My Hero Academia is a series that every anime fan should watch at least once. It has quality storytelling, great character development, and some of the best fights. Not to mention, the series is great at juggling between both lighthearted and dark plotlines. With the new season coming in the fall of 2022, fans should get caught up before the new season airs.
However, even if fans get caught up with the anime, there is still some My Hero Academia content they'll be missing. Despite how well the anime adapts the manga, there are still some parts that are left out. None of them are important plot elements, but it's definitely worth picking up the manga so fans don't miss out on them.
10 The Awkward Bus Ride
During the Final Exam Arc, each of the students had to battle one of the teachers in order to pass their final exams. Unsurprising, Aizawa forces Midoriya and Bakugo to team up together and fight All Might. In the manga, all of the fights take place at the same time, while the anime has the fights taking place one after another. This small change doesn't affect much, but it did cause one humorous page to be left out of the anime. On the way to the exam site, All Might attempts to talk to Midoriya and Bakugo, only to find them sitting incredibly far from each other. The tension is palpable, but the expression on Midoriya's face is quite funny to see. It's a shame the panel didn't appear in the anime.
9 Uraraka's Tricks For Saving Money
Uraraka doesn't hide the fact that her family is struggling financially. Helping her family out is even her main motivation for becoming a hero. However, the anime doesn't quite explain just how poor Uraraka is. In the manga's side pages, the creator, Horikoshi, includes tricks Uraraka utilizes to save money. Some of them aren't too bad, like enduring the heat instead of using air conditioning, but others like the one that shows her drinking water instead of eating are a little more extreme. Hopefully, UA has a good lunch program so Uraraka doesn't have to starve herself.
8 Gorgeous Cover Art
One of the best things about reading manga is seeing the beautiful cover art. The cover often perfectly shows the journey the characters are going through in an incredibly beautiful way. The cover art from My Hero Academia is especially good and often features amazing portraits of the series' characters.
It's great to see the panels animated, and the anime can often showcase manga events better than the manga ever could, but anime-only fans definitely miss out on some amazing artwork when they don't read the manga. The covers for My Hero Academia are display-worthy.
7 Bakugo Biting The Speech Bubble
Even if an anime wants to faithfully adapt a manga series, there are some things that just don't translate. During the Joint Training Arc, all of the characters change into their winter gear. Bakugo's outfit change is especially good, and Midoriya is quick to tell him so. In the anime, Bakugo gets annoyed and yells at Midoriya, but the manga takes Bakugo's rage to the next level. Bakugo gets so mad, he bites off a piece of Midoirya's speech bubble. This moment of fourth-wall-breaking is incredibly funny, but, unfortunately, it's impossible for the anime to include. Anyone who doesn't read the manga is definitely missing out on one of the series' funniest moments.
6 Character Pages And Behind The Scenes Trivia
A lot of My Hero Academia fans like to analyze the anime and the characters, but it can be difficult to find information that is not important to the story. The great thing about manga is that the artists often include extra tidbits about the characters that normally wouldn't appear in the anime. How each character's costume works, the design choices, and even funny character quirks are often addressed in these behind-the-scenes pages. Knowing Bakugo and Uraraka's costumes come from the same company isn't important to the story, but it certainly is a fun bit of trivia that every fan should know.
5 Funny Character Moments
Something the manga does really well is subtlety. There will often be characters doing something funny in the background that will be missed if fans aren't looking out for it. There is one notable example that is completely missing from the anime.
During a rarely shown moment of a normal class, Midoriya attempts to answer a math question. In the bottom corner of the panel, Bakugo is drawn frowning and in his usual state of annoyance. However, that frown quickly turns into a smirk when Midoriya gets the answer wrong. It's a funny character moment that is perfectly in line with how Bakugo acts and feels towards Midoriya. It's unfortunate that the anime didn't include the moment as well.
4 Sketches And Art Pages
The great thing about reading manga is the amount of extra material that comes along with it. If the artists just included the story and nothing else, most fans would be satisfied with that, but artists also include tons of character art and sketches. It's great to see the characters in different environments and even in different outfits that they typically wouldn't wear. Horikoshi's use of color is also amazing. Any fan would hang these art pages up on their walls if they could.
3 Character Polls
Fans often debate who the best characters are. Even the manga has gotten in on the action with the yearly character poll. It can be fun to see how the characters rank and the results always come with some amazing artwork. Bakugo has had the number one spot for a long time, but the rest tend to shift with what's currently happening in the manga. It may be frustrating for some fans when their favorite characters aren't ranked as highly as they had hoped, but it's always cool to see how the community feels about each character.
2 Horikoshi's Beautiful Art Style
Animating manga can be expensive, so it's normal for anime studios to cut corners when they're creating each episode. Although the animation for My Hero Academia is phenomenal, the majority of the time, it struggles to truly capture the incredible artwork showcased by Horikoshi in the manga. Characters like Dabi, who have detailed designs in the manga, are simplified for the anime. Not to mention, many design elements like eye color and height have been changed for the anime. Anyone who wants to see the characters in their truest forms should definitely pick up the manga.
1 The Most Current Arc
Back in the day, filler episodes were used to give manga artists time to progress their stories, but now that quality is a higher priority than speed, the anime catching up to and overtaking the manga is seen as less of an issue. For that reason, the anime is far behind the manga when it comes to the story. Anyone who doesn't mind spoilers or just can't wait for the next season of the anime to come out should definitely pick up the manga. The story is much farther along and usually updates on a weekly basis.