Why is My Hero Academia Popular?

Dissecting why a piece of art, is popular is a nebulous and difficult task since, despite all conjecture and study, you simply can’t account for everyone’s tastes. Even so, I think we can track general trends and deduce part of the reason people really enjoy something, and that’s what I want to try doing today. Ladies and Gents, I know this is probably the millionth thoughtpiece you’ve seen about this particular show, but I’d like to examine what about My Hero Academia captured the anime community by lightly examining past popular titles and the heart of the anime in question. Oh, and full disclosure, this is not sponsored, because I’m not popular enough to get noticed by Crunchyroll-senpai though it would be really great if we could arrange a partnership because I need money

            Ahem. We should get to the meat of this post.

            So, when you think of anime, or, how anime is viewed in popular culture, what are the first shows that come to mind? For me, it’s Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, Naruto, Death Note, One Piece, Bleach, numerous Gundam entries, and a few more recent titles, like One Punch Man, Re:ZERO, and, well, My Hero Academia. While these series arguably have no objective similarities with each other, outside of, well, the fact that they’re popular, I would like to argue that they at least have one more, very important similarity: they all take place in either an altered version of our world, or an entirely different world entirely. Additionally, each presented world has a unique aspect that hooks viewers in, and characters that are very, very easy to build merchandise around. If you agree with these observations, you’re not the only one.

            In Ian Condry’s article about the subject, “Anime Creativity: Characters and Premises in the Quest for Cool Japan,” he examines what it is that makes anime different from other media. He discusses how anime creators tend to create a world and characters before constructing a narrative, based on the theory that consumers tend to care more about the world and characters more. He also discusses transmedia storytelling, or, how the characters and worlds presented in a work aren’t completely bound by their own narrative. To clarify, let’s use the Fate franchise as an example. Shameless plug for my Fate/Apocrypha video This franchise originated from a single visual novel, and has spawned numerous anime adaptations, visual novel sequels, book spin-offs, anime that adapt those spin-offs, prequels, sequels, a ton of merchandise, memorable character designs, more games, and stuff I’m probably missing because there’s waaaaaaaay too much to keep track of. This definitely doesn’t apply to every popular anime, but this idea makes a lot of sense when looking at most popular anime, and how they influence fans’ purchasing habits. (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0263276409103111)

To aid in research, I took a look at the Top 50 Most Popular Anime on MAL, and broke my findings into three categories: firstly, anime that take place in an altered version of our reality; secondly, anime that take place in another world entirely; and thirdly, anime that take place in, for lack of a better nomer, our world. Out of the fifty, half of them fell into the first category, twenty took place in the second, and a mere five fell into the third, and even then, some of those titles are debatable. And, when you look at anime like Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, Naruto, and so on, you also get a lot of passionate fans cosplaying, running through the streets of colleges imitating the famous Naruto run, buying figures, buying posters, making AMVs or using the show’s music in memes, and doing many, many other things to show their love for their favorite series.

From this, I think we can say two things about how to make a popular anime. Firstly, it has to create a captivating world that you can picture yourself living in, thereby creating a flexibility between fantasy and reality. To put it simply, the fictional world needs to be able to lend itself to the real one, by featuring characters that are easily recognizable, have outfits people would love to dress up in, and are, well, likable and relatable to many people. Secondly, and this is something that is admittedly conjecture on my part, is that there has to be something unique about this world and characters that goes beyond the basics I just presented. After all, there are many anime that fall into those two previous categories, but aren’t remotely popular, or as popular as the anime we’ve been discussing.

This is where I get to do what I do best, and what you’ve probably been waiting for me to start doing since the beginning of the post: analyzing My Hero Academia! Does it fit into these categories? Well, I think it does; I see fanart of My Hero Academia all over Twitter, I see people cosplaying as the characters, and I see people imagining what types of quirks (or superpowers, for the uninitiated) they’d like to have. This makes sense: the show’s setting allows fans to play around with it, since it’s based in the idea that anyone can be a hero, and the quirks are so varied that it feels like the possibilities for what quirk a person can have are endless. It also helps that superheroes are huge right now, and the fact that My Hero Academia features high school students instead of adults means it fills a void in media culture that was previously taken by franchises like Spider-Man, Sky High, and Harry Potter...kind of. As for characters, many of their personalities stem from the desire to succeed against all odds, wanting to help others, and becoming the best like no one ever was. The show also goes to great lengths to establish how different variations of this motivation manifest themselves in the characters, making the cast feel interconnected while still technically being active, individual agents. Whether or not you actually like them, I think we can agree that this is generally a good way of establishing a large group of easily relatable characters, even if most of the characters themselves are debatably a little too simple, consequently.

In spite of that...while My Hero Academiacertainly has the potential to become popular because of this, I noticed an interesting phenomenon surrounding this show that hasn’t really sprung up before. That phenomenon is the overwhelming amount of My Hero Academia analysis videos, particularly when Stain appeared in the show, and many people who I wouldn’t think would like this show completely defied my expectations. Oh, and before any of you point this out, I’m well aware of the irony here, haha, I’m adding to the pool. Guilty as charged. Regardless, this got me thinking: what is it about My Hero Academia that makes it stand out so much, particularly when there are still critics saying it does nothing new to stand out from the crowd? Does My Hero Academia somehow exist in a state where it can be praised as a thematic breakthrough for shonen anime while also being cliché and not necessarily bursting with new ideas? Well, yeah, that’s exactly what I think it is, why else would I be that strangely specific - ahem.

Anyway, this is where we have to delve into My Hero Academia’s thematics. I’d like to disclose now that I am actually a big fan of this show, before any of you accuse me of being favorably biased towards this anime and then tell me to stop thinking about a stupid shonen show so much. While the idea of “overthinking” a simple show is probably worth a whole other post on its own, I wanted to disclose my opinion of My Hero Academia because analyzing anime isn’t an objective process, despite popular belief, and I want to acknowledge my own biases. If anything, I’d like to hear what people who don’t like My Hero Academia think the reason for this anime’s popularity is in the comments, since this is just a reflection of my opinion, after all. With all that baggage out of the way, let’s do some analyzing!

Firstly, a little context. The anime takes place in a world where 80% of the population has a quirk or some sort, and being a hero is a profession. More importantly, heroes are treated like celebrities, as the society within the show heavily idolizes them. This brings us to the most important part of My Hero Academia’s thematic conceit: the character of All Might. He is the symbol of peace, the hero that rescues everyone with a smile on his face and an aura of hope. He is the main inspiration for the story’s protagonist, Izuku Midoriya, as well as many of the other characters, like Todoroki (who’s best, by the way), Bakugo, and, while more negatively, the hero killer Stain and Shigaraki Tomura. Basically, he’s the representation of the heroic ideal in the anime’s universe. However, the show makes it explicitly clear that this idea of the perfect, wonderful All Might is a fantasy that people use to cope with the reality that there are people who use their quirks to harm society instead of help it. This is highlighted when Izuku asks All Might if he’s able to save everyone, to which All Might denies. While it seems like an obvious answer, the fact that Izuku still felt the need to ask this question, despite knowing all of All Might’s weaknesses, displays how deeply-rooted this ideal is in this show’s society.

To synthesize, My Hero Academia’s world is predicated on an ideal that doesn’t actually exist, and is continually challenged by villains who wish to dismantle the fantasy. While I would like to further discuss this in terms of Shigaraki and All for One, I unfortunately can’t because that’d get into manga spoilers and I’d rather not get burned at the stake today, so let’s dig into Stain, the hero killer. The main idea behind his character is that he believes the majority of heroes do not live up to the heroic ideal. In fact, he believes only All Might does. This is fair enough; many other heroes are shown to be rather unheroic, with the worst offender being Endeavor how dare you treat Todoroki like he’s an object you terrible human being, though I think the main reason is because many of the heroes in the business do it for financial reasons; hence, it’s not the altruistic heroic ideal that All Might represents. Therefore, Stain goes around killing heroes, hoping that, as a result, heroics will return to what it once was, something that’s not motivated by anything other than one’s own altruism.

From this, we know that the heroic ideal that All Might represents is impossible for anyone to achieve, including the very person who heralded the symbol, and secondly, believing too much in that ideal can lead you to dangerous places, as what happened with Stain. In spite of that, the heroic ideal is still the main motivating factor behind Izuku’s character growth, as it’s very clearly established that Izuku’s motivations all revolve around helping others. In other words, the impossible ideal is still represented in a positive light. Essentially, My Hero Academia wants you to remember that ideals, regardless of plausibility, are important, because they help you motivate yourself. In spite of this...the show is still willing to challenge those ideals. It wants to emphasize their importance, but it also wants you to remember that they aren’t always achievable, and you should maintain a sense of skepticism regardless of your beliefs.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what exactly any of that has to do with why My Hero Academia is popular, and, to answer that, it has everything to do with why it’s popular. The fact that the show actively encourages you to be skeptical about idealism, while still encouraging you to believe in it. This gives the world of My Hero Academia and its characters a sense of intrigue and complexity, allowing for debate and theorizing. I think this also plays into how our world has evolved; with the rise of the internet, people are less willing to believe in ideals because they’re arguably more connected to harsher realities. In order for a show about idealism to gain popularity, it needs to display a degree of skepticism, otherwise it’ll be laughed off as child’s play. Essentially, My Hero Academia is, in theory, appealing to many types of fans, ranging from those who just enjoy a good world to play around with to those who like to ponder themes and societal questions. It’s an act not many are able to pull off, and one that I think My Hero Academia has succeeded at.

So, to conclude, My Hero Academia is able to present ideas pertaining to the rich thematics of heroism while also being incredibly compatible with fan culture, using well-worn cliches and traditional shonen structure to cater to the transmedia landscape of anime fandom perfectly. This, in my opinion, is why My Hero Academia is popular, particularly with its second season, which is when the show really started to develop its themes while continuing to build its world and characters. Whether or not you think the show actually succeeded at being, well, good, I think we can all at least agree that this is what fans love the show for, at least in small part. It’s certainly why I enjoy the show, and judging from how other fans have been reacting to it, I think a good portion of them would agree.

I guess, to go on a small tangent before really concluding, I do think that narrative is important to quality, and that My Hero Academia isn’t always the best at constructing one, that sometimes the writing is clunky, that the characters are arguably too simple to really sympathize with, and the fact that everything is so thematically centralized, most egregiously seen with the lovingly-called “Deku effect,” can make the world feel more contrived than realistic. However, this isn’t a discussion of the show’s narrative or inherent quality, but more how the show captured the hearts of many, which I personally found to be a more interesting topic. If you do want me to discuss the quality of the show, I’d be happy to, but another time, or in the comments below! I’m looking forward to reading your responses, and I’ll see you guys later.