Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia began in Weekly Shonen Jump on 7 July 2014 and ended on 5 August 2024 at chapter 432, collected in 42 volumes. Most people in its world are born with an ability called a quirk, and being a hero is a job with licences, rankings and agencies attached.
Izuku Midoriya is born without one. The story starts when All Might, the strongest hero alive, recognises something in him and passes on his own power, which at first breaks Midoriya’s body every time he uses it. The question the series keeps returning to is what a hero is for. Rescue or combat, being known or being useful, and how those come apart: the same question widens from the classroom to the agencies to the society around them.
Villains are given histories that the same society produced, so the later volumes read less like a story about defeating enemies and more like one about where enemies come from. Forty-two volumes, complete, with a long-running animated series and several films.
