I Don't Care About 僕の vs My for Hero Academia

The official title of My Hero Academia is... exactly the words I just said. Given how heavy the influence of American superhero comics is on the work, it's not that surprising to have a Japanese text with an official title in English. Since it's published in a magazine primarily targeting kids, there's a Japanese translation of the title in the logo, as we can see below.

tl note: Boku no Hero Academia means My (casual male singular pronoun) Hero Academia

The two forms of the series title have led to an amusing situation. While some publications will list the Japanese translation of the title (as well as the most commonly used tag on Pixiv), in online discussion the shorthand acronym amongst Japanese speakers is usually MHA. Makes sense since it's the intended title and uses the least characters. The English speaking community has however instead opted for BNHA. A particularly odd choice given that the language less character-efficient for websites such as Twitter is using the less efficient option.

There's a lot of cultural history and baggage amongst the English-speaking fandom of Japanese animation that can explain what's going on. There's a history of English releases altering properties such as Harmony Gold cobbling together unrelated science fiction shows to make a product suitable for syndication or Sailors Saturn and Pluto's romantic tension being rewritten as friendly cousins. There's that time DC published Tenjou Tenge, a rather graphically violent series with heavy edits to make it a PG text. There's the era of comics being flipped to read left-to-right for fear a new reading order would drive down sales. Of course, Robotech and the Sailor Moon example were decades ago. DC's bizarre choice is nearing that old. Such decisions have however remained in the cultural memory, passed down through convention panels, Wiki pages and diatribes on websites such as TV Tropes. Thus there's still a certain fear that the overtly Japanese qualities of a text must be preserved and accentuated as much as possible. I'm not reading a comic - it's a manga, damn it!

When these sorts of situations come up I tend to side with the sort of attitude grizzled publishers of the prehistoric foreign comics publishing age such as Toren Smith took. Editorial process is an important part of not only the business of distributing media, but for allowing artists to have ideas bounced back at them and think through whether the first thoughts in their head were a good idea. One Piece's sales trounce anything Marvel or DC put out, streaming services such as Crunchyroll, the Funimation website and Madman's Anime Lab are easy to access. Japanese comics and animation are hardly some secret trove for an elite club at this point. While maybe not as mainstream as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the odds are that mentioning anime to someone down the street or a friend's parents won't result in a blank, confused stare back. I'd even be willing that constantly accentuating the Japanese qualities over any other in a text often winds up as objectification and overly simplifying any other thematic or artistic qualities of it.

All that said, this series is one where I actually don't care whether you prefer to say "My" or ”ぼくの”. The reason for that being the nature of the text itself. It's a Japanese comic taking heavy influence from Ameican comics and synthesises the cultures to make a work with almost universal appeal. It's a male power fantasy, yet discusses the Japanese education system. It's a market-driven economy, yet there's a running vein of salaryman culture dulling innovation. All Might wears red, white and blue, gives his maneuvers names like DETROIT SMASH yet it's just a character played by a Japanese man to maintain hegemony. As such, the difference in how audiences refer to the series' name comes off to me as reflecting what draws them to the text. Japanese readers have their interest piqued by an American style work while English readers see a Japanese interpretation of works they grew up with. In other words, there's an almost universal appeal to the text which allows its pathos-driven character stories to resonate across cultures.

So yeah I'm basically saying that the comic itself is the Symbol of Peace. Plus Ultra!