The Spring 2025 Anime Preview Guide

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

In a world where 80 percent of the population has super powers, "Heroes" are chosen ones, celebrated and authorized to use their innate powers to serve society. But not everyone can earn or be given the title of Hero, and those who use their powers without society's approval to fight evil are known by another name - Vigilantes.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is based on a manga by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court, a spinoff of My Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

Batman isn't a vigilante because the police in Gotham are good at their jobs. He fills a niche that less-violent superheroes can't, as the shadow to Superman's light. (I could digress into a discussion of how Wonder Woman can be both light and dark all on her own, but I'll control myself.) That's all to say that there's a place for unlicensed heroes in My Hero Academia's world, and that's what Vigilantes aims to fill with its stories of Quirk-holders who don't quite fit into the hero system for whatever reason. Honestly, it's a lot more interesting to me than the regular MHA storyline, which I've popped in and out of over the years. But Vigilantes' first episode held my attention much more.

Perhaps that's because its protagonist, Koichi, is more relatable. He's just a college kid with a weird superpower – Slide and Glide, which allows him to move at the speed of a slow bicycle if he has three points of contact with the ground – but who still wants to do something. So at night, he throws on a neckwarmer and an All Might hoodie and hits the streets as…Nice Guy! Able to return a lost cellphone in a single bound! Able to remind drunks to catch the last train! Never afraid to give someone directions or to sort recycling! Truly, he is the hero we all need in these dark times, and I'm only being a little sarcastic. And to the person whose phone he found? He's every bit the hero because they really would have been in trouble, or at least super anxious, without him.

But is that level of heroism enough? For Koichi, it seems to be, at least until repeated run-ins with the same group of thugs show him that it might not be. This is where I mention that this episode comes with a warning for attempted sexual assault; “freelance” pop idol Pop * Step is pinned to the wall by those thugs while they threaten to strip her and repeatedly insinuate that she's “asking for it” because of how she's dressed. At moments like that, it does help to have someone strong around, so it's a good thing that Knuckleduster drops off a roof into a pile of garbage to save the day – and to recruit Nice Guy to his vigilante team. But what's more interesting is that Knuckleduster and Nice Guy represent two different philosophies of being a hero: Knuckleduster is proactive, looking to solve problems that he knows exist and to do it rapidly. Nice Guy helps where he can, looking for problems that arise to solve. Neither of them is comfortable with the other's methods, but since Knuckleduster isn't going to take no for an answer, they're going to have to figure it out.

Equal parts silly and slick (I do love the 1960s Batman style sound effects) Vigilantes is a fun take on both its parent series and the superhero genre in general. Its comic book stylings add to the atmosphere, and if Pop * Step's outfit is unfortunate, well, I've seen worse. I'm curious to see where this goes because what can I say? I've always found superheroes more fun if they're operating by their own rules.

My Hero Academia remains one of the Shonen Jump anime that got away from me. I had a blast with the first couple of seasons, but I fell off when life got a bit too hectic, and now I'm so far behind that I doubt I'll ever catch up. This is what makes My Hero Academia: Vigilantes such a great prospect for viewers like me. It's a spinoff that takes place before the original series even begins — All-Might is running around, smiling like a goofus and everything — and it stars a trio of comically underpowered underdogs who are trying to keep the streets clean of crime in their own, legally dubious way. That's a great premise that has a lot of potential to show us sides of the MHA world that the Academy kids don't necessarily get to see firsthand, and it's something that any newbie or franchise dropout can follow along with.

Another thing that MHA: Vigilantes has going for it is its excellent production values, courtesy of Studio Bones. I'm well behind on the regular series, as I said, but I was pleasantly surprised at how polished and cinematic this premiere looked and sounded. I'm not sure how it compares to what fans are used to normally, these days, but so far as I'm concerned, it lives up to the franchise's pedigree and breathes a lot of life into the colorful setting and diverse characters that Vigilantes is focusing on.

Speaking of characters, that's where Vigilantes needs to shine, since a superhero team up is only as good as its cast, and I feel like that is even more true for series about loveable losers and doomed underdogs, since you can't exactly expect the audience to be distracted by all of the badass spectacle that the “real” heroes get involved in. Koichi's “Slide and Glide” Quirk is so lame by definition that power may as well be renamed to “Scooty Puff Jr.”; his real superpower is his almost disgusting commitment to being a nice guy who does any good deed that he can (so long as it can be accomplished by a completely average human who can scootch around on the ground at sub-jogging speeds). “Pop Step” is a cute and energetic girl whose power is that she can jump really high, though not high enough to be more immediately useful than someone with a trampoline or an especially tall ladder. “Knuckleduster” is the only one who can hold his own in a fight, since his quirk seems to be “Can Hit Dudes Really, Really Hard.” That said, hitting dudes really, really hard isn't really a superpower, per se, since it's not like he's exploding skulls or leveling buildings…

The point is that none of these dorks will get an entry in the MCU anytime soon; they probably wouldn't have been able to hack it with the Defenders back on Netflix, either. Thankfully, they're a likable bunch, and I'm interested in their immediate goal of figuring out who is behind the arrival of the new “supervillain drug” that is apparently wreaking havoc on the streets. My only major complaint is that poor Pop Step doesn't get much to do other than shake her ass for the camera and then get beaten up by a bunch of back-alley hoodlums. It's an awfully retrograde trope for this show to be playing so straight in 2025, so I can only hope that MHA: Vigilantes gives the only girl on the team a more interesting role in future episodes.

I'm 100% all-in for the premise of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. In the time before the first season of My Hero Academia, All-Might's peaceful superhero society is already on its last legs—despite how it appears on the outside. Villainous discontent is nearing a boiling point, and the top heroes care more about their own personal goals than helping the little man. This leaves more common criminals and thugs largely unchecked—not to mention the war on drugs. And just as in any age or era, when law and order fails, normal people step up and take justice into their own hands.

In this setting, we get the first meeting of our three outcasts, Nice Guy, Knuckle Duster, and Pop☆Step. Nice Guy is one of the people who, while not quirkless, doesn't have a quirk with the raw power needed to pass the hero license exam. Thus, he dresses up in an All Might hoodie at night and helps people—rather than fighting crime. But when it comes down to it, like Izuku, he has the heart of a hero—and runs toward danger rather than away from it when innocents are in harm's way.

Then we have Knuckle Duster: a buff old man with no apparent powers who just punches really hard. He's a man of action to a ridiculous degree—going for the straightforward approach once any goal has been laid out. Lastly, we have Pop☆Step, who, rather than an underground hero, is an underground idol—pursuing her dream on her own terms.

The key to all three of them is that they want to do the right thing. When they learn of the Trigger drug threat, they are compelled to act—even if “acting” in this case is mostly just preventing Knuckle Duster from knocking out every person they pass on the street.

All in all, this is a decent start to the series. It gives us a new viewpoint on the My Hero Academia world, along with a trio of protagonists who are all unique and easy to root for. I'm not sure about throwing in a well-known character like Eraser Head into the mix so early, but I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt.