Heroes/Hero Association

Hero Association

The Hero Association (ヒーロー協会, Hīrō Kyōkai) is an organization founded by the multi-millionaire Agoni that manages all of the cities' heroes.^[1] Agoni has also established the National Hero Registry (ヒーロー名簿, Hīrō meibo), the database that embraces every recognized hero. The Association uses a class system, with four classes and individual numbered ranks within those classes (Classes C, B, A and S), to organize every hero accordingly. They are now opposed by the Neo Heroes.

Appearance

History

Three years before the current storyline, the Hero Association was founded by multi-millionaire Agoni, whose grandchild was attacked by a mysterious being and saved by Saitama. After hearing what happened, Agoni came up with the idea and founded the Hero Association and the National Hero Registry from private funds.^[1]

	This article contains webcomic spoilers! You have been WARNED, manga-only readers!

After the incident with Garou and the Monster Association, the organization falls under threat of replacement by the Neo Heroes. They also find themselves faced with a lot of corruption scandals regarding the illegal activities of donors, employees, as well as the fact that they tend to neglect controlling their S-Class heroes, especially Tatsumaki, in term of collateral damage caused during their heroic activities. Furthermore, the rising number of losing battles between heroes and Mysterious Being has caused the public to lose their faith in the competency of the organization. Finally, some people are now aware of the dark side of the organization, in terms of some of the more arrogant, inept, and violent heroes who now begin to pose a bigger threat to the organization.

National Hero Registry

The National Hero Registry is a database that contains the names of every officially recognized hero. Any person not registered in the National Hero Registry is not recognized as a hero and, as such, is always looked upon as a delusional weirdo, regardless of how many times they saved the world.^[2]

Hero Entrance Exam

To become an official Hero of the Hero Association, a candidate must pass an entrance exam. The entrance exam consists of two parts:

1. Fitness Test - The fitness portion of the test tests agility and physical strength. The known components of this portion of the exam included: side-to-side jumps (for 30 seconds), a 1500 meter run, weight-lifting, and squat jumps.^[3] The anime version of the fitness portion adds shot put, whack-a-mole, and punching machine components.^[4]

2. Written Test - The actual content of the written test is currently unknown, but Genos referred to both the Fitness and Written Tests as a, "...walk in the park." Genos also said of the written test that it, "is too easy to be called a test..."^[5] The written test is designed to assess the candidate's "sense of justice"; one staff member of the Association mentioned that it had an essay section.

Passing the Entrance Exam has the following actions:^[1]

A hero is officially recognized by the Hero Association.
A hero is entitled to the Association's money collected from donations in proportion to the tasks completed.
An "ability" rank will be assigned based on the results of the exam (see "Classes" section, below).
A hero will be eligible to be voted upon by the public in the hero popularity ranking.

Income

The Hero Association makes money to sustain themselves through donation of the people across the country as gratitude for protecting them from Mysterious Beings and funding from various billionaires like Agoni or Narinki and business organizations with the purpose of generating good reputation and building positive PR in which the latter is the primary source of income.

Classes

There are four classes for Heroes, with C-Class being the weakest and S-Class being the strongest:

S-Class, with a total of 17 heroes
A-Class, with a total of 38 heroes
B-Class, with a total of 101 heroes
C-Class, with a total of 390 heroes

Thus there are a total of 546 heroes.^[6] To proceed to the next class up, a hero must be ranked number 1 in their current class, at which point they can choose to stay at the top of their class, or move up and start at the bottom of the next class up.^[7] In some cases, such as with Genos, a hero can be put directly into a higher class if their score on the entrance exam is high enough.^[8]

It is revealed that there is a maintained balance among the ranked heroes, in which the Hero Association tries very hard to enforce, since if a low ranked hero (mostly Saitama) is witnessed by people managing to defeat monsters with Demon to Dragon Disaster level, there will be an imbalance in the hero members in the association. According to an official in the association, imblanances in the hero members are more serious than Dragon Disaster monsters. As a result, it is indicated that this is the reason why Saitama progresses so slowly in climbing up the ranks, despite being witnessed doing outrageous feats of strengths, such as killing the Sea King with one blow or destroying a meteor with one hit.^[9]

Another factor is type match-ups. A prime example is when Lightning Genji fought against Maiko Plasma and Electric Catfish Man. Ss they are electric proof, they rendered his primary weapons, electric batons, useless. No matter the case, the organization is largely unaware of Saitama's god-like power, and the factor of balance in hero rankings is also the reason why the Neo Heroes oppose them, since they think it is unfair for the hero.

In terms of unfairness, according to Death Gatling, the class system of the Hero Association is notoriously unfair to low rank heroes, since most of the S-class heroes are the only ones that receive the best treatment and privileges in the organization, ranging from higher salary, physical supports, as well as good publication for their activities to the public. As a result, no matter how much hard work and great achievements low rank heroes can put in during their line of work, they're seemingly ignored by the public as well as Hero Association as a whole. They also rarely receive recognition from the Association to climb their rank, or are neglected by the public due to lack of publication of their deeds, since the Hero Association wants to keep the balances in the rankings in check, as well as the fact that the public only cares about rank and not the true power of an individual, the prime example being Saitama. As a result, non-S-class heroes like the A-class, B-class, and C-class heroes sometimes have to risk their life to gain recognition from both the public and the Hero Association by doing incredible things. A good example is Death Gatling's operation to lure out Garou, since if they manage to capture a Monster that defeated two S-class heroes, they will receive great recognition from both the public and the Hero Association.