My Hero Academia: Vigilantes – A Prequel Worth Watching?

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Summary

  • My Hero Academia: Vigilantes offers a new perspective on heroes and villains, focusing on amateur heroes like Koichi Haimawari.
  • Vigilantes serves as a prequel/spin-off to the main MHA series, featuring new characters and stories while still connecting to the original.
  • Vigilantes can be a great starting point for new MHA fans, offering an entry into the world without committing to the main series’ extensive content.

It’s a great time to be a My Hero Academia fan. After the hugely popular seventh season last year, the highly-anticipated series My Hero Academia: Vigilantes will shortly be on air.

Vigilantes has piqued the interest of both new and old My Hero Academia fans by promising new characters and a new perspective on the world of heroes and villains. Forums and social media have been alive with fans planning their return to the long-running franchise, so here’s everything you need to know about jumping into My Hero Academia: Vigilantes without catching up on the main series.

Amateur Heroes Rise in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Vigilantes provides a new and interesting angle on the world of superheroes in My Hero Academia. While the main series revolves around young, gifted people trying to make it as licensed heroes, what about all the ordinary people who still want to do good?

The new series stars Koichi Haimawari, a young man who also dreams of being a superhero but whose mediocre sliding quirk means he doesn’t believe he can make it as a pro. Still, he spends most of his days helping with simple do-good deeds, such as helping old women cross the street. Koichi’s life changes when he and his friends are saved by Knuckleduster, who introduces them to the world of vigilantes, heroes working outside the main hero system.

Vigilantes: New Story, Old Heroes?

Vigilantes is technically a prequel to the main MHA series, although it would be more accurate to count it as a spin-off given its small connections to the main story. The Vigilantes manga is written by Hideyuki Furuhashi and illustrated by Betten Court, not the original series creator Kōhei Horikoshi. While Vigilantes is considered MHA canon, it’s also clear that they’ve tried to maintain distance between the two stories.

The new series takes place five years before the start of My Hero Academia. It’s also largely contained within the district of Naruhata, which isn’t featured in the main series. As a result, the core of the story concerns completely new characters and storylines. However, for fans of MHA, there are plenty of nods from Vigilantes to the original series for fans to get excited about. The biggest is arguably Shota Aizawa, aka Eraser Head, whose backstory is explored in Vigilantes. There are also origin stories for Stain and Mirko, as well as appearances by various other heroes from the main series.

Vigilantes Can Be an Entry Point for New MHA Fans

Fans of both “My Hero Academia” and “Vigilantes” generally agree that one doesn’t significantly spoil the other, so you can appreciate “Vigilantes” even if you haven’t caught up with the main series.

A good comparison may be the situation around Jujutsu Kaisen’s prequel, Jujutsu Kaisen 0. In that case, the prequel movie was designed to appeal to all fans; it explained stuff for those new to the series while also showcasing backstory that appealed to fans of the original series.

The original My Hero Academia series first aired in 2016 and now has over 150 episodes, not to mention the various movies and OVAs. For fans that have wanted to get into the franchise but don’t want to commit to thousands of hours of content, Vigilantes could be a great way to step into this world.

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2025-03-15 20:35