Warning: Contains spoilers for My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.At long last, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, is getting an anime adaptation. Despite being nowhere near as popular as the main series, Vigilantes has always held a notable cult following for giving fans something new out of the setting, and hopefully, the anime will help more people see what it has to offer.

It took a long time for Vigilantes to get an anime, with the manga being finished since 2022, but the main series has already laid the groundwork for its story. While both stories took place in the same universe, My Hero Academia never referenced Vigilantes that much, with the most prominent of them all being Koichi’s cameo in the final arc. That’s as far as explicit references went, of course, but conversely, My Hero Academia set up its prequel story years ago, albeit indirectly, and that says a lot about how things should have played out with Vigilantes’ anime.

How My Hero Academia's Main Series Secretly Set Up Its Spinoff's Story

The Origin Of My Hero Academia's Trigger Explained

The main narrative of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes revolves around the Naruhata Vigilantes trying to stop the distribution of Trigger, an illegal drug that enhances a person’s Quirk at the risk of making them go berserk, but that’s not the first time Trigger appeared in the series. In the Shie Hassaikai arc of My Hero Academia season 4, the yakuza often used Quirk-enhancing drugs, and while it wasn’t explicitly called Trigger, it still means that My Hero Academia laid the groundwork for My Hero Academia: Vigilantes’ story years ago by making Trigger a key part of season 4’s story.

That connection was made even more explicit in the third movie, My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission. The main villains, Humarise, wanted to turn the world into a paradise for Quirkless people by using bombs filled with Trigger to make people all around the world lose control of their Quirks and destroy each other, and while season 4 didn’t call it Trigger, the movie flat-out calls the bombs Trigger Bombs. That makes the Vigilantes connection impossible to deny, and overall, it shows that My Hero Academia was setting up My Hero Academia: Vigilantes’ story years before the anime came out.

My Hero Academia's Timeline Is Bad News For Vigilantes' Story

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Is Being Hurt By Its Timeline

As great as it is for My Hero Academia and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes to share a connection, it does have some tragic implications for Vigilantes’ story. My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is a prequel story set several years before My Hero Academia, so if Trigger is still a problem in the main story, that means the cast of Vigilantes ultimately fails to put a stop to Trigger. Because of that, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes’ story has an element of pointlessness to it because its problems still exist in My Hero Academia, and overall, that’s hard to argue with.

Even if the characters don’t get rid of Trigger in its entirety, it can be assumed that things would be far worse if they hadn’ gotten involved, and in a larger sense, one could argue that Vigilantes is entirely pointless by virtue of being a prequel, but that doesn’t make it any less fun a story to go through. Overall, how much impact the cast of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes has on the overarching story should detract from how much enjoyment a person gets from it, and that should remain true even for the anime.

My Hero Academia's Trigger Story Proves Vigilantes Needed An Anime Years Ago

It Shouldn't Have Taken So Long For Vigilantes To Get An Anime

It’s impossible to deny the connection between My Hero Academia and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, and that makes it even more apparent that Vigilantes should have gotten an anime years ago. Trigger showing up in the My Hero Academia manga was a big deal because it went a long way to show that there was a shared universe at play, but that doesn’t work when it took so long for Vigilantes to get an anime, however, so My Hero Academia: Vigilantes taking so long to get an anime is a problem for how much it undermines the franchise’s shared universe.

None of that was Vigilantes’ fault, of course; manga spinoffs rarely ever get anime adaptations, so it probably would have been stranger if the Vigilantes anime had come out when the manga was still relevant. More importantly, with how the series is structured and the overall strength of its writing, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes still has plenty of merit as a story, even if the anime can’t sell the shared universe aspect as best as it could, and with the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes anime in full swing, it hopefully won’t be long before more people notice that, as well.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes releases new episodes Mondays on Crunchyroll.