Warning: Contains spoilers for My Hero Academia chapter #430!!With everything that happened in the final arc ofMy Hero Academia, a big question that needed to be addressed was who would end the story as the greatest hero. Much of the final saga has been about how the world needs to move away from relying solely on a select few people, but with the world still being a world of heroes, someone still needs to be on top.
My Hero Academia’s final chapterleft many questions about the story unanswered, but it did address the issue of who would be regarded as the story’s greatest hero at the end of everything. Following an eight-year timeskip, Izuku and his friends are all held in high regard by the public, but even with that,My Hero Academiaended with someone outside of Izuku and his friends being regarded as the greatest hero.
Said character had always been built up to become a great hero, though, so seeing this is the perfect payoff to their arc from the past few years.
Mirio Completes His Arc Of Succeeding All Might As The Greatest Hero
My Hero Academia’s New Top-Ranked Hero
In the final chapter ofMy Hero Academia, Izuku and Aizawa discussed the current hero rankings and how Izuku’s friends have been doing in them, and the best of them turned out to be none other thanMirio Togata. While Mirio, himself, didn’t appear, Izuku mentioned that Mirio was at the top of the rankings, meaning thatMy Hero Academiaended with Mirio as the greatest hero in Japan. The hero ranking isn’t structured the way it used to be, and it’s offhandedly mentioned that other people are catching up to Mirio, but it’s a great showing for him, nonetheless.
With Mirio becoming the top-ranked hero at the end of the story, the character arc stemming from his introduction comes full circle. Mirio existed as a parallel to Izuku thanks to his admiration of All Might and his embodying of All Might’s ideals, and in the later arcs, he struggled to find a way to keep up with others and be the hero everyone kept saying he could be. Because of that,Mirio becoming the top-ranked hero finally completes his arc of becoming a hero like All Might, and overall, it’s a great note for his character to end on.
Why Mirio Being The Top-Ranked Hero Is Perfect For My Hero Academia’s Ending
Through Everything, Mirio Was a Beacon of Light In My Hero Academia
As unexpected as it might be for Mirio to be the top-ranked hero, it’s perfectly fitting for the story’s ending. For starters, even if the world ofMy Hero Academiahas changed, whoever ranks as the highest-ranked hero should still be someone with the kind of strength and charismatic personality that made All Might be seen as such a tremendous force for good for so many years.Mirio has embodied All Might’s ideals and appeal from the moment he debuted, so with Izuku spending so many years in retirement, there was no better person to become the top-ranked hero.
Mirio being the top-ranked hero also plays into the idea of heroes changing how they operate in society for the better. Izuku or another major character being the top-ranked hero could have undermined the themes of the final arc by keeping things centered around the main characters, and as such,Mirio being the top-ranked hero supports the idea ofMy Hero Academia’s worldchanging to one where anyone can be a hero. Mirio being the top-ranked hero was a great addition toMy Hero Academia’s ending, and it was the best way the series could have closed out his character.
My Hero Academia
My Hero Academia is a multimedia franchise that follows a young boy named Izuku Midoriya, who dreams of becoming a hero despite being born without superpowers. These superpowers, known as “Quirks” are found in most people after birth, but Izuku wasn’t so lucky - until a fateful encounter with All Might, Japan’s greatest hero, Izuku inherits his Quirk and enrolls in U.A. High School to learn the true meaning of heroism. Alongside his classmates, each endowed with unique abilities, Izuku faces rigorous training and lethal threats from villainous forces.
