This article includes current spoilers for the Boku no Hero Academia manga, reader discretion is advised.
On May 2, the thirty-fourth compiled book volume of the manga was released in Japan. Kohei Horikoshi, boku no hero academia (My Hero Academia). Among the different contents, he highlighted one of the additional contents that included a note by the author, where he wrote: «Aoyama’s reveal as the traitor was originally scheduled for the School Trip Arc (training with the Wild Wild Pussycats team), which spans the ninth and tenth volumes. That was a big change, right?».
This comment had already been leaked previously, and generated a series of comments on social networks. The most prominent came from “Volk (@Volkerstime)“, who wrote: “Damn these volume 34 extras are insane, Japanese fans are so touchy about villain stuff that Horikoshi was afraid that sales would plummet, so he pushed back the traitor’s reveal by twenty-five volumes. It was supposed to happen in volumes 9-10. This makes the overall structure of the series make more sense in hindsight. It is likely that Horikoshi intended to make the manga darker much earlier, but it wouldn’t be until “My Villain Academia” that he got down to business, when he was firmly established at 110%. I wonder how the series would have been otherwise».
And he went on to explain where he got the theory that the change was due to the popularity of the manga going down at the time. The excerpt comes from an interview conducted after the completion of the work “My Hero Academia: The Ultra Stage – A Symbol of Peace“, who wrote: «The theatrical version of Boku no Hero Academia has finally arrived. Volumes 8 to 11 of the manga are adapted. I remember that things were quite difficult at that time, I was very busy. Until the “Summer Training Arc”, the series had a fairly stable popularity, but the moment I hinted that villains were on the way… it dropped! Popularity dropped suddenly. Sorry to bring this up, but I guess people didn’t like them. He had already planned the plot and he couldn’t let the villains walk away without doing anything. I decided to cut some of the things I planned to do during the summer training camp short, and rushed to the next battle.». It’s easy to make a connection between the first and second comments to see that they are indeed connected.
Synopsis of Boku no Hero Academia
One day, a four-year-old suddenly realized: the world is not fair. Eighty percent of the world’s population possesses special abilities, known as “quirks,” that have given many the power to fulfill their childhood dreams of becoming superheroes. Unfortunately, Izuku Midoriya was one of the few who was born without a quirk, and suffered discrimination for it. However, he refuses to give up on his dream of becoming a hero; Determined to do the impossible, Izuku sets his sights on the elite hero training academy, UA Academy.
However, everything changes after a chance encounter with Izuku’s number one hero and idol, All Might. Discovering that his dream is not a dead end, the boy without powers undergoes special training, working harder than ever. Ultimately, this leads him to inherit the power of All Might and, with his newfound abilities, he enters the school of his choice, beginning his grueling journey to become the successor to the greatest hero on the planet.
Source: @MHA0fficiall on Twitter
(c)堀越耕平／集英社・僕のヒーローアカデミア製作委員会