My Hero Academia is now into its first big war story. The latest chapters of the manga have seen the pro hero world collide with the dreaded League of Villains, which has seized control of the fanatical Meta Liberation Army. Fans expect some pretty drastic and tragic events to come out of this “Meta Liberation War” arc – even the potential death of All Might! Those predictions have led to another timely question for the fandom, when considering the aftermath of this war story arc: Should My Hero Academia get a timeskip? There are two distinct views fans seem to have about this question, so let’s break them down:
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So many of the big Shonen manga / anime series get broken into distinct volumes of story. Dragon Ball went from young Goku’s adventures, to the more serious (and bloody) events of an adult Goku in Dragon Ball Z. The first Naruto saga similarly followed the hero as a young ninja in training, before Naruto: Shippuden came along with the much more dire and serious stories of the Ninja Wars, Uchiha Clan vendettas, and the Otsutsuki threat.
My Hero Academia seems to be arriving at a similar inflection point. If All Might dies, and the Meta Liberation War ends with bloody losses for the Pro Hero world that is the hard reality that Deku and his fellow students at U.A. High School would have to shoulder, as the new active generation of pro heroes. A timeskip and new volume of My Hero Academia would take us from young kids scarred by their first war, to the more powerful and hardened adults they become, as they embark on careers as full-fledged pro heroes. After all: with all the war and life-or-death action in general Deku and Co. have seen, how much schooling could be left to chronicle? With a timeskip, the characters would all be refreshingly new, and the various character relationships all different. Just re-discovering all that (and the new questions raised by it) would make My Hero Academia essentially new again.
The other side of this argument is much shorter and easier to state: the series is called My Hero “Academia” – it’s about a young generation of would-be heroes studying to be heroes. Any big timeskip arguably destroys that story premise, entirely. Even after a major war arc that has major deaths and losses, a lot of fans out there would probably like to continue to see the step-by-step evolution of things. I.e., how Deku and his comrades deal with the reality of what pro heroes endure and face, and how it re-shapes their collective youth. It’s a fair point to consider…
Which approach to you want My Hero Academia to take? Are we nearing the point for a timeskip? Or should the series keep going with its current timeline? Let us know in the comments!
My Hero Academia releases new manga chapters weekly in Shonen Jump Magazine; the anime is currently streaming season 4 on Funimation and Hulu.
