MY HERO ACADEMIA #307 Review

MY HERO ACADEMIA #307, available from Weekly Shonen Jump on March 28th, 2021, begins the latest arc with a city in chaos as the villains, led by All For One, have escaped from Tartarus and freed thousands of lesser villains. The heroes are scattered or retired, civilians are using their untrained Quirks to defend themselves recklessly, and Midoriya is gone.

The Details

• Written By: Kōhei Horikoshi
• Art By: Kōhei Horikoshi
• Letters By: John Hunt
• Translation By: Caleb Cook
• Cover Price: $6.99 (ComiXology Subscription)
• Release Date: March 28, 2021

Was It Good?

We here at ComicalOpinions.com are so FREAKIN’ excited to add our first manga title to the review roster, and we couldn’t have asked for a better start than to go with MHA. All giddiness aside, we still have to answer the question — Was it good?

Emphatically, enthusiastically, and unequivocally YES!

There’s too much to cover the history of the series here, so we recommend you subscribe (affiliate link below, your subscription helps keep this site running, so thanks in advance), so this chapter is a great jumping-on point. It’s a time jump from the previous arc that establishes a whole new status quo. Change is good in an ongoing comic series. Change that sees every character grow and evolve is even better. In just the first few pages, you get all that and more.

The art Kōhei Horikoshi has been consistently good since Chapter One at capturing the subtle displays of emotions and the bigger power spectacles in equal measure. Here we get to see something new — a city in a war that’s effectively bombed into disrepair by the constant Quirk battles. Rather than mixing clean clean safe buildings with some destruction, this issue is almost all destruction all the time, and it never feels sloppy and undefined.

It’s all incredibly impressive for an on-going series that comes out almost weekly.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

We begin a few months after the ending of the last arc. Shigaraki raided Tartarus prison with the remaining, high-end Nomus to free All For One and all the powerful villains imprisoned inside. Back on the mainland, the villains completed several smaller prison breaks for lesser villains throughout the region. Now there are roughly 10,000 villains of varying degrees of power running loose.

The public scandals of Endeavor’s family life have shaken the civilian population’s faith in the hero system. Some heroes are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of villains running free, others have chosen to retire. The civilians, although untrained as heroes, band together to use their Quirks to defend themselves, sometimes causing inadvertent destruction in the process.

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Izuku Midoriya aka Deku revealed the truth of One For All to his classmates and left U.A. He knows Shigaraki’s insatiable desire to take One For All for himself put his classmates in danger, so it’s better to create distance and make himself a moving target. While he moves, the spirits of the previous heroes within him show him how to unleash and wield his new powers.

All caught up? Good.

Yo and Tatami (we last saw them as competitors from Ketsubutsu school during the provisional license competition in Volume 12) are on patrol trying to get civilians to go with them back to the school, now converted into a fortified shelter. The civilians refuse since they have no faith the heroes can protect them, and they don’t want to bunch up as an easy target in one place.

In a very short period of time the chapter conveys how everyone, hero and civilian alike, is worn out, frustrated, and on edge. Tatami tries to impress on the civilians how urgently they need to leave the building since Jailbreaker has been spotted in the area and headed in their direction. As a super-villain interested only in destruction, the civilians have no chance against him.

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Failing to convince the civilians to leave, Yo and Tatami head back to the school. While they walk, Tatami receives a call that Jailbreaker is almost there. When Jailbreaker comes into view, he crashes down the side of a building like an unstoppable Juggernaut (sorry, Marvel) looking for a fight. Yo yells for Tatami to round up the civilians while he engages Jailbreaker.

Tatami tries and fails to get the civilians to evacuate, and they foolishly try to attack Jailbreaker who has Yo in a crushing grip. Yo tries to use his tremor powers to shake Jailbreaker loose but it doesn’t work, and Yo is on the verge of getting crushed.

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Again, every word spoken, every move made, and every reaction is building up a sense of hopeless desperation. Heroes and civilians act as if they’re fighting a losing battle, trying their best against impossible strength. It sets the stage perfectly to make you feel ready to have a hero come in and save the day.

Without spoiling the ending, Jailbreaker bulks up, Yo takes a risk, and “I AM HERE!”

Final Thoughts

MY HERO ACADEMIA #307, available from Weekly Shonen Jump on March 28th, 2021, establishes a new status quo with an all-out war between an army of escaped villains and everyone else. The art is dramatic and energetic, and the story puts the reader in the right frame of mind for an explosive last panel.

Score: 9.5/10