Alternative title: Vigilante: Boku No Hero Academia ILLEGALS
Manga Adaptation by Studio Bones
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Years before Deku becomes a hero, Kouichi Haimawari is an unassuming college student with heroic aspirations but a power ill-suited for highflying crimefighting. He’s contented with acts of minor altruism ranging from taking out the trash to helping people find lost items. However a chance meeting with vigilante heroes Knuckleduster and Pop☆Step pull him into the world of vigilante heroics.

Gee’s verdict: Low Key (Complimentary)

Overall, Vigilantes does a pretty good job of establishing what’s different about it from My Hero Academia proper. Our protagonist is slightly older and on the comparative margins of society, imbued with a power seemingly ill suited for throwing down with high powered supervillains. But like Deku, Kouichi has a fundamentally good heart and genuine desire to help people. I think there’s something valuable to take from the setup, that despite Kouichi’s feelings of being powerless, he still endeavors to do the right thing. It means when a much more proactive vigilante like Knuckleduster literally slams into his life, he has the wherewithal to answer the call.

As an American, it’s a bit goofy to see a show about superheroes portray vigilantism as the sketchy offshoot of “proper” heroics, that being a formalized hero system with rankings and government support. The fundamental concept of the superhero originates in acts of vigilante justice. But MHA’s heavy focus on formalized heroics means Vigilantes has a surprisingly wide and untrodden field to play on. Throw in the reliable production values of Bones, a familiar Yuuki Hayashi soundtrack, and some delightful use of western comic style visual onomatopoeia. You have a debut that may not shock and awe, but certainly charms.

Vigilantes’ esteem has only grown in the fallout of MHA’s uneven conclusion that left a lot of fans dissatisfied. This isn’t necessarily to say Vigilantes is what MHA should have been but its choice of focus and eventual climax ended up looking a lot nicer just by benefit of comparison to the original work it spun off from. But that’s getting into things the anime probably won’t even touch upon for quite some time. Vigilantes isn’t going to take the world by storm but I think people who miss the early days of MHA will find quite a bit to like with Vigilantes.