My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Volume 2 manga review

My Hero Academia Vigilantes Graphic Novel Volume 2 cover image

Eighty percent of the population has superpowers called “Quirks.”  If you want to be a superhero, you enroll in the Hero Academy, so that you can be trained and licensed.  There are those, however, who have minor Quirks or who do not have powers, but they want to be heroes.  They are heroes without legal sanction, and they are called “Vigilantes.”  One of these vigilantes is 19-year-old Koichi Haimawari, who has a minor Quirk that allows him to “slide and glide” when he connects his hands and feet to the ground.

As My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 2 (Chapters 6 to 11) opens, Koichi continues to be an all-around hero, stopping minor villains and even picking up trash in his neighborhood.  People call him Mr. Nice Guy,” but he prefers his new name, "The Crawler."  He continues to learn from his mentor, “Knuckleduster – Janitor of the Fist,” who beats up criminals, but who does not have a Quirk.  His other “partner,” Kazuho Haneyama, the DIY pop idol, “Pop☆Step,” has a secret she needs to tell him, but cannot bring herself to do so.

However, sinister and dangerous threats lurk in the shadows of Koichi and his friends' activities.  Into this situation arrives the masked Stendhal, and he seems to a true vigilante.

THE LOWDOWN:  I am a longtime fan of superhero comic books, I was delighted when my VIZ Media rep started sending me copies the My Hero Academia manga.  I find myself even more in love with the spin-off series, the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes manga.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Graphic Novel Volume 2 exemplifies what makes this new series so endearing.  It is the ordinariness of Koichi Haimawari.  His pluck and determination is wonderful, but the fact that he risks himself to help everyone, even villains in distress, even when part of him does not want to, is what makes him a hero.

Writer Hideyuki Furuhashi and artist Betten Court, the creative team on Vigilantes, do right by My Hero Academia creator, Kohei Horikoshi.  Furuhashi makes this series work by focusing on making the characters endearing, while Betten Court's clean drawing style emphasis character over action.  Caleb Cook's translation and English language adaptation makes this a fun read in the tradition of early, classic Marvel Comics of the 1960s.  These are reason enough to seek My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Fans of My Hero Academia, superhero comics, and shonen battle manga will want to work the streets with the Shonen Jump title, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.

A
9 out of 10