My Hero Academia Shares Kirishima’s Origin Story

He may have been largely relegated to the background for the first three seasons outside of his connection to Katsuki Bakugo, but Eijiro Kirishima has definitely come into his own as a hero in My Hero Academia Season 4. This has been especially true for the latest episode of the series as Kirishima and the pro hero Fat Gum found themselves separated from the other pro heroes and up against two powerful members of the Shie Hassaikai group’s Eight Bullets. While his past before coming to U.A. Academy was a mystery, the latest episode of the series also dug into Kirishima’s origins of why he chose to be a hero.

Episode 72 of the series sees a young Kirishima trying to be a hero with his less evolved hardening quirk, but when it comes to facing against actual villains, the young Kirishima needed a boost in order to truly pursue his heroic dreams.

Episode 72 sees Kirishima reach his limit against the powerful new villain Rappa, whose punches were able to easily tear through his hardened body. This shakes him so bad that he begins to think about his journey to becoming a pro-hero, and how much he used to be afraid of everything. Before entering U.A. Academy, Kirishima attended middle school with Mina Ashido and tried to stop some bullies before his quirk led him to be picked on. But Ashido was much better at this.

Kirishima was tested again when a mysterious villain threatened some of his classmates, and all he could do was watch from the sidelines while Ashido went in to help them. This shook Kirishima to the point where he didn’t know if he wanted to be a hero anymore, but he was once again lifted up thanks to a speech from his favorite hero Crimson Riot.

After hearing that Crimson Riot was scared when he charged in for hero action, Kirishima found the inner strength he needed to make sure that he was never scared away from battle ever again. Training his body, dying his hair, and making it through the U.A. screening process, Kirishima became the hero in training Red Riot that we see today.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he’s eventually scouted by the world’s best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this month.