My Hero Academia: Is Eijiro Kirishima, Gay, Straight, or Bi? Explained!

My Hero Academia is, in many ways, a special manga and anime, mostly because it focuses on traditional Western comic book tropes while giving them a traditional Japanese touch. Now, this article will focus on one particular character from the My Hero Academia world, as we will talk about Eijiro Kirishima, also known as Sturdy Hero: Red Riot. This article will focus on his private life, as you will find out whether he is gay, straight, or bisexual in the series.

Officially, Eijiro Kirishima’s sexuality has not been confirmed, so there is no precise answer to this question. Usually, this means that a character is heterosexual, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be true; the fact is that the canon did not address this issue. Eijiro Kirishima is obsessed with manliness and doesn’t seem to show much interest in girls, but this also doesn’t have to mean anything, as anime fans will know from other series. Currently, his being gay or bisexual is simply a theory proposed by some fans who want to ship Eijiro with male characters, but nothing in the canon supports this directly.

In the rest of this article, we will tell you what you need to know about Eijiro Kirishima and his romantic life, specifically his sexual orientation. We have provided you with an answer above, but since Eijiro Kirishima’s romantic life has not really been a topic in the series, we don’t really have much to add, so we’ll just elaborate on the above-given answer. If you’re not fully up to date with My Hero Academia, there might be some spoilers ahead.

As far as the canon is concerned, Eijiro Kirishima’s sexual orientation is unknown

Eijiro Kirishima is a student of class 1-A. He is a lively, loud, and impetuous boy with his own concept of virility and a sort of moral code that leads him to respect determined and courageous people.

His Hardening Quirk allows him to sharpen and harden his skin by varying its hardness, granting him an advantage on both an offensive and defensive level; with training, he has learned to significantly increase the hardness he can obtain, but the greater the hardness he decides to use, the shorter the time he can maintain the transformation.

In his training, Eijiro goes under the guidance of the Pro Hero Fat Gum and Suneater. His hero name is Sturdy Hero: Red Riot, based on the hero Crimson Riot, who he admires and takes inspiration from. Very open and sociable, he is one of the few who managed to make friends with Bakugo in a short time. As mentioned, he has a fixation on the concept of virility and often describes things he likes or approves of as “manly” or “masculine.”

In the past, he had self-esteem problems because he was convinced that his power was useless and that his belief was just a facade. He thought about abandoning his dream of becoming a hero until he was persuaded by the words of his idol, Crimson Riot: Kirishima, therefore, worked to improve himself by becoming more courageous and self-confident.

He and Mina attended the same middle school, and observing the girl’s extroverted and enterprising character, he always believed she could become a heroine. Precisely because he considers her a model to be inspired by, Eijiro felt proud when Mina developed a move from him.

As for his sexual orientation, a lot of fans think that he could be gay, but the canon has not stated anything about it, so it’s mostly just fans and shippers reading too much into stuff and adapting the story to fit their own ships, instead of doing the opposite.

We’re not saying it’s impossible for him to actually be a member of the LGBTQ community, but the canon has not confirmed this; it hasn’t confirmed that he is straight either, so there’s that. But yes, as far as the current canon is concerned, his sexual orientation is unknown. We are now going to address some other relevant issues.

Why do fans think that Eijiro Kirishima is gay?

Well, to be fair, fans of My Hero Academia are probably the most zealous ones regarding their characters and ships, especially when they involve LGBTQ ships, so it is not a major surprise that Eijiro Kirishima is also a point of conversation here. So, why do fans think that he is gay?

There is no specific point in the story where Eijiro Kirishima was “outed,” as he never had such a moment in the series. He is not interested in girls, as it seems, and we can confirm that he is also obsessed with manliness and likes handsome heroes; battling excites him in a way. But, as manga and anime fans know, this doesn’t have to mean anything, as many characters who appear either as members of the LGBTQ community or even asexual end up married; they simply bloom later.

My Hero Academia fans like LGBTQ ships and that is all valid, but they are often reading too much into stuff and are simply interpreting neutral or benign facts as a sign of something, and in a lot of cases, the author never really intended it to be like that. So, while some moments might imply something in Eijiro’s case, it is all mostly a very liberal interpretation that doesn’t really have to do much with the facts at hand.

Who is Eijiro Kirishima shipped with?

Well, as we’ve said, My Hero Academia fans are among the most active shippers in the community, so there are a lot of ships involving Eijiro Kirishima; in fact, there are so many that we cannot really address all them, so we’re just going to list them here for you, based on the category they belong to, so that you can have, at least, a general picture (the bolded ones are the most popular ones):