My Hero Academia, anyone else think the premise makes for a good genre?

[Traab]

For those who dont know, MHA is an anime that, as a quick overview, the vast majority of the population has superpowers. They can range from incredibly minor to walking nuke. Rather than the story going on in the anime, this is the part that i wanted to focus on, the background of "everyone has powers, and it happened pretty quick." I couldnt help but think of how many different directions an author could take this premise in, world building of all sorts is incredibly fundamental here. How the various nations react to "quirks" as they are called first showing up, then within a few generations being something like 97% of the population. How that effects the various cultures, what kind of issues might arise. How does the global power structure change due to say, uruguay finding itself with an oddly powerful subset of quirk holders in comparison to other nations.

You can create your various hero journey type stories, shonen style manga, harry dresden but quirks instead of magic urban fantasy, historical fiction, romance and how a dude with a llama head might get together with a woman who is made of obsidian. Stories of prejudice and privilege revolving around what quirk you were semi randomly born with. Mysteries where you need to figure out how a crime occurred when there is no limit to what potential quirks could exist to have made it possible. There are just so many different TYPES of stories that could be written with the quirk foundation it boggles the mind! Write a story where the main character is a part of the first generation of quirk having individuals, or the second or third for a totally different outlook. The first few "freaks" versus being a part of the growing majority. Or have the quirk thing be a part of ancient history, in this world the time of the renaissance was the emergence of quirks, how did that change history? And how does that change the tone of your story?

[Lord Raziere]

hm.

perhaps.

I'm just not sure on the urban fantasy thing, because harry dresden type stories rely on some rules being consistent- sympathetic magic, breaking certain rules gets you marked, things like that. Quirks are inherently biological, so you can't say, have a Quirk that allows you to do something magical or abstract in nature.

like for example, magic with the right spell or whatever can make someone die with a voodoo doll, because the voodoo doll is symbolically connected to that person, therefore has sympathy with it, thats just a consistent thing any magic user can pull off. its just a thing that can happen.

but quirks? not so much. not only can theoretically only one quirk user can do that, but that Quirk has to have a damn good reason as to WHY it can somehow make someone die through voodoo doll shenanigans, because there is no biological explanation as to why a symbolic connection would suddenly be a thing that works. there has to be some rationale for why someones unique biology can pull it off.

but then again Shinso and Aizawa exist and their quirks don't really make sense by biological rules, so who knows really?

that aside, I have toyed with the concept of such quirk-like superpowers being there since the dawn of time and influencing human society publicly and how that would change everything. there is a lot to consider how so, its kind of hard to figure out how that those millennia of history would pan out- a lot of things could go differently yet somehow end up at the same basic place MHA is now, or it could be unrecognizable, who knows?

[Tvtyrant]

So a genre built around "what if Magneto won?" There are a number of works in that genre already, like Steelheart from Brandon Sanderson. The problem as I see it is that to maintain separation from superheroes the majority of the population has to have superpowers, and then the actual nature of society is going to depend on how strong those are.

MHA has power levels ranging from skateboards to demi-gods, and it only has anything approximating a society because the strongest person guarantees societies existence. If All Might wanted to he could have conquered the world, thousands of people with the ability to turn their eyes different colors or heat coffee couldn't stop him.

For it to work as a genre the powers have to all have a massive contrivance to keep society functioning, or the superpowers to be too weak to allow for superheroes and supervillains. At which point it becomes a lot like urban fantasy anyway but with a different skin, or Xanth if it is very silly.

[Lord Raziere]

So a genre built around "what if Magneto won?" There are a number of works in that genre already, like Steelheart from Brandon Sanderson. The problem as I see it is that to maintain separation from superheroes the majority of the population has to have superpowers, and then the actual nature of society is going to depend on how strong those are.

MHA has power levels ranging from skateboards to demi-gods, and it only has anything approximating a society because the strongest person guarantees societies existence. If All Might wanted to he could have conquered the world, thousands of people with the ability to turn their eyes different colors or heat coffee couldn't stop him.

For it to work as a genre the powers have to all have a massive contrivance to keep society functioning, or the superpowers to be too weak to allow for superheroes and supervillains. At which point it becomes a lot like urban fantasy anyway but with a different skin, or Xanth if it is very silly.

wait, Demigod, what?

I hardly think All-Might could take over the world. not even at his height. sure he can destroy a tank with a punch but thats hardly world-conquering power there. I know the similarities are there, but All-Might isn't Superman.

heck, look at All For One, he has been trying to gain power for decades, if not centuries, and all he had at his height is control of the japanese underworld. considering that All For One is like, the one Quirk that can match or surpass One for all, that kind of says everything right there. Its pretty clear that no one quirk user can take over the entire world. sure All-Might be a league above other people when he hits as hard as he can, but that hardly translates into a world-threat.

like if all-Might tried his hardest, he could MAYBE take over Japan but he'd have a hard time even doing that.

pretty sure MHA is street level superheroes at its greatest, I do not know where your getting your world-level superhero notions here.

[Tvtyrant]

wait, Demigod, what?

I hardly think All-Might could take over the world. not even at his height. sure he can destroy a tank with a punch but thats hardly world-conquering power there. I know the similarities are there, but All-Might isn't Superman.

heck, look at All For One, he has been trying to gain power for decades, if not centuries, and all he had at his height is control of the japanese underworld. considering that All For One is like, the one Quirk that can match or surpass One for all, that kind of says everything right there. Its pretty clear that no one quirk user can take over the entire world. sure All-Might be a league above other people when he hits as hard as he can, but that hardly translates into a world-threat.

like if all-Might tried his hardest, he could MAYBE take over Japan but he'd have a hard time even doing that.

pretty sure MHA is street level superheroes at its greatest, I do not know where your getting your world-level superhero notions here.

That isn't really how conquest goes though. If you know fighting OFA is going to get you killed, and easily, most people are going to submit or work for him. Battles don't work when it becomes "sacrifice a nation to kill one person" because most people aren't down for dying pointlessly, and once that person has followers they are going to have the edge.

MHA would work much more like feudalism where organizations work for an individual based on their power instead of for a bureaucracy, except the heads of those organizations get taken down by All Might. In RL Democracy is hard to establish when the difference between a gang/tribe and a potential democratic citizen is one of willingness, it becomes impossible where the alternatives are a warlord who can kill thousands of people themselves and some guys who can clean dishes or walk slightly faster then normal. Endevour is number 2 and can fly and tear up skyscrapers; how many people will fight him if he wants to take over versus join for safety's sake?

[Traab]

hm.

perhaps.

I'm just not sure on the urban fantasy thing, because harry dresden type stories rely on some rules being consistent- sympathetic magic, breaking certain rules gets you marked, things like that. Quirks are inherently biological, so you can't say, have a Quirk that allows you to do something magical or abstract in nature.

like for example, magic with the right spell or whatever can make someone die with a voodoo doll, because the voodoo doll is symbolically connected to that person, therefore has sympathy with it, thats just a consistent thing any magic user can pull off. its just a thing that can happen.

but quirks? not so much. not only can theoretically only one quirk user can do that, but that Quirk has to have a damn good reason as to WHY it can somehow make someone die through voodoo doll shenanigans, because there is no biological explanation as to why a symbolic connection would suddenly be a thing that works. there has to be some rationale for why someones unique biology can pull it off.

but then again Shinso and Aizawa exist and their quirks don't really make sense by biological rules, so who knows really?

that aside, I have toyed with the concept of such quirk-like superpowers being there since the dawn of time and influencing human society publicly and how that would change everything. there is a lot to consider how so, its kind of hard to figure out how that those millennia of history would pan out- a lot of things could go differently yet somehow end up at the same basic place MHA is now, or it could be unrecognizable, who knows?

By Harry Dresden I more meant the types of things he deals with, only instead of being magic, its quirk related. You could set up the world building as, there are groups of good guys, groups of bad guys, and here is Quirky Dresden, who nominally works for the good guys organization as an officially licensed hero, but generally operates solo because he doesnt get on with the group as a whole, has connections to the various neutral groups and some of the underworld, and is solving crimes and mysteries in his own private "hero" practice. I think it would translate fairly easily to a quirk based system. Give him a flexible, not inherently obviously powerful quirk, but one that is a real game changer when used intelligently, and you have someone who needs multiple methods of dealing with issues rather than say, All Might and his punch, then if that doesnt work, punch MORE style.

As for built around what if magneto won? You could do it that way too. There are a MASSIVE number of ways a quirk based world could have formed, military takeover by the powered is just one of them, but equally as valid as "These abilities and the ones who have them are covered by the constitution already, so blah blah blah" equality followed by the eventual aging out of norms as each generation is more and more powered till almost everyone is.

[Lord Raziere]

That isn't really how conquest goes though. If you know fighting OFA is going to get you killed, and easily, most people are going to submit or work for him. Battles don't work when it becomes "sacrifice a nation to kill one person" because most people aren't down for dying pointlessly, and once that person has followers they are going to have the edge.

MHA would work much more like feudalism where organizations work for an individual based on their power instead of for a bureaucracy, except the heads of those organizations get taken down by All Might. In RL Democracy is hard to establish when the difference between a gang/tribe and a potential democratic citizen is one of willingness, it becomes impossible where the alternatives are a warlord who can kill thousands of people themselves and some guys who can clean dishes or walk slightly faster then normal. Endevour is number 2 and can fly and tear up skyscrapers; how many people will fight him if he wants to take over versus join for safety's sake?

....are we watching the same anime?

since when was One For All an army killer? I see nothing that allows All Might to be immune to bullets, Aizawa is right there and he isn't like, some idiot who makes judgments based on flawed social stuff, he can literally just shut off OFA and Toshinori can get taken down by police officer, that and most of the other heroes aren't just going to follow him just because, they'll just see the Symbol of Peace going off his rocker and take him down as a team, and even at OFA's height, is not a limitless power, too much of it hurts you, and you can run out of time to use it, All-Might just used to have a longer time.

it'd be like some popular singer declared he was going to kill and become the president, it just wouldn't work. while Endeavor is just a guy who uses fire, get a fire department or a water-shooting hero on him or two and hes done.

like the current conflict isn't even to conquer the world, its over a symbolic, ideological battle over whether heroes are still heroes, whether people deserve to use quirks freely, whether an age of peace should continue or not, things like that. not really the wheelhouse of people who can conquer things themselves, because once your in charge such questions become irrelevant and the questions of how far your going to go to make your ideology happen become far more relevant.

there is no way that All-Might could conquer the world, your just mistaken dude.

[Tvtyrant]

....are we watching the same anime?

since when was One For All an army killer? I see nothing that allows All Might to be immune to bullets, Aizawa is right there and he isn't like, some idiot who makes judgments based on flawed social stuff, he can literally just shut off OFA and Toshinori can get taken down by police officer, that and most of the other heroes aren't just going to follow him just because, they'll just see the Symbol of Peace going off his rocker and take him down as a team, and even at OFA's height, is not a limitless power, too much of it hurts you, and you can run out of time to use it, All-Might just used to have a longer time.

it'd be like some popular singer declared he was going to kill and become the president, it just wouldn't work. while Endeavor is just a guy who uses fire, get a fire department or a water-shooting hero on him or two and hes done.

like the current conflict isn't even to conquer the world, its over a symbolic, ideological battle over whether heroes are still heroes, whether people deserve to use quirks freely, whether an age of peace should continue or not, things like that. not really the wheelhouse of people who can conquer things themselves, because once your in charge such questions become irrelevant and the questions of how far your going to go to make your ideology happen become far more relevant.

there is no way that All-Might could conquer the world, your just mistaken dude.

I'm really not. The entire purpose of super-heroes is that they are more effective than a swat team or a helicopter with some rockets; we have literally seen the heroes cause massive splash damage on par with using military weapons and get away with it. If the fact they don't use missiles in those cases doesn't suggest the greater effect of superpowers then I really don't know what does.

All Might is also not only bulletproof (both the Nomu and AfO hit much harder than guns do), he can hit harder then missiles after losing most of his powers (the Nomu he launches for miles is very large and blasts through an armored dome and keeps going while destroying nearby clouds, considerably more powerful then a battleship cannon with 72 inch guns.) Yeah if an entire military took on just him he would eventually lose, that isn't how warfare works. People surrender in wars now, when the opponent can't leap for miles and instantly kill thousands of people at a time. You get into the Foremost Man problem; if getting there first is instant death, how many people are going to go?

That team of other superheroes is going to lose their frontliners, how many people would prefer to line up with the symnbol of justice instead of die trying to fight him? Repeat that on a societal level and you get both feudalism and why superpowers don't work in a modern society.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm really not. The entire purpose of super-heroes is that they are more effective than a swat team or a helicopter with some rockets; we have literally seen the heroes cause massive splash damage on par with using military weapons and get away with it. If the fact they don't use missiles in those cases doesn't suggest the greater effect of superpowers then I really don't know what does.

All Might is also not only bulletproof (both the Nomu and AfO hit much harder than guns do), he can hit harder then missiles after losing most of his powers (the Nomu he launches for miles is very large and blasts through an armored dome and keeps going while destroying nearby clouds, considerably more powerful then a battleship cannon with 72 inch guns.) Yeah if an entire military took on just him he would eventually lose, that isn't how warfare works. People surrender in wars now, when the opponent can't leap for miles and instantly kill thousands of people at a time. You get into the Foremost Man problem; if getting there first is instant death, how many people are going to go?

That team of other superheroes is going to lose their frontliners, how many people would prefer to line up with the symnbol of justice instead of die trying to fight him? Repeat that on a societal level and you get both feudalism and why superpowers don't work in a modern society.

Yeah but as soon as All Might does this, he isn't the Symbol of Peace anymore. he is just another crazy villain dude that a a bunch of heroes are going to look down on him upona nd fight him anyways with creative ways to take him down one-on-one. and even if All Might gets to the point where he conquers Japan, welcome to world politics, as soon he tries to conquer the REST of the world? someone drops a nuke on japan for the third time, All Might and many other people die to radiation poisoning and Japan regrets ever thinking that the Divine Wind was ever a good idea. RIP One For Divine Wind, sane japanese people suffer for his stupidity, world moves on.

[Kitten Champion]

The House of M is kind of emblematic of the issue I've seen with these when they come up in comics, which is to say they have pervasive cynical American attitudes towards power structures and historic and current mistreatment of minority groups. You either get the Nazi analogues where the [American] Government is taken over by extremists and they're registering the new Supers left and right for the inevitable concentration camps and inter-generational genetic blood war which leaves everyone screwed. Or it's the inverse, the Supers take over act like they're the Gao'uld from Stargate, maybe with more or less aplomb. Both stem from a general sentiment that people are ruled by fear for the unknown and are casually bigoted, as well as the whole power corrupting absolutely thing.

My Hero Academia posits that the authorities are mostly benign and are interested in creating a peaceful society mostly through careful social engineering, one that elevates the benevolent use of one's own superpowers through a system of state-sanctioned and highly-trained agents framed through the lens of the American Superhero while restricting the general public's use of their own powers outside of private property with laws. Superheroes created an ideal and image for society which is bought into sufficiently to legitimize the rest of the State's legal philosophy, not just that they're powerful individuals keeping others in line with force but they're living up to an ideal that others want to buy into and gives normal-er people something concrete to believe in and a real sense of safety. This is something the manga repeatedly acknowledges, Heroes are about maintaining the confidence of society in its own safety and future over and above what they achieve practically speaking and are rigidly constrained by laws over their conduct. Horikoshi actually sat down and thought about this system and why it works as it does.

Which, well, if the Hero Academia high school was done by Marvel it would be the Initiative and would be secretly run by Skrulls and Nazis, and established by caricatures of American politicians who are either in on the evil agenda underneath it or ridiculously ignorant. Also, if there are laws controlling Supers, they're woefully vague and usually quite stupid when articulated. This, obviously, becomes a very different story.

[Rodin]

Xanth basically had the right idea for "everybody has a superpower", and that is to make most of them "spot on a wall" abilities - that is, the ability to make a colored spot appear on a wall. Utterly useless apart from some minor usage. And while MHA doesn't state it, that appears to be the case in that universe as well. Midoriya's mother has low grade telekinesis - she can pick up a small object and float it gently over to her, and there hasn't been any indication that her quirk extends further than that. In the first episode we see a lady protect herself from a villain with a personal shield - handy for self protection, but not necessarily something you could go out fighting villains with or use to commit any sort of crime. A lot of the classmates we see at the middle school appear the same - there's that one kid with super-long fingers, or the girl with impossible hair. Most people in the universe seem to have quirks that are more likely to be useful around the house than taking over the world.

In any universe where everyone has powers, we the audience will generally only see the top 1% (or more likely top 0000001%) of power level. That's because those are the interesting people to watch. MHA is centered around THE elite superhero school, and even there it's only the kids in the actual superhero course who have impressive powers. The general studies, business, and support students get almost no focus.

The one thing that really disappointed me with MHA was that Midoriya got powers. The premise of a superhero without powers (and without pseudo-superpowers like Batman, Ironman, et al) who deals with his disadvantage through clever tactics and hard work seemed like a really interesting one.

[Spacewolf]

Not really there are quite afew similar concepts in American culture.

You're also missing the fact that the emergence of quirks caused a massive world war that set back the progress of technology decades at the very least, the reason quirks are so open is because the regulating government was destroyed.

Edit:

The one thing that really disappointed me with MHA was that Midoriya got powers. The premise of a superhero without powers (and without pseudo-superpowers like Batman, Ironman, et al) who deals with his disadvantage through clever tactics and hard work seemed like a really interesting one.

While I do sort of agree I think that would be more suited to a spin off than the main show. I think that All might was completely correct that in a world like MHA a person without powers isn't going to be able to become a hero no matter how hard they try, because heroes are supposed to be the top of the top so they should all be putting in hard work and tactics meaning eventually the powerless person would just be left behind. and become a liability.

[Devonix]

Not really there are quite afew similar concepts in American culture.

You're also missing the fact that the emergence of quirks caused a massive world war that set back the progress of technology decades at the very least, the reason quirks are so open is because the regulating government was destroyed.

Edit:



While I do sort of agree I think that would be more suited to a spin off than the main show. I think that All might was completely correct that in a world like MHA a person without powers isn't going to be able to become a hero no matter how hard they try, because heroes are supposed to be the top of the top so they should all be putting in hard work and tactics meaning eventually the powerless person would just be left behind. and become a liability.

I dissagree, there are plenty of characters in the series that don't have combat applicable powers yet are still able to fight on even footing with powered heroes.

[Traab]

Xanth basically had the right idea for "everybody has a superpower", and that is to make most of them "spot on a wall" abilities - that is, the ability to make a colored spot appear on a wall. Utterly useless apart from some minor usage. And while MHA doesn't state it, that appears to be the case in that universe as well. Midoriya's mother has low grade telekinesis - she can pick up a small object and float it gently over to her, and there hasn't been any indication that her quirk extends further than that. In the first episode we see a lady protect herself from a villain with a personal shield - handy for self protection, but not necessarily something you could go out fighting villains with or use to commit any sort of crime. A lot of the classmates we see at the middle school appear the same - there's that one kid with super-long fingers, or the girl with impossible hair. Most people in the universe seem to have quirks that are more likely to be useful around the house than taking over the world.

In any universe where everyone has powers, we the audience will generally only see the top 1% (or more likely top 0000001%) of power level. That's because those are the interesting people to watch. MHA is centered around THE elite superhero school, and even there it's only the kids in the actual superhero course who have impressive powers. The general studies, business, and support students get almost no focus.

The one thing that really disappointed me with MHA was that Midoriya got powers. The premise of a superhero without powers (and without pseudo-superpowers like Batman, Ironman, et al) who deals with his disadvantage through clever tactics and hard work seemed like a really interesting one.

Thats only the case with stories like MHA though. In many other settings or styles spot on the wall abilities could be the main focus as the story is about how they deal with a society where super powers are a crap shoot and they rolled snake eyes. I wouldnt be surprised that they get treated like middle school midoriya was, mocked for having garbage quirks while spark sparky boom boom rules the roost.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah but as soon as All Might does this, he isn't the Symbol of Peace anymore. he is just another crazy villain dude that a a bunch of heroes are going to look down on him upona nd fight him anyways with creative ways to take him down one-on-one. and even if All Might gets to the point where he conquers Japan, welcome to world politics, as soon he tries to conquer the REST of the world? someone drops a nuke on japan for the third time, All Might and many other people die to radiation poisoning and Japan regrets ever thinking that the Divine Wind was ever a good idea. RIP One For Divine Wind, sane japanese people suffer for his stupidity, world moves on.

And thats assuming that he can both survive a high powered sniping rifle to the eye (i dont think he can),
As well as survive the antrax sandwich he is served a couple months into his reign (dont think he survive that either)
That of course, is assuming he can indeed beat however many heroes turn on him.

You're also missing the fact that the emergence of quirks caused a massive world war that set back the progress of technology decades at the very least, the reason quirks are so open is because the regulating government was destroyed.

I dont recall it being an actual war. Just a lot of chaos.

I dissagree, there are plenty of characters in the series that don't have combat applicable powers yet are still able to fight on even footing with powered heroes.

Thats only because those characters are given pseudo super powers.
I guess a key example is Stain, whose feats of strenght and agility far surpases whats humanly possible.

Thats only the case with stories like MHA though. In many other settings or styles spot on the wall abilities could be the main focus as the story is about how they deal with a society where super powers are a crap shoot and they rolled snake eyes. I wouldnt be surprised that they get treated like middle school midoriya was, mocked for having garbage quirks while spark sparky boom boom rules the roost.

That doesnt sound likely.
Its not the biggest kid in the classroom that rules it in our world. Its the one that has the wit and charisma to make everyone else listen.
Quirks just adds a new dimension to the difference between the athletic and the not. But i dont see it allowing someone to be in charge on its own.

[Traab]

And thats assuming that he can both survive a high powered sniping rifle to the eye (i dont think he can),
As well as survive the antrax sandwich he is served a couple months into his reign (dont think he survive that either)
That of course, is assuming he can indeed beat however many heroes turn on him.



I dont recall it being an actual war. Just a lot of chaos.



Thats only because those characters are given pseudo super powers.
I guess a key example is Stain, whose feats of strenght and agility far surpases whats humanly possible.



That doesnt sound likely.
Its not the biggest kid in the classroom that rules it in our world. Its the one that has the wit and charisma to make everyone else listen.
Quirks just adds a new dimension to the difference between the athletic and the not. But i dont see it allowing someone to be in charge on its own.

Well no, its not the only thing, but it would still be a factor. People with strong quirks will be more valued than ones without. A guy who can bench press a tank and tolerate 50,000 psi without flinching is going to be more obviously valuable than a guy who has a horse head. Someone with the ability of Momo Yaoyorozu is going to become rich and powerful easily with just intelligent use of her quirk, while someone with the ability to see ultraviolet light is not. These are facts that are going to be understood quickly in such a setting. And chances are the level of respect they get growing up is going to by effected by it.

*EDIT* Powered up, im pretty sure all might would have a similar reaction to a high powered sniper rifle as this The man tanks multi block destroying blasts from all for one, a bullet isnt going to do much. Cant speak for anthrax though. No clue if his super durability includes illness.

[Reddish Mage]

As for built around what if magneto won? You could do it that way too. There are a MASSIVE number of ways a quirk based world could have formed, military takeover by the powered is just one of them, but equally as valid as "These abilities and the ones who have them are covered by the constitution already, so blah blah blah" equality followed by the eventual aging out of norms as each generation is more and more powered till almost everyone is.

If you're talking about Harry Dresden stories and "What if Magneto Won" stories, what you're interested in is not so much MHA, its anything based around the concept of "what if everyone had superpowers." There is quite a few stories based on this concept or a parallel concept (i.e. what if everyone had magic).

There are endless stories around that concept which has existed long before MHA. Stories like these tend to laser focus on the one schlub that has no special power, or societies' prejudices surrounding people's powers...or more likely, both.

You could do ordinary genre stories set in a world where everyone just happened to have power, but the the real question is, why bother? If you could just do a plain jane mystery novel, or romance novel, etc. why set up such an odd society if you aren't going to really use it? As far as doing stories such as mysteries (with superpowers) or romance (with superpowers) etc, that's been done to death. The mainline comic books have been around for a long time and told virtually every sort of story imaginable (with superpowers).

The specific wrinkle you want amount to: everybody and anybody has powers and those powers could be anything. If you are going to do that, you are almost obligated to imagine what the world might be like because of such a radical change. Already that tends to lead to stories about human nature and society and politics. It's a lot of lifting to make such a huge departure from reality only to write a story about a day in the beach or a treasure hunting expedition to an ancient ruin.

The first question to ask before writing a story is what is the point of your story? Why make the story? When you put it that way, MHA is the way it is for a reason, and there is also a reason that stories about everyone having powers are relatively rare and tend to focus on only a few themes.

You either get the Nazi analogues where the [American] Government is taken over by extremists and they're registering the new Supers left and right for the inevitable concentration camps and inter-generational genetic blood war which leaves everyone screwed. Or it's the inverse, the Supers take over act like they're the Gao'uld from Stargate, maybe with more or less aplomb. Both stem from a general sentiment that people are ruled by fear for the unknown and are casually bigoted, as well as the whole power corrupting absolutely thing.

My Hero Academia posits that the authorities are mostly benign and are interested in creating a peaceful society mostly through careful social engineering, one that elevates the benevolent use of one's own superpowers through a system of state-sanctioned and highly-trained agents framed through the lens of the American Superhero while restricting the general public's use of their own powers outside of private property with laws. Superheroes created an ideal and image for society which is bought into sufficiently to legitimize the rest of the State's legal philosophy, not just that they're powerful individuals keeping others in line with force but they're living up to an ideal that others want to buy into and gives normal-er people something concrete to believe in and a real sense of safety. This is something the manga repeatedly acknowledges, Heroes are about maintaining the confidence of society in its own safety and future over and above what they achieve practically speaking and are rigidly constrained by laws over their conduct. Horikoshi actually sat down and thought about this system and why it works as it does.

Precisely. MHA is a very specific take on how society is affected by everyone acquiring superpowers. The society doesn't appear to be a utopian one but its not a dark dystopia in the sense of society being ruled by the mutant or anti-mutant Nazis. I have a feeling that the society and politics may look more controlling and anti-liberty to an American mindset than a Japanese one, but the story itself goes out of the way to indicate the authorities are not unreasonable and are highly sympathetic to the protagonist and what he's doing.

I am pretty sure however, that this society, centered around superheroes as official peacekeepers, is being portrayed as highly dysfunctional precisely because of how it deals with superpowers and people who want to use them. We are told that Midoriya's teacher speculates that technology growth and ingenuity was retarded by the appearance of superheroes. That helps explain why Japan looks the same as modern day Japan but that's also a huge swipe against powers in the first place.

That and we keep hearing from the villains that they want to change society in radical ways, and the heroes aren't fully comfortable with the way things are either. They are doing a whole side series about unlicensed heroes because MHA's world is very strict about who they allow to act as heroes.

Since superpowers are fairly common place in fiction (and there are even quite a few stories set in worlds where most people have powers if you look out for that), I don't think you can really call it MHA without locating it specifically in the world of MHA and in the stories they are doing. Those stories hopefully play out into making very specific comments about humanity and a society altered by everyone acquiring powers. Beyond that, I don't think MHA has too much potential outside of the specific stories its looking to tell already.

[lord_khaine]

*EDIT* Powered up, im pretty sure all might would have a similar reaction to a high powered sniper rifle as this The man tanks multi block destroying blasts from all for one, a bullet isnt going to do much. Cant speak for anthrax though. No clue if his super durability includes illness.

Im meanwhile quite certain his head would pop like a rotten tomato. Im not talking about a light round. Im talking about something armor piercing.
Something where all the force is concentrated into a single point. Instead of dispersed wildly like All for One's blasts.
All Might isnt Superman. His power level is several orders of magniture lower. He bleed. Like when The first Nomu we saw pierced his skin with its claws.

[Reddish Mage]

Im meanwhile quite certain his head would pop like a rotten tomato. Im not talking about a light round. Im talking about something armor piercing.
Something where all the force is concentrated into a single point. Instead of dispersed wildly like All for One's blasts.
All Might isnt Superman. His power level is several orders of magniture lower. He bleed. Like when The first Nomu we saw pierced his skin with its claws.

I’m not sure what prompted this, but isn’t the whole point, in the case of Superheroes that are not bullet proof, we’re just supposed to ignore that fact.

Pretend guns are weak and also anyone who would use a gun is a bad shot. Either that or there is some evidence from MHA that the heroes are pretty durable, so maybe All Might is bullet proof, it hasn’t been tested.

Taken to the logical extreme, superhero stories like X-men wouldn’t make sense since most of the X-men can be harmed by bullets, but you have to accept the genre conceits here, and its well established in a number of action genre that bullets are useless.

[lord_khaine]

I’m not sure what prompted this, but isn’t the whole point, in the case of Superheroes that are not bullet proof, we’re just supposed to ignore that fact.

Pretend guns are weak and also anyone who would use a gun is a bad shot. Either that or there is some evidence from MHA that the heroes are pretty durable, so maybe All Might is bullet proof, it hasn’t been tested.

Taken to the logical extreme, superhero stories like X-men wouldn’t make sense since most of the X-men can be harmed by bullets, but you have to accept the genre conceits here, and its well established in a number of action genre that bullets are useless.

I guess this is an important lesson in why its hard to respond to the last comment in a conversation :P
Because had you bothered to read it all then you could have seen that the contex were All Might's ability to conquer the world, or at least japan.
And to borrow from a web comic i read. There is a difference between bullet resistance and bullet immunity..
I can easily see him shrugging off hits from a handgun with minor flesh wounds. Less so the anti-tank rifle someone would drag out after he declares himself emperor of Japan.

Though the X-men does not need bullet immunity.
What they need to make sense is a opponent with bullet immunity, so that they are suddenly required to deal with him.
Oh hey there Magneto!

[Lord Raziere]

anyways, "everyone has superpowers" premise has many possibilities, it does have a weakness when it comes to telling a story:

lack of structure. what do I mean with this? well in a world where superpowers are rare, its easy to filter out the important characters from the normal ones. thus the plot structure becomes more clear once we know what characters we are working with, how they interact, what motivates them and so on. it allows us focus and manageability when it comes to remembering who is who. as well as saves the writer from having to come up more powers and people that aren't relevant to anything and thus doesn't contribute to the goal they are aiming for, and lets face they don't have forever to make this.

but in a world where superpowers are common, there comes a problem: what do you focus on? who do you focus on? with such widely varying abilities and applications, it quickly becomes chaos trying to figure out how a plot would unfold with so many ways someone can work around an event happening thus getting in the way of making a plot at all since you need to decide on an outcome, and the protagonist could be so many people and their power could influence things in so many ways that could be desirable or undesirable to the plot you intend to write. for example you can't write an action story with a power that makes fighting or action pointless. it screws everything up! nor can you write a mystery with a power like "automatically tell who did this crime" or something like that. and so on. its why so many gundam series have a protagonist desiring peace but being a soldier in a mecha that does nothing but war- a gundam is anything but an optimal tool to achieve peace with. it is in fact, incredibly bad at it. much like how All-Might and Midoriya's power to punch really hard is in fact an incredibly bad power to bring peace with. its great for killing and fighting and lifting things, but their true goal requires a lot sweat, hard work and creativity to achieve that no amount of punching alone will achieve.

thus in a common superpower world, one where you DON'T make 90% of the powers useless, the focus would be hard to establish, and there is too much potential for one character or another to suddenly solve the plot early with an unexpected easy application of their power, or take focus away from the protagonist with their own weirdness, when honestly you don't want that, you want to write the plot so that the protagonist has a meaningful hardship and through it, meaningful victory. thus you need to figure a different kind of structure that would allow that hardship to come, as well that victory to be earned from it. for example, a plot that doesn't work in a common superpower world is an evil guy like a bandit coming to an isolated village to bully it with what little power he has and the wandering hero coming in to stopping him, because the villagers can take of themselves with their superpowers without any ronin or knight-errants needed. you would have to figure out an alternate reason why the ronin would need to step in to help.

in short, writing a story is the art of giving a character sub-optimal tools to solve a problem that almost gets out of hand, making sure no one makes their struggle pointless by helping them too much, while at the same tricking the audience into thinking this all is unfolding naturally and seamlessly. giving everyone potentially optimal tools to solve the problem goes against this, because then people will go "but then why doesn't X just use Y to solve it instantly?" and if you allow that optimal thing to happen....you have no meaningful struggle or conflict. no story. anti-climax. failure. unless you work really hard to figure out how the meaningful struggles change, and change the story until it works. and if you don't change it right, the conflict might not be relatable or meaningful to the audience and thus not work anyways if they don't have any frame of reference or context for what it means to the character. its one of the reasons why the one powerless person is the one thats often used in these stories, because their struggle is easily understood.

so the premise might be workable as a genre.....but you'd have to be creative and work hard to pull it off well.

[Celestia]

People seem to be discussing All Might's power level here, and while I haven't read through it all, I would like to throw my two cents into the ring. That is: we have never seen All Might at his peak. We have never seen All Might anywhere near his peak. He is both severely injured and using only the last embers of One For All. So, even when he was pushing his limits in the All For One fight, we still weren't seeing him at his best.

Now, thankfully, we can try to approximate his full power based on one line he says in the USJ Incident. He said it took him more than 300 hits to take out Nomu and that at his peak it would have only taken 5. Taking him at his word here and lowballing that "more than 300" as 301, that means that he was at about 1.7% of his power at the time. The difficulty, though, lies in the fact that his power kept decreasing after that point as he repeatedly overexerted himself and Deku continued growing stronger. Thus, it is hard to guess where he was at during the All For One fight. For easy math, let's just say 1%.

Therefore, all the feats we he him perform in that battle are at around 1% of his peak ability. This may not put him on the level of his inspiration, Superman, of course, but it is certainly far greater than he is being given credit for. He survived a blast from All For One that leveled an entire city ward, and at his peak, he could have survived a blast 100 times stronger. That safely puts him in the "immune to bullets" category. Heck, that puts him in the "immune to nuclear weapons" category. All Might is a total beast.

Edit: Also, only 80% of the population has a quirk, not 97%.

[Traab]

People seem to be discussing All Might's power level here, and while I haven't read through it all, I would like to throw my two cents into the ring. That is: we have never seen All Might at his peak. We have never seen All Might anywhere near his peak. He is both severely injured and using only the last embers of One For All. So, even when he was pushing his limits in the All For One fight, we still weren't seeing him at his best.

Now, thankfully, we can try to approximate his full power based on one line he says in the USJ Incident. He said it took him more than 300 hits to take out Nomu and that at his peak it would have only taken 5. Taking him at his word here and lowballing that "more than 300" as 301, that means that he was at about 1.7% of his power at the time. The difficulty, though, lies in the fact that his power kept decreasing after that point as he repeatedly overexerted himself and Deku continued growing stronger. Thus, it is hard to guess where he was at during the All For One fight. For easy math, let's just say 1%.

Therefore, all the feats we he him perform in that battle are at around 1% of his peak ability. This may not put him on the level of his inspiration, Superman, of course, but it is certainly far greater than he is being given credit for. He survived a blast from All For One that leveled an entire city ward, and at his peak, he could have survived a blast 100 times stronger. That safely puts him in the "immune to bullets" category. Heck, that puts him in the "immune to nuclear weapons" category. All Might is a total beast.

Edit: Also, only 80% of the population has a quirk, not 97%.

Seriously? I could have sworn it was an absurdly low number that were entirely quirkless. Ah well. That actually makes things just as interesting, if in a different way. I till say that the sheer number of ways you could world build a society based on the idea of 80% of its population having some sort of quirk gives the idea a lot of its staying power. Because its not all going to be magneto wins style, or mha style, or whatever other outcome you might envision, it can be different for every author wanting to give it a try, or heck, even for the same author wanting to try a different variation.

[Lord Raziere]

so what if All-Might was 300 times stronger?

radiation poisoning don't care about no muscles. he'd go down like Meruem all the same.

[Fyraltari]

I know two works that have "every has a power" as part of the world-building:
Lanfeust de Troy and RWBY, though in both cases, it has been that way for pretty much forever when the story starts.

[Kantaki]

Seriously? I could have sworn it was an absurdly low number that were entirely quirkless.

Well, sorta?
It's about 80% for the whole population, but if I recall correctly the percentage is higher for younger generations*.
So that number is going to go up simple because older quirkless die off while the next generation is more likely to manifest quirks.

Though I wonder what would be worse, being quirkless or having a utterly useless quirk like... Moodring Skin: Your skin changes colours according to your emotions.
Heh. Great opponent for a game of poker.


*I think Allmight mentioned that in his generation quirkless were more common than in Deku’s.

[Traab]

so what if All-Might was 300 times stronger?

radiation poisoning don't care about no muscles. he'd go down like Meruem all the same.

Yeah durability is an odd thing. Sometimes its just blunt force trauma, other times its literally anything. Superman could bath in ebola and not get a runny nose. I dont think its ever been established how all mights durability worked. If it was simple physical toughness (which makes anyone hitting him a moron) or if it also included more subtle things like poison, radiation, or illness. Which if it didnt means that all for one is a freaking moron for never having tried that. You cant tell me he doesnt have some sort of stolen quirk that can do that sort of damage. Somebody with a nasal laser that blasts out gamma radiation or whatever instead of beams of nebulous "energy" Instead he relies on raw physical blasts to attack him?

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah durability is an odd thing. Sometimes its just blunt force trauma, other times its literally anything. Superman could bath in ebola and not get a runny nose. I dont think its ever been established how all mights durability worked. If it was simple physical toughness (which makes anyone hitting him a moron) or if it also included more subtle things like poison, radiation, or illness. Which if it didnt means that all for one is a freaking moron for never having tried that. You cant tell me he doesnt have some sort of stolen quirk that can do that sort of damage. Somebody with a nasal laser that blasts out gamma radiation or whatever instead of beams of nebulous "energy" Instead he relies on raw physical blasts to attack him?

well it has to be only physical toughness, or it'd be like overpowered for the setting. because even All-Might got injured enough by physical confrontation to get the way he is now so.....I doubt his resistance to other things is any better or equal.

but then again superhero stories often focus on pure action ways of solving problems and almost never give more subtle or smarter ways to take someone down any credit. and I don't see genre conceits as immunities though, I see them as the writer having to outright ignore something about the real world that would screw up the plot so they just don't include or mention it, because they know that if they allowed it, it would screw things up, so in fact it means that if guns or nuclear weapons were mentioned MHA it would screw up the series because they'd be too effective. if they weren't effective, the writer would just SHOW it not being effective with a worf barrage. so the fact that it isn't shown means the writer has to actively ignore those elements to make the story work.

[Rodin]

well it has to be only physical toughness, or it'd be like overpowered for the setting. because even All-Might got injured enough by physical confrontation to get the way he is now so.....I doubt his resistance to other things is any better or equal.

but then again superhero stories often focus on pure action ways of solving problems and almost never give more subtle or smarter ways to take someone down any credit. and I don't see genre conceits as immunities though, I see them as the writer having to outright ignore something about the real world that would screw up the plot so they just don't include or mention it, because they know that if they allowed it, it would screw things up, so in fact it means that if guns or nuclear weapons were mentioned MHA it would screw up the series because they'd be too effective. if they weren't effective, the writer would just SHOW it not being effective with a worf barrage. so the fact that it isn't shown means the writer has to actively ignore those elements to make the story work.

I don't think nukes being too effective would screw up the series. What are you going to do, drop a nuke on Tokyo to get rid of one guy? Granted, everybody and his dog has dropped a nuke on Tokyo by now, but that doesn't make it a palatable option at the power levels presented in MHA. If you had All Might (or All for One) ruling the world as a dictator you might eventually hit the Godzilla threshold and have to try that, but we've never seen that presented in the series. Even when things were really bad in the backstory it wasn't like there was an army of villains marching down the street - they were still underground. It would be like trying to get rid of the yakuza via carpet bombing.

On the power level discussion, there is one thing I find really scary. If All Might was at 1% power when he re-fought All for One, and All for One was at a similarly degraded power level from almost dying in their initial fight...what the HELL was that fight like? And how did the government manage to cover it up? They leveled a neighborhood while fighting at 1% power, and All For One doesn't seem to be the type of villain to agree to the "let's take this to a convenient wasteland" request from other shows. Was a city wiped off the map and a natural disaster blamed or something?

[Traab]

well it has to be only physical toughness, or it'd be like overpowered for the setting. because even All-Might got injured enough by physical confrontation to get the way he is now so.....I doubt his resistance to other things is any better or equal.

but then again superhero stories often focus on pure action ways of solving problems and almost never give more subtle or smarter ways to take someone down any credit. and I don't see genre conceits as immunities though, I see them as the writer having to outright ignore something about the real world that would screw up the plot so they just don't include or mention it, because they know that if they allowed it, it would screw things up, so in fact it means that if guns or nuclear weapons were mentioned MHA it would screw up the series because they'd be too effective. if they weren't effective, the writer would just SHOW it not being effective with a worf barrage. so the fact that it isn't shown means the writer has to actively ignore those elements to make the story work.

Well im not claiming all might is flat out immune to physical damage, its clear he has limits, I just meant that its never mentioned if it covers anything but melee damage. Like, clearly fireman mc angry face couldnt take him down so he is probably fairly fire resistant or else #2 would be on top. So blunt force, stabbing force, fire resistant, what is his limit? Mind control probably could work as midoriya nearly got easy beat in the tournament and broke it in a way that freaked all might out when he heard about it. And again, All For One is trying to break and humiliate All Might on national television, a nice colorless, odorless poison attack would help with that effort, we already know he had a guy who could make poison gas on team evil from the whole forest arc, so clearly he had access to that quirk as well. if he didnt use it, it is probably because it wouldnt do the job.