An Older Eri Thanks Her Heroes in My Hero Academia: I am a Hero Too Anime Short
10 years of My Hero Academia hasn't stopped the fans' appetite for more. Weeks before taking home Anime of the Year at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, we got more in My Hero Academia: More. A whole reunion with the older cast and a long-awaited confession? Yes please! Toss in more seasons of Vigilantes, and you have a well-fed fanbase. But Studio Bones wasn't done. To celebrate this generational run, Anime Expo hosted a month-early premiere of their newest short starring a high schooler Eri called My Hero Academia: I am a hero too. Here's what to expect on August 3, 2026, when it releases worldwide.
Years after Jirou's concert at the school festival in Season 4, Eri is now all grown up. What was once a child needing permission to speak now stands as a young adult singing for herself. She's no longer haunted by her father's shadow: she's a bright-eyed teenager looking towards the future. And so far, the future has never looked brighter. Deku has risen back through the ranks after returning to hero work alongside his teaching role, reaching as far as Number 4 (Mirio is still at the top). Jirou and Kaminari have taken her under their wing, fostering her love for music to the point where she's now formed her own street band.
To thank her heroes, she's invited them to check out their debut performance. But there's a catch: they have to keep themselves hidden from the crowd. The fact is, these guests are no longer small-time students, but celebrities themselves. If they announce that they're coming to this small concert, all the attention would be on them. That is not the kind of pressure Eri wants to put on her heroes: they are her guests, and she's there to entertain them. She wants to prove that she doesn't need to piggyback off their own fan bases to shine as they did on stage years ago. In fact, it's that exact performance that leads to her song choice: a cover of “Hero Too”.
All of this is great stuff, but this is where some fans might need to keep their expectations in check. When they call this short, they mean it: it's only 6 minutes long. The vast majority of its runtime is spent on this performance. Now the cover itself is fantastic, setting itself apart from the original with its acoustic instrumentals and gentler vocals. The art style also shifts closer to a watercolor aesthetic, rather than the comic-book styling that its recent openings and endings have started to take more cues from. It also can't be denied how powerful the imagery of a confident Eri singing just like Jirou is. But it's almost too good, because the brief glimpses of her bandmates forming and the promise to stand on their own had me wondering what a full episode with brand new songs could've looked like.
In spite of its brief runtime, I can't deny the enthusiasm fans felt watching this before anyone else. The panelists also clearly factored in the length of the short itself, because our hosts were none other than the Japanese voice actors of Deku and Shigaraki: Daiki Yamashita and Kōki Uchiyama. After a rousing montage of the series' heroic moments, the titular hero and villain had the audience decide which of their two favorite moments was better.
For Shigaraki, his speech towards the heroes in episode 121 of the Paranormal Liberation War won by a landslide over his first attack on USJ. For Deku, his final smash in episode 167 got louder cheers than when All Might first told him, “You too can become a hero”. In fact, Yamashita straight-up compared the crowd's noise level to Present Mic. Even the IMDB ratings were brought up on stage, specifically 162, 163, and 167 for their 9.8 average.
This is when the two discussed their growing friendship behind the scenes. At first, Shigaraki's Voice Actor worried that getting along with everyone else too early would soften his performance as a villain. So he made it a point to make his first recording together with Deku's voice actor during the invasion in episode 11. Since then, they've had many chances both in the show and on radio talks to become friends. When asked if they resembled their characters, Uchiyama mentioned that he always saw a bit of Deku's innocence present in Daiki. Meanwhile, Daiki thought Shigaraki's more objective perspective actually makes Uchiyama a good judge of character.
All of this came together in their final performance together in episode 167. When their fists met to defeat All-for-One, no script was given on how to perform the final punch. Their screams at that moment were left up to them. Uchiyama was impressed by Yamashita's screams, but Yamashita believed he could keep up with him. Their talk later in the vestige realm was also the first time Daiki saw Uchiyama perform as Tenko rather than Shigaraki. He holds that moment dearly since it's one of the few quiet moments in the series. To top it off, Daiki recounts how, when this episode aired, the cheers on social media mirrored the characters rooting for Deku to win. I can confirm that the Plus Ultra chanted at the end proved him right.
