This review contains extremely minor spoilers as well as Chapter One spoilers. Disclaimer: I rate manga here based on how well I think they compare to other manga not just based on enjoyment so a manga that I find to be average but still a decent read will be around a 50 60s and 70s are a bit above average etc. Dont let the score make you think I consider this a bad manga its pretty darn good and its the manga that got me into reading manga. My Hero Academia is a simple shonen with a simple premise. In a world where superpowers called Quirks are present in most of the population Izuku Midoriya dreams of being a hero. Constantly obsessed with heroes like his idol the 1 hero All Might Midoriyas dreams are crushed when he finds out that hes Quirkless. Continuing to try and get into the top school for wouldbe heroes UA High Midoriya catches the attention of All Might who tells Midoriya that Midoriya can inherit his Quirk and become a hero. MHA follows Midoriya and his fellow heroesintraining on their paths to become heroes. Love it or hate it that simple shonen premise has grown into one of the most defining manga of the last decade. It blew up in the West sells well in Japan and looks like itll end at around 40 volumes selling millions of copies of each. Still why is MHA such a big deal? What makes it good? Well in short MHA just does a really good job with that simple shonen premise. When it comes to battle shonen normally theres a few things that make it good a developing protagonist interesting characters good villains an interesting power system well done fights and an overarching story. MHA delivers on all of those pretty well. First off the protagonist. Midoriya is a pretty standard shonen protagonist extremely emotional strong sense of morals no father. At the start of the series the first one is obvious and Midoriya is borderline annoying at first. Lots of tears lots of overexcitement. However throughout the series he continues to develop and becomes a well done character. He also develops as a hero and the decision to initially make him Quirkless and force him to play catchup with all the other heroes in training whove been experimenting with their powers for years works really well. A lot of the moments where Midoriya develops as a character go hand in hand with some new application of his Quirk which makes it really satisfying to see his growth. Is he a perfectly done character? No but hes an endearing underdog and over time hes become a very good one. As for the rest of the cast well theres a ton of variance. As youd expect from a shonen with a large cast theres some side characters that get a lot of time spent on their development and some that are notable but dont really get spotlighted. The characters have great dynamics particularly the heroestobe and feel like theyre supporting each other in a way not unlike a sports team which leads to a lot of likable characters. Overall I do think the series does a good job with making sure most of the primary cast gets their time in the sun as well as a few of the professional heroes and it does a decent job bringing characters in and out of the story in a natural way. Theres a character or two thatre just not well handled Mineta is a notable one for his personality but several of the pro heroes and characters like Hagakure or Sato get pretty much ignored but considering MHA juggles like 6070 characters in a some way or another thats expected. The villains are in my opinion what really makes MHA shine. For the most part they dont have grand goals most arent out to rule the world or commit mass genocide or anything crazy like that. In many cases theyre written as just people trying to live life their way and deal with their personal issues even if that means theyre killers and criminals. Are they good guys no but they arent for the most part evil. Spinner and Twice are good examples of that and Twice in particular is an extremely compelling character. Overall the villains are characters that you can somewhat sympathize with and that they get highlighted is always awesome. As far as the power system and fights go MHA takes advantage of its superpower system to have some really interesting abilities. Sure theres super strength or speed or creating electricity and whatnot but theres also creative abilities like tape dispenser Spiderman and the ability to change elasticity. The characters personalities also often reflect their power which is nice and keeps the powers themselves from feeling out of place. As far as fights go theyre pretty solid and the pacing feels good. Theres some that have truly creative applications of powers and even when they dont theyre almost always satisfying and entertaining. Lastly the overarching story. MHAs overarching story is driven by a great parallel between Midoriyas development and that of the villains and it works extremely well. To its credit the series is unafraid to go off on tangents with the side characters fine with What you wind up with is a shonen that isnt entirely heroic and that dynamic sets it apart from most other basic battle shonen out there. The worldbuilding is also pretty good even if Id like to see more of the politics driving pro heroism and the series naturally weaves in explanations of how the world works after the advent of superpowers. As far as art goes MHA has really good art for a weekly. Its extremely clean with enough detail to make it interesting and the series has extremely striking panels when theyre appropriate with the occasional facial expression or closeup that gives the moment extreme impact. Particularly later on in the story it feels like the art shifts a little bit to match the tone and when the story is less hopeful the art takes on the same quality. Its pretty damn impressive. Overall MHA is definitely deserving of its success. Its not perfect or particularly inventive by any means but its taken all of the tropes and hallmarks of a basic battle shonen and used them extremely well. With great villains a fairly wellhandled cast engrossing fights and high quality art its well worth the read.