My Hero Academia author Kohei Horikoshi puts immense care into crafting interesting characters. From big-time heroes like All Might to minor players like Backdraft, his characters become unforgettable due to their unique personalities, looks, powers, or some combination of the three. This is clearest in the manga’s popularity polls, where characters as inconsequential as Toru Hagakure have earned a spot.
The anime further contributes to this all-around character love. Being Izuku Midoriya‘s story, though, My Hero Academia can’t always cater to fan favorites, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve their time in the sun. Here are five characters that we at FANDOM believe deserve their own spinoff series.
Shoto Todoroki
A powerhouse if there ever was one, Shoto Todoroki boasts command over ice and fire. This is the result of, to put it mildly, selective breeding on his father Endeavor‘s part. As the number two hero after All Might, Endeavor wanted a successor strong enough to surpass his rival. Disgusted, Todoroki vowed never to use the flames inherited from his father, choosing instead to independently develop his powers and worldview. This changed when Izuku convinced Todoroki that his power is his own, prompting Todoroki to work toward embracing both the heat and cold.
This storyline alone was enough for Todoroki to rise to the top few spots of those popularity polls mentioned earlier. He hasn’t had as much screen time since, but that has done nothing to diminish his impact. All Might says, “I am here,” whenever he arrives, but Todoroki has no need; his presence is one you can feel. As stated in a previous FANDOM article, Izuku recognizes how protagonist-like Todoroki is — his powers, his ideals, his motivations. He is, quite simply, a fascinating character with spinoff potential as high as his power levels.
Hero Killer: Stain
Not just anyone with a quirk can be a hero in the world of My Hero Academia. In accordance with the law, authorization and certification are necessary to establish yourself a pro hero. This essentially makes heroes government employees, and therein lies the problem for Stain, the notorious Hero Killer. He believes that unlike All Might, who saves people because he can, heroes have lost their way in the face of service rewarded with money and fame. And as his name would imply, Hero Killer: Stain purges those he deems unworthy.
Between his brutal fighting style, his unique quirk (upon ingesting someone’s blood, they’ll be paralyzed for a set amount of time depending on their blood type), and his thought-provoking ideology, Stain’s footprint remains. While we have a general idea of how Stain came to think the way he does, a spinoff could fill in the blanks, or focus on newer villains’ adherence to/deviation from his views. My Hero Academia is, for the most part, a bright and optimistic show; a look from the other side, if done well, would make for an excellent counterpoint.
Mt. Lady
There’s no better example of the kind of “hero” Stain hates than Mt. Lady, whose Gigantification quirk is as subtle as her vanity. Taller than a building and in a skintight costume, she is always in the public eye, her fame on the rise. And being so powerful, she’s able to stop crime pretty easily, meaning her income is sizable.
All Might instills the desire to save those in need of saving in his students — money and fame be damned. A spinoff centered on Mt. Lady would, in a different way than Stain, provide a counterpoint, revealing just how deep the conceit of modern heroes goes. Yet she’s not entirely selfish, having saved students from Mr. Compress, proving Stain is not entirely right, either.
There would also be an opportunity to showcase other pro heroes in more prominent roles, as villain incidents attract attention. In that vein, this spinoff wouldn’t necessarily revolve around Mt. Lady, but she’s already a fairly popular character, having starred in two mini side adventures in volume three of the manga.
Shota Aizawa/Eraser Head
Few My Hero Academia characters are as enigmatic or eccentric as Shota Aizawa (aka Eraser Head) — and that’s saying something. One moment, he’s the picture of lethargy, curling up in a sleeping bag in the middle of homeroom; the next, he’s a paragon of heroism, taking on a slew of villains by himself to protect his students.
Highly intelligent and willing to speak his mind, Aizawa always has something interesting to say, be it about why he avoids the spotlight or a constructively critical comment for one of his students. He is as much an inspiration to them as All Might is, if from a vastly different angle. Through his tough stance on teaching, his students become the best heroes they can be.
Aizawa excels at stealth, but the circumstances of the action-packed anime often put him in head-on fights. To say the least, seeing him in his element would be awesome, and learning more about how he spends his time outside of teaching would undoubtedly reveal new sides of an already multifaceted character.
Ochaco Uraraka
When first introduced, it seemed Ochaco Uraraka was fated to be the girl overshadowed by Izuku — and it’s true to some extent. But in classic My Hero Academia fashion, Uraraka often defies expectations, the most notable example being her fight against Bakugo, which displayed her cleverness and tenacity despite being at a disadvantage.
Indeed, there’s more to her utterly adorable exterior than you’d imagine. We know, for example, that her parents are poor, and that she wants to become a hero in order to support them (an inversion of Stain’s grudge against money-grubbing heroes). What, then, is her home life like? Her parents are extremely good to her, but their status obviously weighs on her. Does she put on a face for her classmates as her parents do for her?
As with Mt. Lady, this opens up other options. What are the home lives of U. A.‘s other students like? We’ve had only glimpses (e.g., Momo Yaoyorozu‘s family estate). Beloved as she is, Uraraka would be the natural first choice for this sort of spinoff.
