With Season 4's bombastic finale and all of us being stuck indoors trying to pass time with literally anything at all, we figured it was a good time to go more into the Hero Aca lore. My Hero Academia is a show about a society in which Professional Heroes are the icons of the world. They don't have to act in the shadows, they make a fair wage, and they run their own businesses.
There are tons of nuances and problems with this setting, but we still don't quite know the full berth of rules that Pro-Heroes have to follow. So, let's talk about a few of the things it's confirmed they do, even if only rarely.
10 Dodge Criminal Charges With Ease!
Just like real-world celebrities, it seems that Pro-Heroes get a lot more slack when it comes to their mistakes. And, to be clear, we're not talking about them hurting someone while saving them or anything like that. No, more like heroes who aid villains behind the scenes, Heroes who use their status to prey on women, and Heroes who abuse their power. A decent e
xample is Captain Celebrity from the MHA: Vigilante's spinoff who runs away to Japan after he was blacklisted for being such a frequent flirt who would have faced sexual harassment charges. Of course, the most obvious example is the scumbag known as Endeavor.
9 Work Overseas On A Whim!
You would think that a Hero License would only be applicable in the country of origin, but it turns out that might not be the case. We haven't seen it often, but Pro-Heroes seem perfectly capable of working in another country with barely any authorization needed. Captain Celebrity transfers to Japan and immediately gets to work protecting the citizens. All Might, in the Two Heroes film, has a brief period working in America with his sidekick David Shield. Maybe there is a ton of paperwork being filed behind the scenes, but to us, it just seems like Heroes can work anywhere at anytime
8 Team Up With Just About Anyone!
Its never really talked about, but Pro-Heroes seem to team up with just about anybody in a crisis situation with little to no consequences for it. And it's not just with UA students either. Again, Vigilantes gives us tons of examples such as Aizawa working with ex-cons in an emergency situation (which made no sense), Fatgum teaming up with one specific cop multiple times, and even Ingenium working with The Crawler.
You would think that a stack of paperwork would be mandatory for a hero to just scoop up any person off the street as a temporary or even permanent sidekick, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
7 Keep Secrets For Cops!
Speaking of Fatgum and his cop partner Monika, what's that all about? So in this world, Pro-Heroes can use their Quirks but Cops can't? Not even in an emergency situation? We, of course, learn minute one that being a Pro-Hero means being free to use your Quirk in the line-of-duty, but we didn't realize they were even above the police force in that regard. Luckily, due to Monika's usage of her Quirk and her laidback attitude after, we can assume its usually a slap on the wrist, but we'd love a side story that dives into the Police Force way of life the MHA world and how most Pro-Heroes dare not tattle on them.
6 Steal Villain Captures From Other Heroes!
So this is something we saw in episode one and then never again, but competing Heroes can absolutely "steal" criminals from one another. Mount Lady, for example, stole the credit for the villain's capture from Kamui Woods simply because she wanted to get her name out there. Luckily these two ended up as friends but they easily could've endangered lives if a rivalry/competition had started. It really just opens up a whole bag of issues when Heroes start seeing crimes as something they need to fight over, but luckily it doesn't seem to be something that happens all too often, though it does absolutely seem like something a "hero" like Mineta would be known for.
5 They Actually Get Paid!
We searched around, but it doesn't seem like there's even a single manga page or anime screencap of a hero being handed money or a check for their services. Obviously, the heroes in MHA have to make money in order to pay their bills, and it's established early on that Hero Work does pay, but we never see the actual transaction. Do they make a wage? Is there an industry standard?
How much of their income is usually generated by sponsors and public appearances? There's a whole world of economic intrigue that we're almost positive the franchise will never dive into.
4 They're Allowed To Moonlight!
We very rarely see it, but Pro-Heroes are totally allowed to moonlight. All Might himself unintentionally does it while working at UA. The guy is constantly late for his day job because he's spending all his free-time saving people. Or, from another point of view, his position as a schoolteacher is taking him away from his main career as a hero. In either case, it's obvious that heroes are allowed to have "multiple jobs" and we find that odd. Hospitals tend to look down on moonlighting since they need their doctors at 100% when lives are at stake and we'd assume that same mentality would apply to heroes.
3 They Have No Limit On Sidekicks!
As we said earlier, the exact revenue amount a Hero can make and from where is unclear at best. How can All Might have an entire office building for his agency, yet the guy doesn't seem like the type to accept sponsor-deals. And, another shaky aspect of that is the whole Sidekick system. if heroes don't make a government wage, then neither would sidekicks.
That would mean that a Hero with many sidekicks like Endeavor or Ingenium would need to generate tons of money from other avenues in order to keep all their sidekicks employed.
2 Use Their Prestige To Push Their Agenda!
Now, depending on how you would quantify it, Heroes potentially use their status as a way to promote their ideas quite often. But, if we said talking about "justice" didn't count as pushing an agenda, then there would be barely any examples left. But, there are still times when a hero uses their platform and following to push forward a message that some people may feel they aren't qualified to speak on. It's similar to celebrities of our world who might come out and talk about a certain political issue when they spend their day job playing a character on a sitcom.
1 They Aren't Immortal, They Can Die!
This last entry is obvious, but for a show that gets insanely dark at times, MHA has very few on-screen deaths, especially for the horse. The villains have a few, likely because they're more prone to violence, but how is it that every hero we've seen (except one) somehow manages to pull through and survive. But it's true, Heroes can die, and spoilers ahead, the ones that do like Oboro or Nighteye, usually pass in a very unceremonious way. Heroes usually don't get to "die in battle", rather, they are suddenly just gone, and we think MHA needs a bit more of that realistic tone in future arcs. We know its a Shonen series, but don't forget that this work is exceedingly dangerous.
