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Warning: The following contains spoilers for the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes manga. My Hero Academia is now streaming onCrunchyroll.
While Deku’s journey may be drawing closer and closer to its end in the main series, fans have nothing to worry about becauseMy Hero Academia: Vigilantesiscoming 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: Vigilantesiscoming out on June 02, 2025, so many fans are eager to find out if it’s worth watching or if it would even affect the main plot. SinceVigilantes' 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 provingVigilantes' canonicity tricky, but fortunately, there is a clear answer as to whether or not it is.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Is Canon
It’s Events Happen a Few Years Before Deku’s Story
What makes a spin-off piece of mediacanon 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 withMy Hero Academia: Vigilantes, as the manga was written by Hideyuki Furuhashi, not Kohei Horikoshi. That said, Horikoshi has acknowledgedVigilantesas canon to the main series, so most fans consider it canon as well. Also, according toa tweet by Caleb Cook, an official translator forMy Hero Academiaat Viz Media, despite not being the main writer, Horikoshi also suggests ideas to add or remove in theVigilantesmanga, so he still has some significant influence on the property.
One big piece of evidence of the main series tying in withVigilantesis Trigger, the drug that enhances Quirks at the cost of the user’s reasoning. Before the drug ever made its appearancein the main mangaand anime, it actually debuted in theMy Hero Academia: Vigilantesmanga 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 theVigilantesmanga.
Another piece of evidence, while not as significant, is that Koichi,Vigilantes' main protagonist, has a cameo in the mainMy Hero Academiaseries finale. Youcouldchalk that up to beinga simple Easter Egg; but together with the origins of Trigger, it’s more than enough proof to sayMy Hero Academia: Vigilantesis canon.
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 arepeople who commit acts of heroismwithout a hero’s license. It’s an interesting side of theMy Herouniverse 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, arepeople with powers that can truly helpjust supposed to stand by and watch when no hero shows up at the scene of a crime or accident?
The main character ofVigilantesis 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, ashe and a few otherstake 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 isthe 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 onCrunchyrollandNetflix. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is set to air on July 13, 2025.
My Hero Academia
Cast
In My Hero Academia, some humans have superpowers called quirks. Izuku Midoriya, nicknamed Deku, is not one of them. Deku has always idolized heroes like the number one hero, All Might, and since he was a child, he has always wanted to be a hero. However, his lack of a quirk has always held him back, but a chance encounter with All Might after discovering a classmate in danger sets Deku on the path to becoming a true hero. My Hero Academia centers around Deku and a class of heroes-in-training at UA. This school shapes young quirk users into future heroes through fake rescue missions, combat training, and other hero-tempering tasks. With young Deku inheriting the “One-For-All” quirk, he will learn what it means to be a true hero while facing off with dastardly supervillains.
