innocents.

However, once more, we do not see enough of this corruption. MHA is always discussing the true meaning of a hero, yet it never goes out of its way to push a Pro Hero doing bad to the forefront. We don't see a corrupt hero being brought into the forefront as the primary antagonist of an arc. The closest we get is Lady Nagant, and she is a former hero turned assassin, and ultimately just All For One's lackey, not a central antagonist working currently as a Pro Hero.

We needed to see more of this from the start. The students of Class 1-A are still incredibly idealistic and naïve about the society that they are going to be thrust into soon enough, and yet all they've done is face villains that only confirm their beliefs. I wish to see them go up against Pro Heroes that only use their post as a way to better and satisfy themselves. I want to see more Pro Heroes on the payroll of criminals and villains. I want to see Class 1-A being forced to confront their own morals and beliefs as they have to fight against people that they have looked up so, and see the systematic corruption that lies within the hero society that they live in.

Not only that, but hero society seems to be incredibly draconian as well. The HPSC trained children into assassins to kill people before they could become threats to society. Hero society held the strongest and flashiest 'Heroic' quirks up high and placed them on the highest pedestals, whilst also neglecting those with weaker quirks or no quirks at all. The people blindly follow All Might and the heroes like sheep, but as soon as they mess up they send the heroes off to the hangman's noose. People with strong quirks, like Bakugo, are allowed to be as violent to others as possible because he has such a 'Heroic' quirk and gets nothing but praise for it. Heroes stand on every corner. Hero society is one big police state, and it all points back to All Might and the culture that has been made around him, yet no one wants to talk about it in the series, apparently.

All Might was the number one hero across the world, and everyone should been looking up to him as the greatest opportunity to fame and glory for when he stepped down. When All Might retired, there should've been a thousand corrupt Pro Heroes fighting each other for the spotlight. Hero society is one on the brink of civil war, and when crap hit the fan, it should've all come falling down.

But it didn't. We see heroes retire, but we don't see any corrupt heroes taking advantage of the chaos. We don't see anything at all.

4. "Life isn't fair."

This is a constant underlying theme within MHA, which tells us that life isn't fair from the get-go, but tries to tell us that there is nothing we can do about it. This is a theme that should get more exploration in the future, because we hear about how life isn't fair, but we don't see people - heroes or villains - trying to change that. You could argue that the villains are the ones trying to make life more fair, but considering how the villains are usually characterised in the series, this doesn't seem like a really good representation, especially how the heroes of the story are primarily trying to stop them and restore the status quo.

I feel like there should be more of the heroes - those of Class 1-A - trying to make life fair for the people around them. They should be coming face to face with the inequalities that ravage their society, and doing their best to try and change them for the better.

But they don't. They never question the people around them and try to make the world around them better - try to make it fairer - and that infuriates me.

5. Morality

The world of MHA is wrapped in supposed shades of grey, and yet most of the heroes and villains that we see exist on shades of black and white. Twice, Gentle Criminal, and La Brava are the most nuanced villains that we have, but the others, while many have meaningful goals, still act and move through more villainous means and adhere to more black and white standards in terms of morality. Similarly, most of the heroes that we do come across also adhere to that same black and white standard without having much nuance in terms of morality to them.

I feel as those many will disagree with me on this, but I don't see the main characters having that much moral complexity to them in terms of what is right or wrong. Most of them are just focused on doing whatever the hell they want, which usually revolves around murdering people and turning the world into a 'Rule of the strongest' type of society. Not exactly someone that you can root for. Meanwhile, most of the Pro Heroes are seen as always in the right in regards to these situations, and no one in their world seems to question it or think to themselves that something needs to change. Only the villains seem to do that, and they are almost always portrayed as in the wrong to do so.

Shigaraki is, in my opinion, the ultimate embodiment of this failure of portraying complex morality. He has a compelling backstory and has the power to overturn the corruption in hero society, but doesn't really want that. He just wants to destroy everything just because he wants to. He has no real motivation beyond just doing whatever he wants, and all that does is prove that the heroes are right in what they do. Meanwhile, the closest I can see on the side of heroes in terms of having grey morality is Endeavour, and he's a child abuser.

Feel free to disagree with me, but most of the characters tend to operate on a black and white system of morality, and I would like to see more heroes and villains with more moral complexity to them, and really challenge the system of heroes and villains that governs the world.

6. Quirked vs Quirklessness.

Oh, do not get me started on this.

MHA, at the beginning of the story, had an amazing premise to work with. It had the idea of a boy without any powers, struggling to rise up and stand alongside those who do - a tale of nature vs nurture - and then does nothing with it. It has the capacity to tell an amazing story of natural talent vs hard work and practice, and then does nothing from this. I mean, the main character, Midoriya, is meant to be the underdog of the story, but when he's been given the game breaking quirk that is One for All and is still meant to be the underdog, it's kind of hard to take it seriously when he would've been a better underdog without a quirk.

Granted, the entrance exam is biased against stronger quirks, and the only way he would've been able to get in would've been with a strong quirk (not really a strong argument since Hagakure and Mineta have weak quirks and aren't as physically fit and yet they still got in) and the only other way in which he could've got in was through the sports festival, which are hideously stacked against anyone not in the hero department and is ruled by regulations and standards that would not allow the pragmatic needs to win in a tournament match, so there's not a lot of hope for him there. In that regard, I can understand why people think that Midoriya getting One for All is better than him going in quirkless, though I still feel vexed by the quirkless plotline was pretty much dropped before it could even start up. While I don't feel anything about Midoriya getting One for All, I still feel that there are cool ways in which the story could've been told. Hell, it might've even been told better by Midoriya getting One for All, as that would offer one hell of a unique perspective on the subject, but nope, we didn't get anything about it.

Seriously, the only other quirkless people in MHA that we've seen are Melissa Shield (and she's living the high life in I-Island) and Knuckle Duster (who used to be a former Pro Hero and had his quirk taken from him), but we don't hear anything about their struggles as quirkless people or their opinions on it. Knuckle Duster can fight against Pros and villains without a quirk all fine and dandy, and Melissa makes up for her quirklessness by becoming a genius inventor, but we never hear their opinions on the quirkless and the systematic oppression that they are subject to (and we know that they are, we know. Midoriya suffers from it from Bakugo, Aldera, and even All Might). Hell, All Might used to be quirkless, but he rejects Midoriya on the basis of his quirklessness, which is just hypocritical in of itself.

There is such an interesting story to be explored in MHA, about how the powerless had to live with the powerful, and how they are looked down upon for having no power at all. It should've been a new angle of the weak vs the strong, but instead the quirkless plotline is dropped all together, and that disappoints me so much.

Okay, so the themes are done, and I will admit, there are certain themes in MHA that do get a lot of focus. Themes like individualism vs collectivism, and freedom vs order, but they don't align that well with the themes and ideas previously mentioned, and there are better ways in which they could've been told and structured.

These are the main problems that I have with MHA, and the ones that I feel drag down the series and stop it from becoming the great story that I know it can be. MHA has some amazing foundations, but unfortunately, in my opinion, it's dragged down by these problems and its inability to step away from the fights for a few moments, give the rest of the story and characters some more room to breathe, and allow the story to pick up on the themes that it introduced and explore them in more depth.

It's too late to change the story now, unfortunately, and now I feel that, since MHA is so close to its end, it's too late to change it for the future. But I would like to see a rewrite where these problems are addressed, or at least spoken about. I don't like the idea of rewriting a story myself, as I find it to be pretentious, but I would like to see a well written story in the future that does address these points.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the reviews. I would love to hear your opinions and insights into what you think about my points. There will be some of you that agree with me and some of you that don't, so I would like to hear what you all have to say.

And please, be nice about it. Keep the pitchforks and torches to a minimum. I'd rather we all got along civilly rather than going to war with each other.

But, until then, stay safe, leave your thoughts, and I shall see you all next time!

Titanmaster 117 out!