My Hero Academia Chapter 400 Review – “Beyond Limits”

Kohei Horikoshi is hitting a major milestone as My Hero Academia has reached its 400th chapter of publication. This is a massive achievement for one of the most well-known manga series in the world. This milestone chapter comes as it appears the massive final battle of All Might vs All For One is close to reaching its end. There is still no telling who will win or even survive this final battle of long-time rivals. That is all on top of the rest of our heroes trying to save the world from All For One’s villain force attacking all of Japan. How will things go in My Hero Academia Chapter 400? Let’s find out.

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer & Artist: Kohei Horikoshi

SYNOPSIS

After defeating Kunieda, Toru Hagakure notices her Invisibility Quirk glitches out causing Yuga Aoyama to catch a glimpse of her naked. As Hagakure covers up, they notice at Kunieda’s plants are still causing damage so they work together to destroy the plants.

Elsewhere, All For One attacks All Might with the Rivet Stab Quirk. All Might counters by combining attack and defensive moves “Sound Wave Vibration: Earphone Jack,” “Armor Morphing: Creati,” “Can’t Stop Twinkling,” and “Binding Rounds: Grape Juice” to continue his assault on All For One. All Might reveals is strategy against All For One is inspired by Star and Stripe.

As the dust settles on this barrage All Might’s armor is shown severely damaged. While heavily injured All Might laughs through the pain because he is enjoying the fight.

Somewhere in another country a child is shown watching and rooting All Might on even though his grandmother states the fight doesn’t impact them.

Back at the fight, All For One devolution has reached a point where he now has the appearance of a child. Before he can attack All Might, All For One’s body freezes.

Stain appears in the sky and reveals he has tasted All For One’s blood. Stain then screams “GO, ALL MIGHT!” End of chapter.

REVIEW

My Hero Academia Chapter 400 is more of a set-up to the big finale between of the All Might vs All For One final battle. Because of that we get action that continued the theme of the battle being All Might pushing the Rewind effects on All For One to its limits. Luckily all the set-up led to an ending that delivered on the hype for what feels we are near the end of this battle.

Before getting to the All Might vs All For One continuation, we did get more development time for Toru Hagakure and Yuga Aoyama. The battle against Kunieda was by far the biggest hero moment Hagakure and Aoyama have had on this series. Which is something they both needed as the biggest role they’ve served in the series is with the U.A. traitor. Beyond that both have largely been been in the group with Minoru Mineta of being the comedy characters. Breaking them away from that role to give them a notable win during the Final War story arc is big for their characters.

While we do get some comedy in the form of Hagakure’s Invisibility Quirk glitching out it led to another big revelation. That is Aoyama stating that destroying Kunieda’s remaining plants being his last act as a U.A. High School student. There are many ways to take that. On one hand, after being revealed as the traitor Aoyama doesn’t believe he deserves to have the right to return to school when this is over. That would feed into his guilt of being a traitor.

The other possibility is that Aoyama recognizes he has pushed the Naval Laser Quirk beyond its limits. And because of his body being incompatible with his Quirk it could be causing Aoyama internal body damage only he knows. Now using it more to save the heroes trapped in Kunieda’s plants could turn deadly. Not knowing which way Aoyama’s arc goes is credit not just to Horikoshi’s writing but his artwork. Because the way Aoyama is shown acting there is clear pain he is dealing with.

On the All Might vs All For One fight we are at a point where the fight has been drawn out to its limit. That is part of the point of the fight as All Might is making sure that the Rewind effect is sped up within All For One. Though that has led to the tactics All Might is utilizing by having weapons that replicate Class 1-A not be as special as it was at first. This is more on the pacing side of things as Horikoshi tries to make each Class 1-A Quirk utilization be a surprise but it lacks that surprise element anymore.

On a more positive note, it was a cool reveal for All Might to say his fighting style against All For One was inspired by Star and Stripe. Though they never shared a true mentor and protégé relationship it is cool seeing how All Might and Star and Stripe had an impact on each other. It speaks to how both shared an equal passion of being heroes that made their connection strong.

Having the fight go as long as has been does get to the core of All Might’s character enjoying being a hero. We see that because of how much he is enjoying taking on All For One that All Might is able to fight through all the pain. Which does put into question what will happen to All Might once his adrenaline runs out. He already entered the fight with All For One with a bad injury. Horikoshi has shown using the angle of injuries catching up to characters as a plot device before. It does feel given the visual of the heavily injured All Might smiling this will come up soon.

At the same time, Horikoshi does a good job at not letting any of this break All For One. All For One has been in control of things for decades that even when there are signs he is losing he does not lose the confidence he has in himself. In fact, the more he is impacted by the Rewind effect the greater All For One’s ego grows. That feeds into how All For One likely believes that because he is gaining access to makes his victory inevitable. Which is the thing that All Might continues to take advantage of to utilize a surprise factor.

And we get the biggest surprise in this fight in the form of Stain. As soon as Stain appears it feels that him helping All Might defeat All For One was why he was created. This moment of Stain stopping All For One’s movements was the payoff that has been building since he first appeared. It delivers a strong hook ending for My Hero Academy Chapter 400 feel like a monumental chapter.

The other interesting note that Horikoshi places an emphasis is the way the rest of the world is taking The Final War arc in. Throughout this story arc we have seen people in other countries watching on TV the final battles going down. Here we see how while the older generations don’t think much of it the battle of All Might vs All For One is impacting the younger generation. The kid watching the battle go down is an example of how the next generation will grow up inspired the actions of our heroes. They are the future that will help shape how the world of My Hero Academy turns out after this story is over.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My Hero Academia Chapter 400 continued delivering strong character moments. We get to see Toru Hagakure and Yuga Aoyama complete there big hero moments. Then with the arrival of Stain we get a payoff that has been building for several hundred chapters. All of that builds further anticipation for finding out how the All Might vs All For One battle will end.

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10