In order to celebrate the latest premiere of the fourth season of My Hero Academia, this will be a good opportunity to start a very new article concept that is Anime vs Manga series. Originated from the manga written by Kouhei Horikoshi, My Hero Academia tells a story about a world where eighty percent of the population has ‘quirks’ which are some sort of super human abilities and All Might is someone who uses his quirks for the benefit of mankind and is admired by everyone which includes our very own protagonist of the show, Izuku Midoriya. Unfortunately, Izuku do not receive his quirk at all, even though both of his parents had one. But this changes when one day Izuku meets All Might and All Might inspired by Izuku’s courage, All Might decides to help the kid achieve his goal in becoming a hero by giving him his quirk, One For All. So other than the actual plot what are the other minor changes in the anime?
In the manga version, My Hero Academia presents present-day pop culture elements. As the first chapter gives the overview of the world and the presence of heroes it peaks pictures of Batman, Ultraman, Spider-man and Wolverine. It’s obvious that due to copy right problems, this part is absent in the adaption. When the test for UA was about to begin in the manga, description of the test is given to them by giving the example of Super Mario Bros.! The description of the test also peaks the pictures of Mario, koopas, and goombas that served the rules. The anime version replaced them with robots by keeping things simple.
Another scene which is really small in length but has a really huge impact on the series in manga is when Bakugo is invited by his junior high school friends to smoke cigarette with them. This was the time when Bakugo had decided to join the UA. He refuses the offer because of the risk of getting caught and reducing his chances of getting into UA. It was a surprise to all the readers because of the character’s personality doesn’t make us think to react this way.
The scene where Jotaro from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was censored from smoking in anime adaption because of underage reasons, the same reason applied here in My Hero Academia as it shows kids smoking. Even though the absence of this part doesn’t have any significant role in the story, but it shows how important it is for Bakugo to enter UA.
Let’s point out one more part which was different in anime if compared to the manga, is when Izuku and All Might starts to get closer, this begins when All Might starts guiding Izuku to become physically stronger. All Might wants to test the limits of his mental fitness, also how much energetic Izuku was. In anime All Might uses a lot of encouraging words to lift Izuku’s morale. But in manga, in order to make Izuku much stronger than before he uses a different approach by having strict personality towards him, and gives him tough time, much tougher then showed in the anime.
The anime has extend some parts like Izuku and Uraraka moments are not that many as we see in the manga, the manga has not focused on their relationship as we see in the anime. The main reason behind it is to add a spice of romance in the anime. Another example is the scene with Tenya’s brother, Tensei. In the anime we see Tensei actually encountering Stain and losing to him in battle but in manga he is already crippled. But it helped the people to feel Tenya’s lust for revenge more than the manga readers.
Few more scenes we want to discuss, one of them is when students are fighting to get their provisional license exam. In the anime, Shoto battles against students from another school who have ninja’s like traits, but in manga Shoto’s battles are not actually seen but only the result of the battle is revealed. In the same arc exclusive to the anime Momo battle with the girls of the Seiai Academy. Finally, Froppy episode was a complete non-canon episode, it never existed in manga.
Although somethings are shown differently in the anime adaptations but it never changes the real story or the end result of the plot. But, it does bring some changes in terms of perception and emotions. Apart from that most of the anime have done excellent jobs in making great adaptations but manga is always more enjoyable for certain reasons like pop-culture things. But it’s always better to enjoy both version no matter how many changes have been made.
