My Hero Academia Prequel Ends By Proving How Hero Society Is Corrupt

 As a prequel, My Hero Academia Vigilantes has laid the groundwork for an exploration of the weaknesses of the hero society on which the main series is based.

As the My Hero Academia spin-off My Hero Academia Vigilantes has officially drawn to a close, it's worked hard to bridge the remaining gap between its own timeframe and the main series story. One of the ways it's been doing that is by reflecting the changes to come in hero society, redefining the lines between heroes, vigilantes, and villains.

Like the series' title implies, Vigilantes is about unregistered heroes, or vigilantes, who fight crime illegally, placing them somewhere between law-abiding heroes and law-breaking villains. Some, like Stendhal (soon to be the Hero Killer Stain), end up becoming villains. There are also heroes, like Captain Celebrity, who weren't breaking laws but did carry out some morally questionable actions that caused problems for their careers. Now, the final chapters of Vigilantes have proven that the opposite is possible as well, allowing protagonist Koichi Haimawari to step up from vigilante to true hero.

In the case of Captain Celebrity, his misdeeds are largely related to philandering and led to major image problems back in America. To help rehabilitate this image, Captain Celebrity takes a trip abroad, performing hero work in Japan for several months. Despite his reputation, it was still trivially easy for him to get a visa to work as a hero in Japan. Heroes are so in demand that, no matter what kind of reputation they might develop, any nation will eagerly welcome an experienced hero with open arms. Familiar with that fact, Captain Celebrity is able to throw his support behind Koichi, and get him brought over to the US. This makes it clear that the demand for heroes isn't limited to experienced, licensed pros: even a vigilante facing legal woes back home can be welcomed into a professional role in another country.

My Hero Academia Vigilantes even makes a point of how Americans tend to appreciate vigilantism more than Japanese citizens, in line with the established lore that superheroics began in the US in the My Hero Academia world. This shows how deep the issues with hero society go, as even in cases of huge collateral damage, a hero who's willing to go abroad will have the world as their oyster.

While Koichi's trip to America at the end of the series is a pleasant ending for him, giving him the chance to achieve his dreams, it's not too hard to see why some people might begin grumbling about the kind of things that heroes can get away with. Even a mere rumble of discontent among the public will - by the time of My Hero Academia - be enough for Stain and others to gain a foothold in the thoughts of the public. The cracks in hero society are only starting to be exposed, but that's all Vigilantes had to do - it's up to the cast of My Hero Academia proper to handle the fallout.