My Hero Academia's Pop Culture Quirk

Fiction can actively captivate people to become enthralled with the magnificent and thought-provoking worlds on display. In Japan, those who make up the “Dankai Junior” generation or the “lost decade” look to sources of pop cultural fiction as a way to escape the burden of everyday life to the point where a new gray area forms between the imaginary and reality. My Hero Academia, while relatively new, is a franchise that has made prolific headway in the Japanese popular culture market by way of its immersive world building. I believe My Hero Academia’s major success has come from fragmenting the essence of the series, mobilizing its consumers through playful engagement, and posing socio-political significance as a meaningful media mix franchise for its target audience in Japan today.

Kohei Horikoshi, a dedicated Japanese manga artist and fanatic on all things American comic culture, is the creator of My Hero Academia, a series that would go on to be one of the most prolific Shonen Jump franchises amongst other coveted staples. The premise behind My Hero Academia revolves around a world where the majority of society has developed superpowers of all kinds, the focus of the main series following a young, ambitious protagonist dead set on becoming the greatest hero in an ever decaying heroic system. Such a textbook shonen story is well tailored to the typical audience of impressionable young males and its ever-growing success spawning anime, movies, copious promotional art, and a variety of merchandise after the initial manga run. In understanding why My Hero Academia has risen to such heights, I found it best to analyze the series through its merits as a media world and platform in recent times.

The franchise’s grand expansion in its aspects of proliferation, or fragments, are in great part a result of mobilizing the consumer base. The more the consumer takes part in engaging in the property, the more they embrace it and deeply incorporate it into their identity or creations, which only helps to further publicize the brand to continue reaching a greater audience (Ōtsuka, Steinberg 106). Examining Horikoshi’s achievement under this lens of a synergistic platform can also help to shed some light onto the livelihoods of the fanbase and why they gravitate toward such works. In accordance with Mita Munesuke’s philosophical model, those who compose the Age of Fiction/Self in Japan are more or less content with current socio economic issues facing their nation and now view the world of fiction as an opportunity to latch onto something bigger than themselves as a means to discovering a sense of purpose (Moore 26:04). With all this said, I believe My Hero Academia’s mainstream status is attributed in large part to appealing to their target Japanese fans seeking a narrative world wherein they can improve their own realities.

Narrative fragments serve as elaborative pieces that give way to constructing a grander narrative for the franchise in question. For such small items being able to capture the very essence the main series already exudes speaks to the versatility fragments possess in various forms. Horikoshi is a big fan of proliferating his art as a means of expanding My Hero Academia as a series, often drawing in unforeseen character interactions that do not always get the spotlight throughout his manga run. Much like the popular Kamen Rider snacks, these illustrations were “adding value to a product by riding on the coattails of characters,” efficiently developing the world through minimalist tactics (Ōtsuka, Steinberg 102). Another way in which brands proliferate comes in the form of presenting blanks, or a premise with holes of specific information on the matter left simply absent (Kam 28:54). Quirks, the superpowers presented in My Hero Academia, have next to no scientific basis behind their conception, leaving the door open for interpretations of how superhuman society came to be. The idea of letting the fans devise the inner workings of the world themselves only enhances their engagement with the brand, naturally rallying fans to further consume to unravel the mysteries within. Mobilizing labor out of the very fans that consume these fragments inherently merges the ideas of both play and work, masking the negative connotation toil is often met with (Steinberg 246).

To associate play alongside work can prove to be a difficult task as the two ideals heavily contrast; one is fun, light-hearted escapism with the other being stressful and exhausting undertaking. However, conjoining the entertainment value of play and the productivity of work makes for a powerful combination in terms of amplifying profits. Fans of My Hero Academia perform this collision of leisure and work best in bringing the franchise a sizable online presence. Videos on favorite quirks or in-depth theories function as great outlets to spark intrigue among outsiders to catch wind of the series. While this content does serve as satisfaction for the consumer, it in turn further broadcasts the franchise to a potentially immeasurable audience that is the internet for greater expansion of the brand. Predicated on the idea of “engineering quality optimization of entertainment ecology and its correlated capitalist cycle,” My Hero Academia achieves this balance of ideologically distancing play and work on the surface to extract free labor and creating a larger consumer base in the process (Steinberg 255). This operation of combining the qualities found with play and work runs so smoothly on account of the target audience being desperate for a better world outside their own to invest their time in.

After the detrimental decline of the stock market in Japan, the generation to follow the aftermath were left financially underprivileged on average as a result. Less affluent lifestyles became the new norm accustomed to on account of the still present, prolonged economic stagnation that is the “lost decade,” and, in need of breaking free from the bleakness of reality, fiction was the source of escapism to resort to (Moore 16:46). My Hero Academia supplies a platform for fans to get a chance to interact with and “inhabit” the media world presented as they see fit. The premise of everyone possessing some kind of superpower, or quirk, instills a sense of power for the consumer entertaining the idea of being a part of a world wherein they can feel in control of how they live their life. Consumers can forget about the worries of the world that plague their everyday livelihoods and enjoy the splendor of the franchise they so cherish. Cosplaying is a particularly popular form of immersion in many Japanese cultural products including My Hero Academia, actively bringing the world of fiction to them instead. This expression now integrates their fictitious selves into their everyday life in line with Munesuke’s concept of The Age of Fiction/Self to contest issues with reality.

My Hero Academia stands as a fruitful franchise thanks to the interactive and immersive world it has built for itself. Distribution of commodities provides a sense of wonder to further explore the expansive universe being built continuously, further subjugating fans to carry on publicizing their beloved franchise. This practice of focusing on worldbuilding as a means to prey upon those in search of purpose and renown will continue to prove financially successful, perpetuating the ever proliferous cycle of media mix series throughout Japanese popular culture.

Bibliography

Kam, Thiam Huat. “Narrative Worlds, Transmedia Franchises, and the Mobilization of Labor.” JAPAN 165, University of California Santa Barbara, 30 June 2021, Santa Barbara, CA. 59:57.

Moore, Keita. “Inhabiting Media Worlds.” JAPAN 165, University of California Santa Barbara, 29 June 2021, Santa Barbara, CA. 46:38.

Ōtsuka, Eiji and Marc Steinberg. "World and Variation: The Reproduction and Consumption of Narrative." Mechademia, vol. 5, 2010, p. 99-116. Project MUSE

Steinberg M. “Media Mix Mobilization: Social Mobilization and Yo-Kai Watch.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 2017;12(3):244-258. DOI:10.1177