Out of the Bottle: My Hero Academia

Hey everyone! This week we’re getting nerdy and in honor of one of my favorite Anime/mangas wrapping up, I’m going to break down it’s story structure and talk about how if you knew about this story outline, you may have known from the very beginning how this story was going to end. 

SPOILER WARNING!: this blog will contain spoilers from the manga for My Hero Academia and if you are not caught up and don’t want spoilers, please wait to read this until you are caught up. 

Also, I will be referencing the story outline from Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. This is a great writing resource if you are new to writing or want to explore writing structures that give great examples of fiction/media. 

To recap and for those who don’t know: My Hero Academia is the story of a boy named Izuku Midoriya who lives in a world full of people with special abilities (known as quirks) and he himself does not. This world is filled with heroes and villains, and it is his dream to become a hero. Of course, this dream is pretty far fetched in a world of people with amazing abilities and he’s crushed when he meets his hero (All Might) who tells him he cannot be a hero without a quirk. But soon he finds his classmate (and bully) in danger and not a single hero is stepping in to help. His feet go without moving and inspires All Might to power through his own personal struggles and stop the villain endangering the two boys. This leads to All Might consulting Izuku and offering him his power, an ability called One for All. 

There is obviously a ton more that could go into the explanation of the story but feel free to check out the anime on Crunchyroll or the Manga at Viz.com. 

Save the Cat references different types of subcategories for their plot lines that essentially lay out the bones or structure of the novel. It’s meant to be a guidance or checklist for writers but it’s components are featured in every well-done story. My Hero falls into the category of Out of the Bottle storyline. The main components of this are:

1. A wish or desire from the hero/protagonist and a need to be delivered. 

2. A spell that follows the rules of the land

3. A lesson which they state as, “Be careful what you wish for!”

And from my very short summary of the beginning of My Hero, it’s fairly obvious that this story fits into this category. Izuku wishes to become a hero, he’s granted that power from the number one hero, All Might and the lesson is learned throughout the story that while there are heroes and villains, the line of good and evil is not quite as large as it seemed. 

As the story progresses, Izuku starts to see some of the flaws of the hero society that he had once idolized, along with realizing that his hero All Might is still a human being and is capable of being hurt and weak. He also learns of how the hero society had failed many of the main villains we see in the story, that if someone had reached out to them, like he had been, they may not have been villains after all. Even when he’s granted an extraordinary ability, it doesn’t make him capable of defeating his enemies all on his own. 

The main reason why I was inspired to make this post was the out of the bottle where the hero/protagonist loses the ability/spell they received at the beginning. And since My Hero fell into this category, Izuku was never going to fully keep All for One. Which, while sad, is ultimately the most satisfying ending. He grew to be the most powerful hero in the world while learning to rely on his friends/allies and see the depths of both heroes and villains. He defeated his enemy not with pride but out of necessity for the world and in doing so, completed the use for his power. He will be known to many as their hero while he redefines what that ultimately means for him. 

Not everyone will like the ending, but I felt it was very satisfying toward the theme of the show. While heroes were glamorized, Izuku was more of a melancholy character who knew that life could be rather cruel and was often faced with said cruelty because of his lack of quirk. Now, he knows he can be a hero even without a quirk and that being good does not necessarily mean being a hero. 

Hopefully this has convinced some of you to either watch/read the story or go back and start at the beginning to look for all the clues/foreshadowing. Once you learn all the categories for plots you start to notice them in the media you consume (which sometimes means you get good at guessing the ending and your friends get mad at you for it) but it helps to keep in mind if writing something like an out of the bottle yourself. 

Until next time, write on!