My Hero Academia Thins its Ranks with a Major Retirement

My Hero Academia thinned the pro hero ranks with a major retirement in the newest chapter! Kohei Horikoshi's original manga series is still exploring the immediate aftermath of the massive war between the heroes and the Paranormal Liberation Front, and both sides have taken some major losses. While both sides have lost some actual key players in the fight, the heroes continue to take some massive emotional and mental losses as the violence and scope of the war shook hero society forever. This includes those pro heroes that have been standing at the top of the charts.

Chapter 300 of My Hero Academia continues to show how hero society and the faith in it is still falling apart, and this includes one of the top ten pro heroes introduced during the Pro Hero arc. One of the oldest heroes in the series (but had not been shown in action) Yoroi Musha the Equipped Hero, kicked off the newest chapter by announcing his retirement during a big press conference.

Chapter 300 reveals how people are still losing their faith in heroes, and are trying their best to take things into their own hands as the escaped prisoners cause even more havoc. Although some heroes are still fighting, Musha decided to retire. Stating that his only option to atone for the destruction was to "fall on [his] own sword and resign," the abrupt retirement announcement was met with nothing but disdain.

The narration for the moment reveals that Musha had enough savings from his younger days as a hero but continued to work, and his inner thoughts revealed that his retirement came from more selfish reasons that he outright stated. Because while he said his retirement was a response to the destruction, it's really because he no longer has the love and respect he wanted for his work as a hero.

This is reflected in the response to his retirement as people seem to chide Musha for failing to take any real responsibility, and one even calls him a coward for quitting before anything else big happens. It's one major example of the kind of hero that both Dabi and Stain seemed to call out that were only fighting for selfish reasons. The war between the heroes and villains was a major blow to hero society as a whole not only because of the civillians' view of it, but the heroes' views of themselves as well.

Now that they are facing some true danger and don't have that love and adoration, many just don't feel like it's worth it anymore. But what do you think? How did you feel about this retirement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!