The Last Airbender and My Hero Academia

Kōhei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia is one of the most popular anime and manga series of the 2010s, and perhaps of all time, continuing the tradition of Shōnen Jump’s long-running hit battle manga after the end of the Big Three era following the conclusion of Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto in 2015 and Tite Kubo’s BLEACH in 2016, alongside titles like Yuki Tabata’s Black Clover and Koyoharu Gotouge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

My Hero Academia is very evidently inspired by the author’s love for western comic books from houses like Marvel or DC, but upon further inspection, another possible inspiration for the series becomes apparent: the legendary cult phenomenon Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. How are MHA and Avatar similar, and how likely is it that the latter was a direct inspiration for the former?

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The Plot of My Hero Academia

A Superpowered Society and a Boy Entrusted With the Future

My Hero Academia follows 15-year-old Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, a timid boy who has always admired superheroes and wanted to become one, but unfortunately could not because he lacked a special ability. In this world, 80% of society has developed some kind of ability or adaptation called a “Quirk”; an evolution in human biology that has made the superheroes found in comics into a living, breathing phenomenon and a possible occupation for many people. With the rise of Quirks, crime was at an all-time high prior to the emergence of the #1 Pro Hero, All Might, an individual often described as “The Symbol of Peace” for his heroics and ushering in a new age of superheroes.

Deku has always looked up to All Might, but due to his Quirklessness, his childhood dream would remain only that, until one fateful day, he is embroiled in an incident when he tries to save his bully, Katsuki Bakugo, from a dangerous villain. The boys are saved by All Might, who saw Deku’s selflessness and revealed to him a critical secret: All Might’s Quirk, One For All, is one that is passed down, and he has chosen Deku to be his successor, kicking off the story in which Izuku Midoriya becomes the greatest hero in history.

A Little About Avatar: The Last Airbender

One of the Greatest TV Shows of All Time

The universally acclaimed Avatar: The Last Airbender is a coming-of-age story created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, set in a time when the world, comprised of four nations each assigned to a classical element, is engulfed in a hundred-year-long war waged by the Fire Nation. In this world, humans called “Benders” are able to manipulate one of the four elements: water, earth, water and air, but an individual called the “Avatar” emerges in every age, one capable of bending all four elements and thus restoring balance and order to the world. The titular Avatar of The Last Airbender, 12-year-old Aang, a member of the pacifistic, nomadic Air Nation, struggles to deal with the weight of the responsibility placed on his shoulders, and runs away from his temple one night.

He is caught in a storm at sea, and encases himself in a thick shell of ice. In his 100-year-long absence, the Air Nation is decimated by the Fire Nation, and their imperial project reaches every corner of the globe, leaving people to wonder what happened to the Avatar. One day, Aang is found by Katara, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe, and her brother, Sokka, and together they embark on a journey to find him instructors so he can master every other element before Sozin’s Comet, which comes around every 100 years and grants Fire Benders with unfathomable power, returns to give the current Fire Lord, Ozai, just the firepower he needs to win the war for good.

The Tie That Binds

The Weight of the World On the Shoulders of An Adolescent

What brings Avatar: The Last Airbender and My Hero Academia together, beyond the fact that they’re both coming of age stories in which the fate of the very world is at stake, and it is up to the main character and his equally youthful friends to put a stop to the machinations of a terrifying foe. The overarching antagonists of both narratives have caused irreparable damage to the world in some way, and are sociopathic, power-hungry merchants of death. The Avatar Cycle is a reincarnation cycle in which the next Avatar will be from a different nation to the previous in a pre-ordained manner, as within every Avatar is the Spirit of Light known as Raava, which grants the Avatar the ability to bend not necessarily the elements, but the energy within all things. Each Avatar is their own person, but in death, they are connected, and every Avatar maintains a connection to their past lives and can use them for guidance (until the connection was broken during the life of Avatar Korra, as she faced an enemy only one other Avatar had the misfortune to face).

Deku’s experiences with the power of One For All mirror this Avatar Cycle concept quite closely, with the vestiges of previous wielders of the Quirk remaining to guide each subsequent user. With each wielder, the Quirk morphs and changes, which is similar to how each subsequent Avatar’s entire life can be used as an educational tool for their successors. There’s also the blatant visual and thematic similarity between Prince Zuko and Shо̄to Todoroki, both of whom have strained relationships with their power-hungry, flame-wielding fathers, and suffered some kind of burn-related facial scarring from a parent. Like with the developments in Avatar: Legend of Korra, in which conflict between Benders and Non-Benders becomes an important element in the story, My Hero Academia eventually delves into various conflicts within the superhuman society: conflicts between Heroes and civilians, between Heteromorphs and “normal” humans, and to a lesser extent, those who possess Quirks and those who do not.