There is a series known as ‘Toaru Majutsu no Index,’ otherwise known as ‘A Certain Magical Index.’ There is another series by the name of ‘My Hero Academia.’ MHA is extremely popular, and it has fans that talk up every single aspect, from the depth of its worldbuilding, to how good the main character is, and more.

I’m here to explain to you now, how Index completely dumpsters on MHA in pretty much all regards, and that you should read it instead.

This will be a series of rants, and we’ll start with the low hanging fruit. I say that, but in fact, these are all low hanging fruit because MHA is a basic shonen story with nothing particularly special going for it.

To be more specific, this rant will focus on:

SIDE CHARACTERS

My Hero Academia

Lol. Lmao.

Side characters are a fucking joke in MHA. They barely exist even as basic concepts, and have about as much impact on the narrative as a snowball in the desert.

Let’s look at Deku’s class. Theoretically, the kids of 1-A should be the most important or most fleshed out characters beyond the main set sheerly by the virtue of being around the MC and getting screen time. In a very vague sense that is true- but not in any meaningful way.

I think this was most perfectly highlighted in one of the more recent chapters of MHA. Slight spoilers, but Deku and 1-A are fighting a little, and 1-A is trying to use their bonds to make him calm down. In theory, if 1-A were treated well as side characters, this could be a fairly poignant scene. If they’d all had a chance to interact meaningfully, this could be the payoff.

Bro.

These characters don’t matter. I don’t think that the guy with the tail has done anything other than ‘warns Deku about a trap, which Deku immediately falls for.’ The guy with the multiple arms, the guy that eats sugar, the invisible character, none of these people do anything that has an impact on Deku as a character, or on the story itself.

I feel bad for class 1-B, cause they don’t even get the benefit of screen time, and when they do, it’s not a chance for them to show off. It’s a chance for the Main Characters to do that.

Deku rematches with Shinsou, who has a new and useful skill, and in the process Deku’s power starts to go berserk. This would be a great time for Shinsou to help subdue him and show that he’s grown and no, he just loses. Deku is the hero here, remember? He’s the one that needs to succeed.

Bakugou and his team face off against skilled members of 1-B and instead of it being a challenge, they just obliterate them, while in the process showing that Bakugou has grown as a character, and is caring for his teammates.

Mirio was really cool. And we know what happened to him.

Female Characters in MHA

Female characters have it even worse. While a lot of the male characters have a tendency to get forgotten or ignored, it’s the female characters that get disrespected.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Momo isn’t just a fanservice character. She absolutely is though, her outfit is designed to be extremely revealing, and one of the first times she gets to use it she blows her top off, but let’s pretend that she isn’t.

Momo starts off okay. She, like Todoroki, was introduced as being a special admission. During the intelligence tests she manages to put herself on the top of the leaderboard. So she gives off the impression that she’s smart and should be skilled.

Then we see her in action, and it's an amazing sequence of blunders. She goes against Tokoyami, she has the power to make anything, and instead of making some form of light, the smartest person in class makes a shield and instantly loses. Then she joins Todoroki in their exam against Eraser Head, and Todoroki calls all the shots and tells her exactly what to do. She disappears for a while, before showing up in the war arc to help against Gigantomachia. Except, the drug she made effectively fails to work, since he managed to beat them all, rampage through another section of city, and cause havoc until Endeavor shows up to stop him.

Midnight was cool. She showed up, gave off some fanservice vibes, and disappeared. And then she died offscreen. She was also the only character to die from the war that we’d ever actually seen or interacted with.

I think the most poignant example of this though, might be Mina Ashido. I really like Mina. I think she’d got a fun design, I think she’s got a pretty fun concept to her, and her powers rank on the better half of the 1-A’s in a few ways.

There’s even flashes of an interesting character down inside, based on Red Riot’s flashback where he froze up, but Mina managed to step up to the plate and send him away without anyone getting hurt.

And then Gigantomachia returned. Mina got her own cover, and it looked good. And it all fell apart. Mina, who’s greatest characterization at this point was ‘stepped up in the face of fear,’ freezes up and pretty much breaks down because she recognizes Giganto. Instead of a) not being scared anymore, b) confirming that she’s scared and moving on anyway, c) anything else at all, Mina gives up, and Red Riot needs to save the day. This is just an awful example of character regression, and it is inarguably pathetic.

This should give you an idea of how important any character that isn’t Deku is.

A Certain Magical Index

Now, based on all that I’ve said so far, it should be clear that Index having better side characters than MHA is an extremely low bar to pass. Which makes it cool that Index blows past that by several magnitudes.

Side characters in Index have an apparently bizarre ability to actually be important to what’s going on. Tsuchimikado is a great example of this. He’s one of Touma’s classmates, and they’re pretty friendly with each other. They actually interact as friends, like how Touma often teases him about his obsession with his little sister, or Tsuchimikado baiting out Touma with information he doesn’t know.

In the Angel Fall arc, he pretends to die, sacrificing himself to save Touma’s dad, then shows up a short while later joking about how ‘well I only thought I was going to die.’

He’s also, despite being a side character, the impetus behind several different arcs. He decides to flee Academy City and ropes Touma into it, which causes WW3. He starts up the Hero War, and sends Touma away cause he knows Touma would try and get in the way.

What I’m trying to say here is he actually has a relationship with an MC. He is also actually, effective and useful. He hunts down spies, he drives off a magician hanging near Academy City before someone goes overboard, and more. When Orianna Thomson attacks, she would have just straight up won if it weren’t for Touma, Tsuchimikado, and Stiyl working together.

Another wild example of how side characters develop is Hamazura. Hamazura was literally a nobody with no powers, that was introduced in a side novel, 15 books in. He decided to take some terrorist action with his group because he was put in charge due to some stuff Accelerator did. His first big scene is fighting with Touma, and getting the shit beaten out of him both physically, and morally.

When he shows up again, he’s a henchman for another strong group. And then he turns into a main character. That’s a ridiculous upgrade. Even though he never gets stronger, he is developed immensely as a character, has understandable goals, and is just great.

There’s also Mugino. Mugino, the number 4 level 5 esper in Academy City, has a character introduction that is essentially murdering one of her allies, then getting burned to death. And then she shows up again and, despite being a pretty ruthless killer who in MHA probably wouldn’t get much development outside of that, slowly turns into a dependable if rough ally. She learns to become more valuing of life, she exhibits guilt over her past actions, and resonates with Accelerator in that regard.

Another good one is Kanzaki. Kanzaki’s character doesn’t seem to change much on the surface, though there is a shift from ‘I must do it alone’ to ‘Even though I’m much stronger than my allies, they can help me.’ However, even though her character doesn’t go through vast developments, she constantly has a potent effect when she’s around. She defends everyone from the angel in Angel Fall, she holds off Saints multiple times, which allow for other people to do what they need to do. Towards the end of NT, you can tell that something strange is happening in England just because her character acts slightly differently than normal. That’s how strong of an impression she makes.

The list goes on and on. I could talk about the virtues, characters, and strengths of an absolute ton of Index side characters. The rest of ITEM besides Mugino, who are almost just one off villains have chances to shine again and again, and they do. Orsola Aquinas, despite being a non combatant, and showing up for maybe two books, has an incredibly rich character, and helps to facilitate a scene that gives a great example of one of Index’s themes.

Index is not perfect when it comes to its side characters. There’s a joke at the beginning of New Testament that is just 10 different girls showing up one after another going ‘hey, Touma, its you,’ cause they don’t really matter. But those characters pretty much all had a complete arc when they were relevant. They weren’t just nothing characters.

Misaka and Uraraka

For a more direct comparison, let’s look at two of the main ladies, Misaka and Uraraka. On the surface, these characters have fairly similar origins, you might say. That is, they both seem to exist to crush on the main character. But then they start to deviate.

Uraraka had a lot of traits going for her. She wanted to be a hero for money, which was a very unique reason compared to most of the class. She was also pretty skilled as well. She managed to outsmart Iida for win in the 2 v 2, she put up a great fight against Bakugou, who took her seriously and can probably be considered the first or second strongest in the class at that time.

Her character slowly gets reduced more and more after that. During the battle against Overhaul, there was almost no focus on her and Froppy’s fight on the topside. Her traits also slowly get reduced more and more to just being her crush on Deku, until she’s fairly one note, watching from the side. A far cry from where she started.

Misaka on the other hand, does not do that. Now, I will be the first to say that during NT Misaka had a pretty static character. However, that character wasn’t ‘I like Touma.’ Instead, it wheeled around the idea that she wasn’t strong enough to protect him. That despite being the Number 3, she can’t compete with the crazy stuff he’s dealing with. Despite this static arc, she still gets the chance to shine, repeatedly. She gets incredible upgrades to her powerset, her relationship with her nemesis (another good character called Misaki) changes radically from where it started, and she manages to accomplish a goal she had from her first introduction.

The quality of these characters could not be more far apart.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, MHA has way too many side characters than it knows what to do with. It’s solution is to either do them very badly, or not do them at all.

Index has side characters that matter for single arcs, and it has side characters that show up repeatedly. But in every single case, those characters matter. They have a purpose, they have an impact on the narrative or the MC they’re interacting with, and they aren’t reduced to a side show while the MC solves everything else.

I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Index fucking dupsters MHA. Go read it.

Now, for my next rant comparing these two series, should I focus on: Powers, Worldbuilding, Plot, or the Main Characters.