My Hero Academia Vol. 1
- ISBN
- 9781421582696
- Publisher
- VIZ
- English release
- Pages
- 192
My Hero Academia 1 introduces Izuku Midoriya, a boy with no superpower in a society where most people have one, who still means to become a hero. Start here for the manga: the contents page lists seven chapters. Box Set 1 contains this paperback along with Vols. 2 to 20, so buying both duplicates it; Box Set 2, still a preorder, begins at Vol. 21. The analysis below covers the first three chapters, read in VIZ's free chapter reader. The free preview on the volume's own product page stops after the first. Nothing here is a reading of the other four chapters or a comparison of the printed editions.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
The first chapter ends with All Might telling Izuku that he can be a hero, which is easy to take as the premise. The three chapters make the promise narrower. On the rooftop All Might's first answer is no, and in the second chapter, asked about getting into U.A., he says again that it is not possible for someone without a quirk. By then what has changed is Izuku's status, not the rule as All Might restates it: All Might offers to pass on his power, and ten months of training built around clearing a beach prepare the body to take it. Izuku says all that help feels like cheating. All Might answers that he has earned the power. By Izuku's own account the rescue that prompts the offer is smaller than the offer suggests. He frees no one, the professionals scold him, and the hostage gets the praise. The entrance exam repeats the unrewarded act: still at zero points, he leaps at the one obstacle worth nothing, with another examinee down in its path. An unnamed observer calls acting with nothing to gain what a real hero does. The chapter ends with his score still zero.
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