Vigilante: Boku no Hero Academia Illegals

This manga is tragically underrated. It takes most of what makes the main Hero Academia story great, and adds a different charm by following a group of street-level vigilantes looking to make the world a better place, rather than the heroes in the limelight. Our main character is one of those lovable everymen, who, though not the brightest guy around, wishes to help people with a charming and earnest innocence that makes him honestly one of the most endearing characters I've encountered in manga or anime. You just can't help but root for him, and every victory he earns is that much sweeter.

It's safe to say that the characters are the strongest part of this manga, much like the original BNHA series. The supporting cast is very different from our hero, but no less nuanced or lovable. They form a very colorful cast that manages to really feel like individuals. Side-characters are also given a great deal of development. It's clear the author puts great love and care into crafting all of them. A villain from one issue will usually become a recurring character and even receive their own small character arc. Before you know what's happening, a character you used to hate has now become one of your favorites! It's truly impressive, and every chapter bleeds its creators' love and care.

But this isn't to say that the story is lacking in the slightest either. What begins as one character's personal vendetta slowly but surely becomes a huge part of the big picture, actually tying very closely into some key aspects of the main BNHA story. It's little wonder the main series has canonized and adapted some of the ideas presented in Illegals! The transition is also smooth and subtle, going from street-level to history-changing at such an easy pace that you hardly even notice until it's already happened. There's one particular turn the plot takes (no spoilers) that ties in clearly into the main series, but it's done so subtly that you might not even notice it until halfway through that arc!

I really can't overstate the case for this manga. If you love BNHA, you will love Illegals. If you're craving a fix after reading the latest chapter, or watching the latest episode, you NEED to pick it up. And if you're already caught up on both ends, well... Welcome to the club.

Compared to its parent manga, Illegals has a much tighter focus.

The core cast is composed of a mere three members, as opposed to BnHA's massive cast herd. This is great for character development, with the main character and his teammates each getting significant character moments nearly every single chapter.

And even non-main-characters have it good-- The author doesn't treat them like setpieces to be moved around at his bidding, but respects their agency as individuals in a universe he's merely narrating.

Just like in BnHA, every superpower is unique and interesting, as are character designs.

Illegals' characters are perhaps the best part of the manga, and I rate them 9/10.

The monthly release schedule of Illegals lends itself to more episode chapters, with individually more compelling stories than any single BnHA chapter. Every month I'm excited to read the chapters because I know I'll get a self-contained experience that weekly manga can't quite match.

On the other hand, the monthly schedule detracts from Illegal's ability to significantly progress its story-wide arc, but luckily that's partially mitigated by how Illegals ties into BnHA, allowing information to be released in parallel.

I would rate Illegal's story as slightly worse than BnHA's story, but still very good on an objective level. 8/10.

I'll admit straight out that I'm not a good art critic-- I can say that the art looks good and that I personally enjoy it, but beyond that, not much.

If you liked the art in BnHA, the art here is basically identical. As a result of the smaller scale of Illegals (and presumably the smaller scale of its finances), it does lack a little of BnHA's "wow" factor. 7/10

Overall, I'm really enjoying Illegals, both as a sidestory to BnHA and on its own merits. In fact, I'd go so far as so say I enjoy it more than BnHA.

If you're a fan of street-level superhero stories, read it. If you're a fan of BnHA, read it. If you're willing to accept Pop*Step as your lord and savior, READ IT.

9/10 enjoyment, 9/10 overall.

edit: as of chapter 28, I've raised this to a 10/10. No spoilers as to why, it's just that good.

As a spin-off to one of the most popular shounen of the post-Big 3 Generation, Illegals needs to fill some big shoes. The world of BNHA is large, large enough to accommodate a variety of stories. The author, however, decided to tell the story that could have been the most poignant: the story of illegal heroes. And yet, Illegals' story is not without its share of faults. Despite its adequate illustrations and character designs, Illegals fails where its parent story succeeds, hosting a cast of lifeless characters and a bipolar story.

Story:
The story of Illegals is the story of the forgotten. Behind the glamour of the pro-Hero life lies an underbelly of unlicensed heroes taking justice into their own hands. Some, such as protagonist Haimawari Kouichi (“Crawler”), use their low-power quirks to tackle crimes Pro-Heroes miss, while others, such as Haneyama Kazuho (“Pop-Step”), use their powers for personal gain.

It’s a story of potential, one that could have been taken in multiple directions, yet the story fails to pick a path and stick to it. The episodic story oscillates between sub-par comedy relying on tired running-gags and grim showdowns marred by shoddy writing and weird pacing. Through the story, readers are left wondering about the purpose of it all. Where is the work supposed to fit in the BNHA universe? Does it say anything new about the world of Deku, All Might and Best Girl <INSERT NAME HERE>?

The series does try to give some answers to these questions, especially when characters from the main series pop in. One thing that people may not know about this series is that it is a PREQUEL to BNHA in addition to being a spin-off. With that in mind, the story succeeds in providing some nice background to the Chisaki arc of the main series while also providing some nice moments in this story as well.

Characters:
Because of the plot’s inability to focus on the core message of the story, the characters suffer, turning them into puppets rather than people.
To understand this point, let’s look at the protagonist, Kouichi.

Kouchi is a college student who adores top hero All Might and wants to follow in his idol’s footsteps, but lacks the power to do so as a licensed hero. Thus, he decides to don his favorite All Might jacket and take to the streets as The Crawler. Beyond his drive for heroism, love for All Might and slight bitterness about his weak quirk, however, these isn’t much to Kouichi. There’s no reason to care about him. The stakes aren’t high enough for his actions to mean anything significant, his personality isn’t big enough elicit any laughs, and he isn’t even angsty enough for people to relate with him about his weaknesses. There’s no depth to his character, nor is he entertaining to see in action.

Such is the case for most of the cast of Illegals, with the except of (maybe) Knuckleduster. I will also mention that a certain popular villain’s origin story also takes place in Illegals, but the justification for his development feels so sudden and forced that I would recommend that fans skip those chapters all together. Thank me later.

Art:
The art design of Illegals is passable. The style itself is a tad reminiscent of Horikoshi’s western style for All Might, especially when the illustrator draws the muscle-bound Knuckleduster. Some of outfits seem more improvised than others, adding to a much-needed informality to the Vigilantes’ attire. A simple yet effective example is Knuckledusters use of a bandana, jacket and cargo pants. The bandana especially evokes images of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, adding a nice retro touch to the design.

Enjoyment:
If this series was clearer about what it wanted to accomplish, then I may have enjoyed it more. I did enjoy seeing the occasional parallels between this work and the main series, but they felt like Easter eggs rather than key parts of the story.
All in all, it was an inefficient use of my time.

Overall:
With a scatter-brained story and shallow characters, Illegals is a forgettable disappointment.

If you’re expecting for the perfect balance of comedy, drama and action that BNHA provides, you should look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a deep-dive into a particular part of the BNHA world that the main series doesn’t highlight, you should also look elsewhere. If you are desperate for BNHA content, no matter how bad, then maybe you can give this a chance.

But then again, maybe a story this bad is better off behind bars.

genuinly enjoy this far more than bnha

the plot is about a group of "vigilantes " who meet by coincidence (very wholesome) there is a romance brewing between two characters and another works like a father figure while they throw all kinds of interesting characters and personalities into the fray throughout the story to shake things up and move the plot forwards , everything that happens has a lasting effect throughout the story yet it still somehow keeps the serialized kind of cartoon feel which makes it feel really wholesome , the art works perfectly with all of this , looking really cool while being cute , wholesome and very descriptive of the characters

the characters are by far the best thing about this show , the bnha setting helps but i honestly prefer the characters and their interactions in this wayyy more than i do in mha and for that reason id still recommend this to people who dont even like bnha

If you like the main story of BnHA, you'll definitely enjoy this one, If I were to compare it I'd say, it has better characters, due to the fact the manga focuses on a smaller group characters get more developed much faster and you never get confused about who anyone is, and I prefer the main character over Deku as he's a bit more interesting, the quirks are just as good as any from the main series. Story-wise each arc feels more focused, partly due to the smaller cast, the stories aren't as big but have a lot of twists and can be hard to predict.

Art and everything else is basically comparable to the main manga.

For me, Vigilante is the perfect model of slice of life and the apex of what a "casual" shounen like it can be. This manga should set an example to all those absurdly famous shounen or those that try to be like them and its own parent story could learn a lot from it.

Even when the chapters take a more episodic style, everything that happens manages to find its way into the bigger narrative and things tend to never be wasted or forgotten, even for characters that initially seem like really small ones. Mostly everything that's presented has some use for the rest of the duration of the manga instead of just being used for one or two characters to have some deeper development while everyone else are just props on a scene. That's right, characters are actually actors in the story and not only some thing hanging around in the background waiting for the main characters to give them attention. The world keeps going on even when the main characters aren't around and eventually it is shown to us, the readers, what happenned while we weren't looking. Event better, it actually makes sense for things to happen, they're not just thrown at you for the sake of progressing the story somehow.

About the characters, in short, it's something I've always wanted to see in a shounen and rarely get to see. Characters usually have great designs and sometimes have good concepts behind them, but they almost never have a proper development, not even a page can be spared for them because everything always has to be about the main character.

I'm thankful for Vigilante for having development for every minor character that appears because it actually makes the world in the manga feel more alive, like things keep happening instead of just wait for the main character to get there in the world building equivalent of Schrödinger's cat scenario. "Did something happen or is everything still the same? Wait for Koichi to open the box to find out". There's nothing like that in the manga because relevant time is actually taken to show what is going on with other characters.

Characters are the focus because they're what creates the narrative, not the other way around.

Even if it doesn't explore uncommon or greatly interesting concepts, it does deliver on what it promises and even delves in societal questions in the universe of MHA, which for some people looking for a cool shounen might not be what they want so it's understandable that it doesn't happen that often. Still, definitely one of the best manga I've ever read.

I am unnable to write anything bad about this manga. The hype is real, go read it, even if you don't like MHA that much.

I would like to write only that and call it a day, but MAL asks for bigger review, so here I go

Story: 9/10
Even though Vigilante has it's ups (and they are the majority) their downs are there, even if almost invisible.
Some parts of the story seems to lack explanation (but after some chapters they are explained, so I think it was to add some mystic to the characters).
The MC group is perfect and Koichi outstands, even though he is one of the weakest there, at first glance.

Art: 10/10
I am willing to use ANY page as wallpaper. I'll just say that.

Character: 10/10
Do I need to stress again that they are perfect? Ok, so I'll do it.
Koichi: CEO of good heart
Master: CEO of parenting
Pop: CEO of my heart.

Enjoyment: ABSOLUTELY 11/10
My favorite manga.

If you’re looking for something to read while waiting on MHA chapters, defiantly start this. It’s pretty freaking amazing, dare I say better or at least almost as good as the original? The MC is sooo adorable and I like his story a lot, so I get just excited when new chapters are released for this as I do when MHA chapters are released.

First of all, I love how the story doesn’t feel like it’s even a spinoff. I often find myself saying that I can’t wait until he has a run in with Deku and gets added to the main cast. It’s aligned with the current arc MHA is on as of now, so they’re pretty much dealing with the same problem. It’s great to see how non-heroes are handling the situation.

I think the characters are the most lovable part of this manga. At first, I figured the MC would be annoying and repetitive because Deku already has the role of “underdog with a glow up”, but it somehow manages to make this MC kinda sorta the same without it being the same kind of situation if that makes sense.

My scores (2=max *story= 3 point max*/ 0=min )
Story Dev-3
Character Dev-1
Art-2
Pacing-2
Overall-9

Vigilante: Boku no Hero Academia Illegals is at 33 chapters at the time of writing and is exactly what it sells itself as. The world of Boku no Hero, except instead of through the rose-tinted glasses of the societal elites who followed their dreams of becoming heroes because of their exceptional talent and outstanding quirks, through the eyes of a less fortunate protagonist and his ragtag group of misfits who are trying to undermine the law that has neglected them so.

Despite what the genres say on the MAL page I consider Vigilante to be a seinen, mostly on the tighter focused cast and plot being much more set in relative "reality" than shounens typically are. The main character gets his ass kicked often, the plot is about darker themes than one would expect from shounen, and the focus is much less on flashy quirks more on just the characters we follow. Which to a shounen demographic I would see getting bored really quickly of something like this. Now that's not to say there aren't flashy action scenes with fists flying, as everything in this manga while not by the original author of BNHA is drawn VERY well, I myself have fancied it better than BNHA's art at times. The action scenes are usually very detailed with a very clear sense of impact with everything that goes down, and in terms of being hype as FUCK, yeah, it does a pretty good job.

Koichi, Kazuho, Knuckleduster and Makoto are a great cast of **4** all with their own unique dynamic they add to the group of vigilantes. Which is easy to remember and a hell of a lot better than BNHA's cast of 25+, which I'm not sure where the anime is at the time of writing this but the manga only gets worse in terms of remembering characters. every arc in BNHA really feels like you have to just pretend you're reading another series just so you can re-jot down the character's names, as you know there's gonna be another 10 that are going to be introduced, and if you don't remember them then man are you gonna be confused when the new character "feather man" reveals himself to be all might's dad the whole time and gets added to the permanent cast! Whatever, this isn't a BNHA rant this is a Vigilante review. While it does include some of the pro heroes from BNHA it's mostly just them in their everyday lives, and you don't need to know them previously to get a grasp on what their deal is in this series as it pretty much re-establishes them. In fact, for some characters like Ingenium, it helps their character a lot more than BNHA thanks to BNHA giving them no screentime over whatever 2 characters they want to develop alongside deku this arc. Unlike BNHA, you can go *their* entire time not knowing any of the pro heroes' names and it won't really harm your experience of the story at all, as instead of developing their characters their role in the story is to develop our main characters more, which writing-wise is a lot more neat and focused. I know I've said focused like 3 times, but in comparison to BNHA that's really the only word I can use.

The only reason you shouldn't pick this up if you already tried BNHA is if you're a part of the subsection of BNHA that likes to ship people, as the small cast will definitely leave you wanting. Yet, at the same time, I won't miss you, whoever you are.

Story 8/10
The story is pretty interesting since the beginning of the series have already foreshadow the current BNHA arc,noting more to say about the story right other then it being really decent and unexpected spin off since it foreshadows the current arc and some characters as well,so it will be really cool to the the cast of BNHA meet up with VBNHAI cast.

Art 9/10
For a spin off based on a current on going series,the art style resembles the BNHA art style but also have it's own distinctive art style

Character 10/10
The characters to be honest,are just as much if not not more interesting and enjoyable then the BNHA cast,koichi,the main character is an underdog who have a almost useless quirk,but despite that he still become a vigilante known as gentle man(the crawler after he meet knuckleduster) and help people by doing basic stuff like giving directions and picking things up. after he meet pop star,a street idol who got into an accident with some punk,koichi try to save her but failed.Which then,knuckleduster appear and help them.After that he made Koichi his student and partner along side pop star who tag along to fight villains who uses a certain kind of drug which power up their quirk.AS you can see,i accidentally made a summary of the story,but the characters like knuckleduster,how does he know about the drug,is still a mystery but koichi and pop star did not ask him about it,this can be a shown of trust towards him.Plus,you can see cameo of original characters from BNHA in the manga,they even show stain before he became the herokiller as a vigilante