Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this manga review. Please read with caution.

On July 26, 2020, I started and finished reading My Hero Academia’s Volume 7.

Synopsis: Written and drawn by Kohei Horikoshi, the main series follows Izuku Midoriya—nicknamed Deku—and his dream to become a hero someday. In a world where 80% of the superhuman society had powers—dubbed Quirks in this series—the dream to become a superhero became way more common. Sadly enough, Deku fell into the 20% category, effectively making him average—or Quirkless. After a fateful encounter with the number one hero All Might though, Deku’s fate changes forever.

Picking up where Volume 6: “Struggling” left off, Todoroki was giving the hero speech to Iida during their battle against Hero Killer: Stain—reminding him that he couldn’t forget who he wanted to be. This was a powerful character moment for Todoroki, who had recently started the healing process by visiting his mother in the hospital and working with his father in order to understand them—and himself—better.

This triggered Tenya Iida’s flashback story centered around his relationship with his older brother and his desire to inspire others like he did, thus reminding him how far he went off his original hero path when he decided to pursue vengeance. Armed with renewed resolve, Iida and Midoriya were able to land significant blows to the Hero Killer.

Hero Killer: Stain’s background was also explored in the aftermath of this confrontation, revealing why he thought he was doing society a favor by culling those who claimed the title “hero” without really earning it like All Might. Stain truly believed All Might was the only person worthy of being called a hero… until he met Izuku Midoriya that is. The artwork during this action sequence astounded me, and how the action blended well with the flashback sequence.

Also in the aftermath, Todoroki, Midoriya, and Iida were given lectures by their Pro Hero mentors—Endeavor, Gran Torino, and Manual—and the Chief of Police about how their actions broke over a million rules regarding how heroes needed to operate in society, as they didn’t have the authority to engage with Hero Killer: Stain because they were only students without hero licenses.

This was a thought-provoking issue on par with Captain American: Civil War’s main theme concerning government oversight on all superhero activity; something that is further addressed and discussed in the spin-off series, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. Luckily for everyone involved though, a cover story was created to give Endeavor all the credit for stopping Hero Killer: Stain.

Nobody had an issue with this arrangement. Tenya Iida blamed himself for getting Midoriya and Todoroki roped into his mistake, seeing the permanent damage to his left hand as a reminder to keep on the right path. Midoriya, with his hand also permanently damaged in the right, chose to do the same thing. Todoroki believed he was curse because he was somewhat involved in their hands being crushed, declaring himself the “Hand Crusher” in comedic fashion. Iida and Midoriya laughed at him, breaking the tension.

The next part of the volume was dedicated to more aftermath regarding the villain side of things. All Might and Gran Torino—his former teacher—discussed how the Hero Killer and Nomu incident in Hosu City will likely lead to villain popularity, effectively making the hero work more difficult with the extra workload coming their way. Having this talk with Gran Torino also made All Might decide to tell Midoriya about All For One, the villain counterpart to One for All.

All For One is an immortal villain who holds multiple Quirks and can bestow or steal Quirks. The origin story of One for All and its first successor—the younger brother of All For One—was also revealed in this portion of the volume. The exposition was handled well as All Might explained it in his dialogue, giving Midoriya a clear warning that he will have to fight this evil someday. However, All Might leaves out the fact that Midoriya might have to confront All For One without him by his side.

The volume closes out with the students taking their final exams for the semester, written and practical. For the practical exam, the students are fighting in pairs against their teachers who are able to exploit their weaknesses most effectively. Midoriya and Bakugo are paired as a result—due to their inability to get along with each other—against All Might.

As the volume is titled, “Katsuki Bakugo: Origin”, we are given glimpses of Bakugo’s background and how his anger and combativeness are all rooted in the mentality that he wants to be a hero like All Might—someone who always wins against the bad guy! This is something Midoriya uses against him, as Bakugo declared he’d rather lose than team-up with Midoriya, which goes against his hero mentality of always winning to be a hero.

Overall, My Hero Academia is a beautiful superhero manga with an author that meant it when he said, “I’m going full throttle” in his afterword. This volume ended on a cliffhanger, which is an effective method to get more readers to buy more volumes, so they can continue reading the epic story of how Deku becomes the greatest superhero of all time. Thanks for reading this manga review, everyone! Let’s keep it reading!

back to blog