Summary
Warning: Spoilers for My Hero Academia chapter #403My Hero Academia is proving once again that All Might could have made a better protagonist than Izuku Midoriya aka Deku. A recent chapter saw All Might’s origin story flip a ubiquitous DC/Marvel superhero trope, and now the latest installment is using All Might’s past to subvert the origin of every hero in American comics, Japanese manga, and beyond.
In My Hero Academia chapter #403 by Kohei Horikoshi, All Might summarizes his earliest memories as being almost too tender and mild. He then goes on to attribute the moment he obtained One For All as him just happening to glance back and noticing something significant. A few chapters earlier, All Might recalls trying to convince his future mentor Nana to make him a hero by saying he has no family left to protect.
All Might’s Backstory Would Make Him a Unique Hero
Both together and apart, each of these flashbacks gives a fresh take on how most stories portray heroes. The majority of protagonists have tragic backgrounds or deeply desire something enough that they are motivated to achieve the impossible. Deku falls in the latter group, wanting to be a hero like All Might but getting his dreams shattered when he was one of the minute few who didn’t possess a quirk. After a while, these origins blend together. Yet, this latest chapter shows this wasn’t the case for All Might since he harkens the moment his life changed forever as pure happenstance, implying that he wasn’t actively looking for change. All Might even recalls that he had the happiest childhood.
This, when coupled with the fact that All Might never contended with hiding his identity to protect his loved ones would make All Might a wholly unique protagonist. Of course, this latter dynamic is only applicable to Marvel/DC protagonists since Japanese manga rarely explore this trope. In fact, the only notable family that suffers at the hands of All For One in My Hero Academia (Aoyama) doesn’t succumb to their fate because All For One somehow learned that Shining Hero: Can’t Stop Twinkling was Yuga. Yuga’s family had just fallen in All For One’s orbit. That said, it is important to realize that My Hero Academia is clearly influenced by American superhero comics and by making All Might the protagonist, it would have further positioned the series as a homage to DC and Marvel.
Could Bakugo Be A Better Protagonist Than All Might?
None of this is to say that Deku is a horrible hero or that Bakugo couldn’t have been the true hero of My Hero Academia. All Might just has a more unique background and origin story as opposed to most heroes, including Deku and even Bakugo. In fact, no one wants to watch a series that stars a tsundere like Bakugo. They’re better as side characters. That said, it shouldn’t be considered a coincidence that this latest chapter is about the end of an era and the beginning of another. If the new era with Deku and Bakugo is just beginning at the end of My Hero Academia then that means the rest of the series has been documenting the end of All Might’s era, creating the impression that the series has been about him, the true (and better) protagonist.
My Hero Academia chapter #403 is available on Viz.com.
