So, how was “My Hero Academia?” Comments and critiques?

racefortheironthrone:

So, I watched the first season. 

Here are my thoughts: 

• the hero design is absolutely top notch; often quite visibly or conceptually quite innovative. I was sold from the first crowd shot of the protagonist’s classroom and continue to find something noteworthy in any group of heroes or villains. 
• the protagonist is kind of the Stock Shonen Hero to the Nth degree, seemingly perpetually on the verge of either tears, crazed defiance, or some mixture of the above. 
• his mentor is one of the best takes on Superman that I’ve ever seen, although the hair is out there even by anime standards. 
• the worldbuilding is intriguing in many ways, although somewhat limited by the school focus. If 80% of the population have superpowers, they can’t all be superheroing or -villaining. So how have their powers changed the result of modern life? 

Had another thought: MHA reminds me a lot of the webcomic PS238, a more western-style exploration of a school for superheroes. An interesting divergence between them is that the closest thing to Izuku Midoriya in that comic is a kid called Tyler Marlocke who’s the powerless child of two incredibly famous superheroes. (Although backstorywise, he’s a bit closer to Shouto Todoroki, I guess.) Rather than being gifted superpowers, however…

(SPOILERS)

Tyler becomes the protégé of PS238′s stand-in for Batman, who teaches him how to be a superhero without relying on superpowers. 

I’m not sure what the significance of the fact that MHA comes down on the side of you can’t be a superhero without powers and PS238 comes down on the side of anyone can be a superpowers is, exactly, but there’s something there on a sociocultural level.