Eri Takes Center Stage, Eight Years Later
The short belongs entirely to Eri, the girl Deku rescued from Overhaul during the anime's fourth-season Shie Hassaikai arc. Set eight years after Deku and his classmates graduated from U.A. High School, it finds her in high school herself and chasing a dream of music. With her first street concert coming up on the weekend, she stops by U.A., where Aizawa and Present Mic greet her. Deku, now a teacher at the school, is nowhere to be found. Then something appears on a nearby TV screen, and the official synopsis leaves it there. From that tease, the story jumps to the day of the concert itself.
Six preview stills arrived via Japanese anime news site Animate Times a few days before the streaming debut. The announcement also notes that the anime version comes with special directorial touches prepared for the occasion, though it stops short of saying what they are.
The short adapts a one-shot that creator Kohei Horikoshi drew for the My Hero Academia Ultra Age fanbook, released in December 2024. It is a natural thread to pick up. Eri talked about wanting to sing when she was little, and the manga's final chapter showed her smiling with a guitar case on her back. According to Animate Times, the one-shot drew a strong response from fans when the fanbook hit shelves.
A Sendoff for the Anime's 10th Anniversary
"I am a hero too" is part of the My Hero Academia The Animation 10th Anniversary project, which has been running since the TV series wrapped. The FINAL SEASON finale aired last December, closing out the adaptation at eight seasons and 170 episodes. Horikoshi's source manga ran for ten years in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump.
Before streaming, the short screened theatrically on August 1 and 2, 2026 at nine theaters across Japan as part of the anniversary project's Character Match-up Memorable Episode Screenings. Volume 2 of that program pairs episodes built around Izuku "Deku" Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo, while Volume 3 pairs Midoriya with Tomura Shigaraki.
One notable gap in the announcement: the Animate Times listing shows both cast and staff as unannounced. That means no official word on who voices the high-school version of Eri, or on which team animated the short.
Where to Watch
In Japan, the short launched at midnight JST on August 3 across a wide slate of subscription services, including ABEMA Premium, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, U-NEXT, DMM TV and dAnime Store. ABEMA and Lemino, two Japanese streaming services, are also running limited-time free streams.
International fans are covered too. The short is streaming on Crunchyroll as a standalone episode alongside the platform's My Hero Academia catalog. The source manga is published in English by Viz Media, though no English edition of the Ultra Age fanbook containing the original one-shot has been announced.