Did ‘My Hero Academia’ Just Drop A Big ‘Naruto’ Reference?

These days, My Hero Academia is bigger than ever, and fans have taken notice. Franchises like Naruto may have ruled the shonen scape once, but Izuku Midoriya is starting to get in on that action. So, it is only natural forMy Hero Academia to pay homage to the series that came before it.

However, fans really didn’t expect for the new episode ofMy Hero Academia to welcome in a hoard of ninjas.

Yes, you heard right.My Hero Academia has its own brand of ninja, and they look mighty familiar. Season 3 introduced the character as the brand-new ‘Provisional Hero License Exam’ arc gets underway. As most of Class 1-A fights as a team, Shoto Todoroki found himself cornered by a group of students attending a Hero Academy that teaches them to become ninja.

So, if this sounds familiar to you, then you are probably a fan of Naruto. Also, when you account for these kids’ obvious ninja headbands, it is easy to put one and one together.

Naturally, Todoroki is poised to brush the ninja away, but the color coordinated gang are not so easy to beat. When their leader reveals their size-centric Quirk, Todoroki realizes his fight will be way harder than he realizes. Much like Sasuke Uchiha, the half-and-half hero is ready to pull the loner schtick, but there is no Naruto here to back Todoroki up. Right now, Izuku is pretty busy on his own, so it will come down to the hero-in-training to take down these ninjas or fail trying.

For those unfamiliar with the My Hero Academia juggernaut, the series 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 super powers but 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 collected into 15 volumes so far, and has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015.

Did Naruto come to mind after seeing these Hero Students in action? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!