While My Hero Academia features a lot of great characters, its most interesting character is one that is out of the spotlight. That character has only appeared in four chapters of the manga so far and is quite easy to miss. In the extra notes for volume 7, he received a fascinating backstory that gave him an extreme amount of depth.
My Hero Academia is a manga by Kohei Horikoshi that takes place in a world filled with superheroes and villains. Almost everyone in the manga has a superpower known as a Quirk, but given how weird some of My Hero Academia's quirks are, only some choose to become professional superheroes. The majority of people in the world of My Hero Academia take on normal jobs just like in the real world. However, this doesn’t mean that these characters can’t be heroic in their own way, as the minor character of Daikaku Miyagi shows.
Interesting details are often revealed in the series' extra notes sections, such as volume 1's extra pages showing Ochako's original designs, and volume 7's detailed the backstory of Daikaku Miyagi. Miyagi is a reporter who has the Big Horn Quirk, which causes two large bull horns to grow from his forehead. While not a main character, he occasionally appears in the background on the news, discussing whatever is currently going on in the main story. Not much about him is revealed in the actual pages of the manga, but in the extra notes included in the seventh tankobon volume for the series, Horiksohi gives a full backstory for him. Miyagi is a man who has always been fully devoted to telling the news as clearly and objectively as he can. However, his large horns would often get in the way of his visual presentations on the news. To fix this, he had one of his horns removed, a move that prompted a backlash from some viewers. These viewers saw the removal as Miyagi rejecting his quirk, a move which they felt would lead to discrimination and a rejection of My Hero Academia’s Quirk-based society. Despite this outcry, Miyagi continues to report the news in the best way he can.
Miyagi’s story reveals interesting facets of Quirk-based society that the main storyline doesn’t have time to explore. Miyagi having to remove his horn shows that many seemingly innocuous Quirks can have unforeseen consequences for their users. It also shows that some members of this society are choosing to get around these consequences by removing part or all of their abilities. On a personal level, it shows the dedication that Miyagi has to his viewers. No one would have likely expected or asked him to mutilate his body to improve his broadcasts, but Miyagi did it anyway, just to be able to deliver his viewers the facts as clearly as possible. If Heroism is defined as helping others no matter the cost, then Miyagi is a true hero despite not being a professional superhero.
Miyagi’s backstory shows how well thought out the world of My Hero Academia really is. If a news reporter who only ever appears in the background can have this much thought put into him, then imagine how much thought must be put into minor characters of greater importance. While many details about these characters may never be fully revealed, at least Horikoshi has graced readers of My Hero Academia with a full backstory for Daikaku Miyagi, who, in this context, is easily one of the most interesting characters in the series.