Happy Birthday Mt. Lady!

Good morning everyone,

Today, August 11th, is a holiday in Japan. Specifically, it’s 山の日 Mountain Day which just so happens to be the birthday of a size-changing heroine called Mt. Lady! 岳山 優 Takeyama Yu a.k.a. Mt. Lady is a minor character in the My Hero Academia franchise created by Kohei Horikoshi.

(SIDE NOTE: Technically, celebrating Mountain Day is a recent development. The holiday was not on the calendar until 2016, after the manga was first published. Mountain Day was intended to coincide with the Bon Festival. Mountain Day in Japanese is “Yama no Hi,” “yama” means mountain. Also notice that her surname “Takeyama” means tall mountain or mountain top.)

My Hero Academia first began in early July 2014 as a manga within the pages of Weekly Shōnen Jump. The super hero franchise soon became popular and spawned additional manga spinoffs, an anime adaptation, and video games.

In the world of My Hero Academia people began to be born with super powers called “Quirks.” That started with a bio-luminescent baby in China. Since then, more and more exceptional individuals have appeared. The cause of this dramatic change in humanity has not been explained. Currently, a majority of the world’s population, about 80%, are born with Quirks.

The government stepped in and began employing a few of those super-powered people as Professional (Pro) Heroes to battle villains who use their Quirks to commit crimes. Mt. Lady has the Gigantification Quirk 巨大化 and can increase her height from an average-sized 162 cm (roughly five feet four inches) to a towering 2,062 cm (roughly 67 feet 8 inches).

The limitations of her power has been explored a few times. For example, Mt. Lady was unable to follow the villain Sludge down an alley because she was too large. (NOTE: She can only be 162 cm or 2,062 cm tall. She is unable to vary between those two heights.) Additionally, she has been held liable for property damage due to her immense size and weight.

Mt. Lady has a fun personality. Sometimes she acts vain, but she is always a hero willing to sacrifice to protect others, such as when she was injured blocking super villain Compress and protecting young students. She also enjoys takoyaki which are fried wheat flour balls typically filled with chopped octopus, pickled red ginger, and green onions then covered in a Worcestershire-like sauce and mayonnaise as well as other garnishes. The curvy blonde giantess is not above flirting when she doesn’t have ¥500 (equivalent to about $3.49) to buy some.

There was also a cute bit in which Mt. Lady, a rookie hero, and Midnight, a veteran hero, discuss the topic of sexiness in hero costumes. Their discussion got heated when Mt. Lady not so subtly referenced Midnight’s age.

Not surprisingly, the sexy lady has inspired a large number of artists and cosplayers, examples can be seen below:

Click here to see Mt. Lady fan art at DeviantArt. Over 15,000 results as of this writing. Note that fellow Pro Hero Midnight also popped up in that search.

Mt. Lady appeared in the very first chapter of the manga, published July 2014, and in the first episode of the anime, aired April 2016. Based on that history, it’s likely she will also feature in the premiere of the upcoming live-action My Hero Academia being developed for Netflix. (Click here to read about that.)

I recommend folks check out My Hero Academia. Of course, the star of the show is not Mt. Lady. Instead, the protagonist is Izuku “Deku” Midoriya a plucky young man who wanted to be a super hero, but was one of the unlucky few born without a Quirk. However, he displayed great courage trying to save a friend. That selfless act earned the attention and respect of the world’s greatest hero, All Might.

So impressed with the boy, All Might transferred his immense power to Midoriya. Since then, the eager fellow has worked hard to master the great power he now possesses. Thus, the focus of the franchise is Midoriya and his fellow students at a superhero high school. Mt. Lady only appears occasionally. However, I like the core characters. Thus, My Hero Academia is recommended even when it doesn’t showcase Mt. Lady.

That’s it for today folks. Next week’s review will cover a live-action giantess clip requested by a reader. Until then, practice your own Gigantification Quirk!

This review was written by SolomonG and is protected under Fair Use copyright law.

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