Adored by the Network: Despite being screwed once before during the second half of Season 3, the series has been loved by [adult swim] ever since. During Season 4 alone, the series got two Saturday slots on the regular [as] schedule before the new episodes on Toonami, remained on Toonami even after the dub got delayed, and even a 5:30 weeknight slot on [as]'s schedule, something that only one other anime has been able to achieve since 2008.
All-Star Cast: The English dub has a lot of Funimation's staple voices for several of its major players. Due to the large nature of the cast, it's impossible to list them all:
Ascended Fanon: In the third volume of the light novel, there's a chapter dedicated to the Fantasy AU. It was common among fans to imagine that Kirishima in that AU is a Weredragon that was actually the dragon Bakugo is riding in the anime's ED, this chapter of the light novel confirms it.
In the end-of-chapter notes for Chapter 11, Horikoshi mentions how many were wondering about the discrepancy in terms of the total amount of students in the class. He explains that the number of students mentioned in Chapter 5 was referring to those who passed the entrance exam. The final two students, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, got in via special recommendations, which is why they weren't counted in the group.
In the collected volumes, Horikoshi mentions that some fans were confused about Midoriya using One For All at 1,000,000% in the form of a Delaware Detroit Smash during the Forest Training Camp Arc; he explains that this was just a Battle Cry and wasn't meant to be a literal measure of power.
The original name for the Doctor, Maruta Shiga, was very controversial, particularly in China and South Korea, due to its unintended connection to an experiment done by Imperial Japan towards those from those two regions during World War II. Horikoshi swiftly apologized for this and changed the name to Kyudai Garaki, a name that retains the original's similarity to Shigaraki (as in, All For One's surname) without the problematic "Maruta" reference.
Banned in China: The anime and manga were removed in China following the controversy surrounding the doctor's original true name "Maruta".note The abbreviated version is that in World War II, Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army carried out "Project Maruta" on Chinese prisoners. The project was not entirely unlike the work of Josef Mengele, involving inhumane experimentation on the prisoners, including but not limited to vivisection, weapon testing, and forced pregnancies. "Maruta", meaning "logs" in Japanese, was the name given to the test subjects, as the official cover story for the facility was that it was a lumber mill.Kōhei Horikoshi has stated that he never intended to reference such a horrific moment in China's history and subsequently changed the doctor's name, but the damage was already done.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: It's easy to think that, with how often the fandom perpetuates the idea, Midoriya was given the In-Series Nickname of "Problem Child" by Aizawa, and is called such constantly. However, Aizawa only ever calls him that once, specifically before the raid on the Shie Hassaikai, more as a term of endearment while telling Midoriya he'd watch out for him since he knows how Midoriya tends to get into trouble while trying to help.
Breakthrough Hit: For Horikoshi, after his previous two attempts at long runners failed to entice audiences.
Christmas Rushed: Chapter 182 was a rush order from Shueshia before the Golden Week of 2018, which didn't give time for Horikoshi and his assistants to do touch up on the artwork. So when it was released, a few of the panels were still in their sketch phases, though this was thankfully fixed in the volume release.
Horikoshi has admitted that Ashido is one of his favorites as she's one of the Class 1-A students he wants to focus on and grow the most.
Horikoshi stated that Mirko is one of his favorite characters and that if he didn't want to "advance the plot" he'd be fine drawing her for "another 30 weeks."
In Vol 30 extras when announcing poll's results, Hori mentions that some of his favs are Tsutsutaka Agoyamato and Chikuchi Togeike, two students from General Department, who so far officially appeared only in School Festival Arc.
During the later seasons and movies, a bunch Los Angeles-based voice actors were added the cast, which mostly consisted of Texas-based ones before that point.
In the Latin Spanish dub, most of the characters were voiced by Miami-based actors while some of the others were voiced by actors from the Greater Los Angeles and Greater Orlando areas, as well as Mexico, Chile, and Argentina.
Clifford Chapin, Bakugo's English voice actor, has directed multiple arcs of the series alongside Clinkenbeard, such as the U.A. Sports Festival/ Hero Killer storylines and the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc.
Rómulo Bernal not only directed the Latin American Spanish dub, but provided the voices for Katsuki Bakugo, Snipe and Tomura Shigaraki.
Dueling Works: With One-Punch Man as both are about characters serving as heroes while battling villains, and both are a Japanese take on the American comic book superhero genre.
There's a somewhat popular fan theory that Mina Ashido is black-coded due to her mannerisms, but another smaller section of the fandom insists that Horikoshi confirmed this, which he didn't.
There was a belief among some fans that Horikoshi admitted that he forgot entirely about the U.A. traitor subplot during an interview. Truth is, he never said that in any interview.
Thirteen's Japanese voice actress, Inuko Inuyama, is best known for being the voice of Meowth of Team Rocket.
Spinner's English voice actor, Larry Brantley, was the voice of Wishbone.
Jiro's singing voice, Chrissy Costanza, is also the lead singer of the American rock band Against The Current.
Incidental Multilingual Wordplay: Shota Aizawa's Quirk comes from his eyes, and the first syllable of his last name, "Ai," is pronounced identically to the English word "eye."
International Coproduction: The Latin American Spanish dub of the TV series is being dubbed by a mix of voice actors from Florida and Mexico.
Long Runner: With the second episode of Season 4, the sixty-fifth episode of the series overall, the anime holds the distinction of being the longest series ever done by Studio BONES, surpassing the previous holder, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which has sixty-four episodes. With Season 5, it became the first BONES anime to reach one-hundred episodes.
Non-Singing Voice: The song Jiro and others perform at the School Festival, "Hero too", is done by Chrissy Costanza of Against The Current, not any of Jiro's regular voice actresses.
Official Fan-Submitted Content: Bubble Girl and Centipeder were created by artists Agen Chiita and Tetsuya Oohara, respectively, who were the winner and runner-up in a Pixiv character design contest.
Present in the English dub starting with Season 2:
Aizawa was voiced by Alex Organ in Season 1. Due to his theater work, Organ was replaced by Christopher Wehkamp.
Present Mic was voiced by Sonny Strait in Season 1. He was replaced by Dave Trosko.
Recovery Girl was voiced by Juli Erickson in Season 1. She was replaced by Luci Christian due to Erickson's retirement.
Skeptic was voiced by Ben Diskin in Season 5. After Diskin cut ties with Crunchyroll, Anthony Bowling took over the role starting in Season 6.
Tokoyami was voiced by Josh Grelle since Season 1. After Grelle's decision to no longer voice male characters the role will most likely be recast by an unknown voice actor.
Recasts happened in the Latin Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese dubs of the anime, thanks to some issues to the franchise in Latin America: when Funimation started to work in the region, they hired local licensors to distribute and dub some of their content, so the first thing of the anime to be released dubbed in the region was the first movie instead of the TV series, as Funimation tried to distribute the series directly while local licensors took care of the movies. Due to this, Funimation subsequently dubbed the series themselves:
The Latin American Spanish releases of the films were dubbed in Mexico City, while the TV series primarily used actors from the Miami metropolitan area. For example, Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo, respectively voiced by Héctor Mena and Rafael Escalante in the films, are now voiced by Sebastián Gabriel Reggio and Rómulo Bernal.
The Brazilian Portuguese dub in the series also had a cast almost completely different from the movies, despite both movies and TV series being recorded in São Paulo. Few voice actors reprised their roles, such as the voices of Midoriya and Bakugo.
Portmanteau Series Nickname: "MHA" or "BNHA", depending on whether you're using the English or Japanese name of the manga. "HeroAca" is a more universal though less common example to use.
Schedule Slip: In North America, the SimulDub of Season 4's final five episodes had the bad luck of being delayed due to the rise of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Fortunately, Funimation made the unprecedented move of having the cast members record in their home studios and slowly began to dull out the remaining episodes over the next few months, starting with the 84th episode, which aired a month and a half after its initial premiere in Japan, and ending with episodes 87 and 88, both of which aired together on June 14, 2020, a full two months and ten days after Season 4 had finished airing in Japan.
Screwed by the Network: The series got hit with this on Toonami in the middle of its third season. It was moved from starting off the block at 10:30pm to ending the block at 3:30 in the morning and Toonami quit promoting it. It's worth noting that these dubbed episodes have been on Funimation's website and Hulu for months thanks to the former's SimulDub program and the series still brought in ratings better than several others that aired before it. Fortunately, this would be inverted entirely when the fourth season started airing.
Sleeper Hit: As aforementioned, this series had an unexpected surge in popularity after Horikoshi's previousattempts were short-lived, and the pilot chapter had a So Okay, It's Average response.
Spoiled by the Merchandise: The presence of Mirio (and by extension, the Big Three) and Overhaul in the plot was spoiled as both had their leitmotifs in the anime's soundtrack, with their respective names on it.
Star-Making Role: The dub was this for Justin Briner as Midoriya, who had almost no experience in a lead role and only two years of professional voice acting experience behind him. His performance, and the sheer range of emotions he displays, is widely considered to be on par with, and/or even better than Midoriya's Japanese voice actor, Daiki Yamashita.
Throw It In!: In the English dub, two notable instances include Midoriya's "Holy whoa!" Catchphrase and Nejire's cheer "Way to go, Mirio!" in Season 3.
Magne, a trans woman member of the League of Villains, has cisgender male voice actors: Satoru Inoue in Japanese, and Jeremy Inman in English.
Tiger, a trans man hero, is played by cisgender male actors: Shinnosuke Ogami in Japanese, and Marcus D. Stimac in English.
Trend Killer: The anime adaptation was the nail in the coffin on the trend of continuous anime adaptations of shōnen manga. Prior to it, long-running shōnen manga like Naruto and Bleach aired non-stop; while it kept the franchises always visible, the anime quality was never great and it resulted in a lot of filler arcs. My Hero Academia, in counterpart, decided to make its adaptation seasonal, with once-a-year releases of a season adapting a group of arcs, which ended up better paced, better animated, and with almost no filler; the format was also better suited for binge-watching, which had become popular by the time the anime came out. Subsequent big shōnen titles like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba all followed this format, while the former trend of adapting was left behind.
All Might was originally going to be a much older looking hero who would have played a lesser role in the story. He would have simply convinced Yamikumo to become a hero despite being Quirkless.
Uraraka was originally going to have Mount Lady's power. This was scrapped, however, since it would have made her too overpowered compared to Midoriya and Bakugo, and because she would have suffered darker psychological issues due to that Quirk's effects.
Bakugo was originally going to be a much kinder, friendlier character who would have said things without thinking and inadvertently insulted people. At some point, Horikoshi decided that this would have made Bakugo blander than paper and decided to instead portray him as being unbelievably despicable, and is very glad he did so. Additionally, Bakugo's first name was meant to be Gogou instead of Katsuki.
Tsuyu and Hagakure were both originally supposed to be male, but ended up being female characters because Class 1-A had too few of them. Hatsume was also originally going to be male.
Ibara Shiozaki and Nirengeki Shoda were originally going to be in Class 1-A, but both were placed in Class 1-B for reasons Horikoshi can't remember.
Endeavor was originally going to be a teacher at U.A. as well. This was scrapped because it would have tilted the power balance towards the good guys too much.
Midnight was originally going to be Class 1-A's homeroom teacher. However, Horikoshi decided to put Aizawa in her place because he drew her way too sexually for the role and he thought that Aizawa's personality was better suited to handle the class.
The announcer for the entrance exam was originally supposed to be an overweight old guy, but Horikoshi decided that he was boring and radically changed the character until he became Present Mic.
Ida's original design included a helmet similar to a bird's skull. Another concept has him looking a lot like a taller Kaminari, with a bit of a slacker appearance and a thin mustache.
Hawks' appearance was originally going to be a transplant of Takahiro from Oumagadoki Doubutsuen. This changed after the staff working on Two Heroes asked to use Takahiro first, and Hawks was redesigned with a more human look.
Horikoshi's original plan for the final arc of the manga included Midoriya handing over his Quirk to Bakugo, until he scrapped the idea. The rejected concept was adapted, alongside several other ideas Horikoshi had decided against putting into the manga proper, into the Heroes Rising movie.
In regards to the dub, both Brendan Blaber and Kyle Igneczi auditioned for the role of Hawks. While Zeno Robinson was the one who ultimately got the part, the auditions landed Blaber the role of Mummy in My Hero Academia: Heroes: Rising and Igneczi the role of the blade villain Kirishima faces in season 4's fifth episode.
A rarer example concerning late story spoilers: Originally, the traitor reveal was going to happen during the Forest Training Camp Arc, but the poor weekly survey results because of the villains simply showing up made Horikoshi change his mind and push it off way into the future. It ended up remaining a secret right up until the series' final arc, meaning a more prominent subplot concerning them was considered but ultimately pared down.
Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: The official English translator, Caleb Cook, regularly posted threads on his Twitter account explaining translation choices, along with other trivia. A certain subset of the fandom repeatedly harassed him to the point where he locked his Twitter account and left social media entirely. He later unlocked the account to at least allow everyone to access the old content, but has manifested no intention to return.
Despite Midoriya and Bakugo being the inspiration for Class 1-A, Horikoshi has stated that neither of them are The Heart, and that role actually belongs to Kaminari and Kirishima.
Uraraka is meant to be plump. Western viewers rarely notice it, because Horikoshi's (and therefore the Japanese) definition of plump girls is basically the average body size for Western females.
Written by Cast Member: Alessandro Germano (Shoto Todoroki), Simone Lupinacci (Izuku Midoriya) and Annalisa Longo (young Katsuki Bakugo and Minoru Mineta) are credited as co-writers for the Italian dub.
You Sound Familiar: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Miguel Ángel Leal voiced Eijiro Kirishima in the films and would later go on to voice Keigo Takami in the TV series.
following the controversy surrounding the doctor's original true name "Maruta".note Kōhei Horikoshi has stated that he never intended to reference such a horrific moment in China's history and subsequently changed the doctor's name, but the damage was already done.
