Last month, we presented the list of the most popular anime in Japan in 2022, in which we could notably find My Hero Academiaadapted from the eponymous manga by Kōhei Horikoshi. And precisely, if the famous manga artist has recently been talked about again, it is because he returned to a controversy occurred last year, after many Internet users stepped up to the plate following the release of a visual in particular which featured a certain character Artwork.
l’explication de horikoshi
Appearing in the list of the most popular shonen of the moment, My Hero Academia (or Boku no Hero Academia in VO) is now considered by many fans to be a contemporary classic of nekketsu. We then discover a world where superheroes are part of everyday life, since 80% of the world’s population has superpowers, called “Alters”.
And among the characters that we can find alongside the protagonist Midoriya Izuku, aka Deku, there is a student from the Second A of Yuei High School who had been talked about a few months ago, namely Toru Hagakure, better known as the Invisible Girl. Indeed, although in the work, she is known to be the most stealthy student in her class thanks to her Quirk, Toru had particular attention when Chapter 368 was released in October 2022.
A chapter which had for cover a Toru in superhero outfit, but without her Alter, which means that we could then see the body of the young girl. This cover had then aroused strong reactions from Internet users, many considering it more than inappropriate given that it featured a naked minor.
im not posting the actual full image bc im not a fucking weirdo but that sure is hagakure butt ass naked pic.twitter.com/4zALPPktuH
I’m not going to post the full picture because I’m not a fucking weirdo but it’s clearly naked Hagakure.
But a few months after this controversy, Horikoshi finally decided to express himself on this subject, in a commentary which can be found in volume 37, released last week in Japan. The mangaka then declared that the drawing in question should never have been on the cover of this chapter. He explained:
This colorized page had nothing to do with the plot, okay? It’s just because it was kind of a draft designed to test the color references of Hagakure that I had drawn years ago and had no intention of publishing. But then I ran out of time to draw a new one and was asked, “Do you have any color drawings you could use?”. Usually I don’t care if the colored page has anything to do with the chapter, but in this case it was quite disconcerting.
It would therefore seem that this visual was originally made for internal testingand that it was ultimately only selected and released due to constraints with the manga’s release schedule.
And to continue in the same theme and find out why the first episode of part 2 of season 6 of My Hero Academia will break your heartsee our previous article on the subject, right here.