Summary
- My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is considered canon by both fans and the main series creator, Kohei Horikoshi.
- The spin-off explores the unregulated side of heroism through characters like Koichi Haimawari.
- The main series sometimes ties in with Vigilantes, showcasing an interconnected and canon storyline.
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Warning: The following contains spoilers for the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes manga. My Hero Academia is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
While Deku’s journey may be drawing closer and closer to its end in the main series, fans have nothing to worry about because My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is coming in to give them more content. It’ll be a spin-off show featuring a new set of cast members, with a few recurring ones, but people wonder whether they should care about it or not because, obviously, something that isn’t canon won’t get as much hype.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is coming out on April 7, 2025, so many fans are eager to find out if it’s worth watching or if it would even affect the main plot. Since Vigilantes‘ plot takes place before the main story, there won’t be any crossovers with events fans have seen before. The difference in setting could make proving Vigilantes‘ canonicity tricky, but fortunately, there is a clear answer as to whether or not it is.
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My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Is Canon
It’s Events Happen a Few Years Before Deku’s Story
What makes a spin-off piece of media canon to its source material? For a lot of people, it’s all dependent on whether the original author/creator of the main story also created the spin-off. However, that’s not the case with My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, as the manga was written by Hideyuki Furuhashi, not Kohei Horikoshi. That said, Horikoshi has acknowledged Vigilantes as canon to the main series, so most fans consider it canon as well. Also, according to a tweet by Caleb Cook, an official translator for My Hero Academia at Viz Media, despite not being the main writer, Horikoshi also suggests ideas to add or remove in the Vigilantes manga, so he still has some significant influence on the property.
One big piece of evidence of the main series tying in with Vigilantes is Trigger, the drug that enhances Quirks at the cost of the user’s reasoning. Before the drug ever made its appearance in the main manga and anime, it actually debuted in the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes manga chapter 1, “I’m Here”, which came out in August 2016. In the main manga, Trigger first appears in chapter 133, “Catch Up, Kirishima”, which came out in April 2017, several months after its appearance in the Vigilantes manga.
Another piece of evidence, while not as significant, is that Koichi, Vigilantes‘ main protagonist, has a cameo in the main My Hero Academia series finale. You could chalk that up to being a simple Easter Egg; but together with the origins of Trigger, it’s more than enough proof to say My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is canon.
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What Is My Hero Academia: Vigilantes About?
The Unregulated Side of Heroism
As you can probably tell from the title, the series will focus on vigilantes, who are people who commit acts of heroism without a hero’s license. It’s an interesting side of the My Hero universe that the main series hasn’t really shed much light on. The topic can be pretty divisive because, on one hand, people who put their lives on the line without any proper training can just make a dire situation worse, putting both their and other people’s lives at even more risk. However, are people with powers that can truly help just supposed to stand by and watch when no hero shows up at the scene of a crime or accident?
The main character of Vigilantes is Koichi Haimawari, an aspiring hero who failed to attend his high school hero course entrance exam because he stopped to save someone along the way. That doesn’t stop him though, as he and a few others take up the mantle of heroes without taking and passing a hero course. Koichi’s Quirk is known as Slide and Glide, which allows him to glide on flat surfaces in any direction he wants. It’s definitely no One for All, but having a character without an insanely powerful ability means he’ll have to come up with creative ways to engage in heroism, which should be incredibly fun to watch.
“I do what I can, and someone else picks up the slack. Come to think of it, that’s always been my style!” – Koichi Haimawari
Vigilantes Have Appeared in the Main Series
The biggest example of a vigilante appearing in the main series is the Hero Killer: Stain. Before he went completely off the edge, Stain used to exclusively hunt and kill villains. Vigilantes may technically be against evil, but since they aren’t regulated by law, some of them can and do heinous acts themselves, in pursuit of doing what they believe is “right”.
Even Deku, Ida, and Todoroki technically committed vigilantism when they willingly sought out and fought Stain. None of them had a hero license during that fight, and they were reprimanded for their deeds afterward.
My Hero Academia is now available to stream on Crunchyroll and Netflix. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is set to air on April 7, 2025.