My Hero Academia has been an astounding success and even after its end, it is being lauded as one of the best manga that the Shonen genre has to offer. But very few people actually know how the story originated and Kohei Horikoshi’s endless struggle to make the series attractive.
In a surprise interview with Kohei’s Horikoshi’s first and second editors, Mr. Koike and Mr. Monji, the duo discussed how the concept of My Hero Academia was developed. Additionally, the editors also talked about how long it took to create and approve the first few chapters of the series.
Kohei Horikoshi Took 8-9 Months to Complete the First Chapter of My Hero Academia
Koike, the first editor of My Hero Academia, discussed in the interview that he and Kohei Horikoshi would often have conversations about drawing scenes as well as various character designs. He also claimed that the first chapter took the longest to be created, and the time became considerably less in the second and third chapters.
It took over half a year to draw the first episode… about 8 or 9 months, while the second episode took us about 2 months, and the third episode took us about a week.
After such a lengthy creation process, thankfully, My Hero Academia got approved on its very first review. Monji added that opinions were divided on the manga. While everyone agreed that the concept was interesting, some thought it needed improvements, and others liked the draft as it was.
I believe no one said the series wasn’t any good, but there were some who thought the series needed some work.
The draft that was presented at the review did not go through many changes and was almost the same as the one published in Shonen Jump.
Kohei Horikoshi was Adamant on Not Changing a Crucial Aspect of My Hero Academia
In My Hero Academia, it wasn’t until the third chapter that Deku used his acquired quirk for the first time. This attracted much criticism from the reviewers of the manga. Many Shonen Jump professionals were of the opinion that it would be best for the protagonist to use his quirk from the very first chapter. While this would have made an impactful first chapter, enough to keep the readers hooked, it would have also skipped on a lot of plot development.
Since All Might did not tell Deku about the inheritance of his quirk in the first chapter, some felt that it would be best to make chapter 1 more compact and thus easier to read. This idea was discussed between Koike and Kohei Horikoshi at length. However, due to the number of pages involved, the author-editor duo decided it was best to leave it unchanged.
At this point, Kohei Horikoshi also took a stance for his manga as he confidently said:
I won’t change it.
In the hearts of both Horikoshi and Koike, they wanted to go full-force since the third chapter. The first two chapters were used to expand on the world as well as Deku as a character.
You can read My Hero Academia on Viz Media and watch the anime on Crunchyroll.
