Feels like everyone is dogpiling on the series.
Summary:
- It often feels like MHA is hated more than it’s liked.
- As it happens with everything popular, some people will dislike it, and be vocal about it.
- Some fans tend to nitpick at the series too much.
My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) is among the most popular shounen manga and anime nowadays. Yet, despite that, many fans would feel like most people actually hate it — outside of the people who are deep into the fandom, many criticize it on every available occasion.
So, do people really hate MHA, and if yes, why?
It’s Popular, So It Will Have Haters
To be fair, most series that get very popular get this sort of reaction. There’s not a single anime that is liked by everyone, and My Hero Academia isn’t an exception.
And, with how acclaimed it is, people would be coming with high expectations. If they disliked the series or were disappointed, they’d be very vocal about that. The haters are a vocal minority, but there’s more to it than that.
The My Hero Academia fandom also doesn’t have the best reputation among anime fans. Most of the distaste for the fandom comes from shipping wars — MHA barely has any romance, but despite that, shippers are a huge part of the fandom.
Many Fans Tend to Criticize the Anime Too Much
It’s not only the people outside the fandom who tend to criticize MHA. In fact, many of those who consider themselves fans are often vocal about their dislike of the series. Perhaps the most notorious examples were outrages over S5 having several episodes where the animation quality was below average.
In general, MHA still looks great, but because of how good the first three seasons looked, many fans tend to nitpick and overcriticize the animation — which is still miles above that of an average seasonal series.
It doesn’t help that some people think the anime and manga gradually became worse over time. In reality, it didn’t really become worse: it’s still good, it has some issues, but they are way overblown. Many former fans just grew out of the series because their tastes changed, and that’s a normal thing.
It’s Not Perfect
There are legitimate criticisms to be made towards My Hero Academia. For example, many plot points and characters from earlier in the series became irrelevant — MHA has always had a huge cast, and it couldn’t properly deal with it.
Still, in that, it’s no worse than your average shounen series. In fact, it’s arguably better: the villain cast was well-developed, and MHA gave many of them different motivations to become what they are.