Hipster Hotline: My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes isn’t the greatest thing since Bluetooth headphones, but it gets the job done.

Vigilantes is a more slice-of-life version of My Hero Academia taking place before the beginning of the main series. We follow Koichi AKA The Crawler and his friends, Pop Step and Knuckleduster, as they battle evil, but mostly do other stuff too.

The manga’s pacing is slow and the action doesn’t exactly draw you in. If you’re expecting bad-ass fights galore, this is not your manga. What it does is expand on the MHA universe. Koichi became a vigilante as a release to from the pressures of the world. Pop Step is a masked idol illegally using her quirk. And, Knuckleduster is DC’s Wildcat, basically. He’s an older guy on a mission who takes Koichi under his wing (whether he wants to or not).

The characters are fun and develop over time, but it takes awhile. Again, the pacing is slow but, at times, we do get stories about characters from the main series like Midnight, Aizawa, and even All Might. It’s great learning more about those characters, but I wish the main three vigilantes got more love too. At this current point in the story that seems to be the case. I love all the cameos, but the main characters should get top billing.

MHA: Vigilantes started as a monthly series. Thankfully, it’s currently bi-weekly, making the slow pace more bearable. Feels like I’m harping on Vigilantes, but maybe it’s because the main series is so good. If they tightened the focus and gave the characters more interesting things to do I’d be more entertaining. And it is getting better.

Wow, why I’m I writing about this again?

Truth is if this story didn’t take place in the MHA universe I might not be reading it. It’s  not a bad series, just need more oomph! We’re at that point currently and I hope it’ll continue long into the future.

If you like My Hero Academia, give Vigilantes a shot. It’s officially translated on Viz’s website. Don’t think of it as My Hero Academia’s sister series. Think of it more like its dinky second cousin. Odd and slow, but means well-meaning and can surprise you at times.

Side note: If anything, read the chapters featuring Stendhal and All Might first meeting Tsukauchi.