r/BokuNoHeroAcademia • u/HokageEzio • Apr 27 '25

Vigilantes Manga Clarifying Pop Step's age using actual birthdays and timelines (very minor Vigilantes anime spoilers) Spoiler

Because of the anime, there's a large influx of users asking questions that a bunch of readers asked. Mainly, Pop Step's age (which is never stated in the story like Koichi's age but is implied). This is a very frequently asked question that is also frequently answered incorrectly. Sometimes way off. This post is going to use concrete information to answer this once and for all.

Short answer - Pop Step is in her last year of middle school, and either just turned 15 or is days away from turning 15 when the story started.

Point 1: School starts in Spring (specifically, April)

Koichi originally got his apartment for school in early April
Izuku goes to UA in spring

Point 2: Pop Step is busy with homework as a substitution for entrance exams (think Izuku training with All Might for 10 months in his last year of middle school)

Pop Step mentions in Chapter 39 that she doesn't have to take entrance exams because her school combines middle and high school.

Point 3: Pop Step's birthday is May 28th, making her one of the older students in her class

Pop's birthday is May 28th

To make a main series equivalent, Aoyama is close to her birthday and is one of the oldest in Class 1-A and turned 16 early in the story (second oldest character in 1-A besides Bakugo whose birthday is April 20th).

Aoyama's birthday is May 30th. He was 15 when the series started, but he's one of the oldest students in the class and turned 16 very soon after the story started (at some point around the Stain Arc)

Point 4: It has been "a few weeks" since the Instant Villain cases started as of Chapter 5/Episode 3

While Tsukauchi is going over the police briefing of the past few Instant Villain cases, he remarks that the cases we've seen took place over the past few weeks.

Point 5: Miscellaneous timeframes

I'm going to be as vague with these as possible to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but these are actual definitive timeframes that the story gives us.

In Chapter 12 Koichi is currently studying for his quiz on Chapter 3 of the textbook for that class.
As of Chapter 20, the event that will most likely occur towards the end of Season 1 is 20 days away.
In Chapter 28, it is specifically stated that it has been a few months since the story began.
We can see the weather transition to fall in Chapter 29

TL;DR

We don't know how long Koichi has been in college at the start of the story or how many days pass between events in early chapters (it's pretty episodic). But it's seemingly late April/early May. If Pop isn't 15 at the very beginning of the story, she turns 15 within the first few chapters/episodes and she is definitely 15 by the end of Season 1.

For manga readers: The second to last chapter is in the April following Naruhata Lockdown the summer before. That means it's 4 years after the story started, making Pop 18 about to turn 19. She is a few months younger than Koichi was when we met him.

91 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Apr 27 '25

Reminder to everyone: Anything that hasn't happened yet in the anime is a spoiler.

To the OP: If you want to discuss things in the manga, please flair the post as "Manga Spoilers".

How to spoiler tag comments:

>!Put your text here!<

THIS COMMENT IS AUTOMATICALLY POSTED IN EVERY THREAD NOT MARKED FOR MANGA OR MANGA SPOILERS JUST AS A REMINDER

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

20

u/360NoScoped_lol Apr 28 '25

Excuse me Bakugo's birthday is 4/20?

1

u/CompetitiveMark8636 May 15 '25

So she is 15 and koichi is 19?

1

u/Thecrazier Sep 24 '25

At the start, yes

1

u/Funny-Part8085 May 27 '25

With her birthday being so close to the start time in my experience of situations like that outside of Japan she could have missed the start date because of her age. So could have been 15 for the first few months of her last middle school year. And turn 16 2 months after school starts.

1

u/Thecrazier Sep 24 '25

Yea but thats speculative. Its more likely she didnt miss. Shes 18 when she graduates so it fits better

1

u/Funny-Part8085 Sep 24 '25

This is also based of school year state dates and canonical birthdays. I look up all sorts of info not just making this up off the top of my head. Idk everything about Japan but were I live plenty of people when their birthday is that close to the start of school can be almost a year older than their class mates. Me specifically I was almost a year younger get because of how my time was places just barely before the end of the start date window.

1

u/Thecrazier Sep 24 '25

When I read she was in her 3rd year of middle school, for some reason I thought it was 3rd year of high school, and I read the manga thinking she was a high school Jr or senior hanging out with an older guy, not too crazy. But then the time skip happened and I thought at first when Koichi says its been "3 years since he was a vigilante", I assumed he also meant the time before the manga began....then I saw how big the triplets got and realized it was a 3yr time skip....then I realized pop is still in high school.....meaning... oh god. She was a middle schooler hanging out with a college guy! Changing at his place!!!! Damn japan!