Summary
Aizawa's backstory is detailed in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, a spin-off that highlights his school days and tragic loss. Aizawa's past relationship with a major MHA antagonist, Kurogiri, adds depth despite being in a spin-off series. The decision to include Aizawa's important backstory in a spin-off may have been due to pacing constraints and MHA's promotional reasons.
My Hero Academia is a series that is not without its flaws, one of the biggest being its failure to properly expand on the lives and backstories of many of its characters. But one character, Eraserhead, has had a flaw – in a spin-off series. Indeed, Shota Aizawa and his friends' school days not featured in the main seriesrather, it's a spin-off prequel to My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. This sister series to MHA focuses on some of the Pro Heroes from the main series, most notably Aizawa. But this storyline probably should have stayed in the main series.
Chapters 59 to 64 of Vigilantes feature an extended look at Aizawa's younger days at UA along with his classmates Hizashi Yamada (Present Mic), Nemuri Kayama (Midnight), and Oboro Shirakumo (Loud Cloud). This backstory is important in understanding Aizawa's character, as well as that of a major antagonist in the main series, and is a pretty good story. This begs the question of why it was included in a side series instead of being included in the main story.
There are a number of possible answers to that question, but analyzing what actually happens in this storyline is important to understand why it was such a strange choice to put this storyline in a spin-off movie.
Shota Aizawa's School Years
The Three Idiots in Their Prime
The story begins in chapter #59 of Vigilantes, when Aizawa considers becoming a teacher for UA five years before the main series begins. Thinking back to his school days, Aizawa recalls having lunch on the rooftop with Yamada and Shirakumo, the trio forming the three 'idiots'. Yamada is still pretty much the same talkative Present Mic as he is now, while Shirakumo is a completely new character that readers are meeting for the first time. They are all considering their next steps when it comes to interning for the Hero Agencies.
Eventually, Kayama appears before them and convinces them to join the agency she is interning for – Purple Revolution, led by the Prince who inspired the Purple Highness. With this gallant warrior, Aizawa learns to use his Erasure ability to its fullest.learning from his mistakes and becoming the hero he is today. Shirakumo plans to open a hero agency with Aizawa and Yamada after they graduate, and things seem to be going well for them. Inevitably, tragedy strikes.
The End of Dumbigos
The trio becomes a duo
Readers may have noticed that they haven't seen Loud Cloud in the main series, and soon realize what this means for him. When a villain with the ability to absorb energy goes on a rampage, Shirakumo is trapped under a collapsing building, leaving Aizawa to deal with the villain himself. Although he initially struggles, hearing Shirakumo's voice over the radio gives him the confidence to defeat the villain. He does it, and is excited to show Shirakumo that – only to find out that Shirakumo was dead..
His body was never found, and Aizawa intensified his training to cope with the loss. After graduating, he founded an independent Hero Agency. There, Eraserhead began his underground hero career and established a foothold for himself. However, Midnight suggested that he would be suited to the role of a teacher at UA – while Aizawa initially rejected the idea, he changed his mind after reminiscing about his time at the school. Aizawa went on to become a teacher for UA, and eventually became one of Izuku Midoriya's many mentors.
Why is Aizawa's backstory relevant to the overall plot of MHA?
Shirakumo's surprising revelation causes more shock
This story, at first glance, seems like it would be fine to include as a side story. It's a deeper look at Aizawa, but not necessarily an understanding of him, and he's a side character in the larger plot of the series. Except it's important, because the villain Kurogiri is actually Shirakumo in a way. Nomu are identified as deceased ability users whose bodies were tainted and stolen for All For One's evil schemes.and it seems the villain took Shirakumo's body for this purpose, creating a servant for Shigaraki.
Nomu are identified as deceased ability users whose bodies were tainted and stolen to serve All For One's evil plot, and it appears that the villain took Shirakumo's body for this purpose, creating a servant for Shigaraki.
Vigilantes focuses on Nomu, as its main antagonist, Number Six, is an archetype of them. But this connection is never explained in the spin-off, and Aizawa doesn't know about Shirakumo's condition until the events of the main series. So fans who believe that Vigilantes is really 'just a spin-off' don't have much connection to the main series. Aizawa and Yamada learn that Kurogiri is their old friend who has been revived.So why did author Kohei Horikoshi decide to put this important story into a side story?
There is no room for Aizawa's past story.
The speed of MHA may be the cause
The honest answer might just be that Horikoshi couldn't find a suitable place to put Aizawa's backstory. When Shirakumo was revealed, it was right on top of the Paranormal Liberation War arc. Horikoshi could have spent five chapters on it, but he needed to introduce a number of characters who readers could then assume would be as relevant as Shirakumo (they weren't), represent something for the upcoming arc (it wasn't), and interrupt the anticipation for the big battle to come with a flashback that was pretty unrelated to it in general.
Perhaps Horikoshi could have sprinkled the series with little flashbacks to Aizawa's school days, and that might have been fine – but it's also possible that by the time Horikoshi finished Aizawa's backstory, there was simply no place for it in the main series. A more cynical idea is that the inclusion of the backstory in Vigilantes was done more as a gimmick. While not many MHA readers would have cared about the story of Koichi, the spin-off's shy protagonist, A large number of people may be more invested in Eraserhead's mysterious past..
With My Hero Academia At the end, perhaps Horikoshi can explain the reason for this exclusion, but for now only assumptions can be made. As for Vigilantes, it ended in 2022 and is definitely worth reading for fans of the main series who are craving more adventure. in the world of My Hero Academia.
