My Hero Academia V2

 

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My Hero Academia is written by Kphei Horikoshi and published by Shueisha Inc. in 2014.Horikoshi has also written Omagadoki Dobutsuen and Barrage. My Hero Academia—Boku No Hero Academia in Japanese—is his third published manga series. This is rated T for teen for cartoon violence and some language.

Volume 2 picks up with everyone preparing for combat training under All Might’s instruction. This is the first time we get to see everyone’s hero costumes. Everyone’s is designed by a company that works with the school, but Midoriya’s mother made his based on an old drawing he’d done. Out of all the outfits, his is the most ridiculous looking.

All Might splits everyone into teams and randomly assigns one team to act as the heroes and the other team to act as the villains. This is the first time we get to see Mioriya in a combat situation against another person. He is teamed with Uraraka, a girl with a zero gravity quirk.  They are pitted against Ida, the son of a line of military police, and Bakugo. It’s here we get a little glimpse as to why Bakugo hates Midoriya. As children, they were friends, but once it became clear Midoriya didn’t have a quirk, Bakugo saw him as a weakling, yet Midoriya is always willing to help others. He doesn’t expect anything in return, he’s not trying to prove anything, he’s just genuinely a good person. This annoys Bakugo for some reason. This has continued into their high school years and now Bakugo believes Midoriya’s been hiding his quirk and it has angered him even more.

Bakugo attacks Midoriya directly but loses his temper, giving Midoriya and Uraraka the chance to win in the combat training. Others go through the training, though we don’t get to see much of those fights. Midoriya is popular in class but he decides to tell Bakugo his secret but Bakugo doesn’t believe him. We also see he’s insecure about his own abilities when compared to others. Since Midoriya has always been weaker than him, he’s had a way to make himself feel better about his own abilities, but now he doesn’t have that to fall back on and he’s left struggling to deal with his insecurities.

We are also introduced to some of the larger villains that the characters will be dealing with. They’re goal is to eliminate All Might—“Kill the symbol of peace.”

The class goes to a training ground for Rescue Training. They are supposed to work through the different terrains but the villains teleport into the training ground. Since All Might isn’t there, the villains attack the other two teachers, Thirteen and Erasure, and the students. One of the villains teleports the students into different terrains to make it harder for them to fight. The students manage to beat back most of the grunts but Midoriya encounters the leader of the villains and – even though he manages to use his quirk without injuring himself—finds his attacks useless against the villains.  Finally All Might arrives to save the day.

As before, it’s obvious the artists had fun designing the characters. The villains are distorted and twisted but not so much that they are inhuman. The main villain, whose name is yet to be revealed, is especially creepy in appearance with hands holding various parts of his clothes and face.

The plot is also starting to develop. Now, it’s moved from school antics to actual hero vs villain politics. The villains are joining forces to overthrow All Might since he is perceived as the most powerful. Midoriya is finally able to see what a hero is actually against on a regular basis. This isn’t kids fighting bullies and it’s not stopping thieves or monsters, there’s an organized force bent on destroying the heroes, the school, and the system of the world. The usual villain group spiel.

I really liked this volume. We get to see a larger conflict forming, more characters and their powers, and we get to see the fate of any of the kids who do make it as a hero. Midoriya shows he’s more than capable of planning and working with a wide variety of characters. He’s also started to control his power, though this may have just been luck at this point. The villains are cool, the conflict is starting, and the kids no longer feel overpowered.