Will there be demand?
Has Marvel plagiarized from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia)? Probably not (or at least, they wouldn’t admit it publicly), but it’s undeniable the strong resemblance between Higa Haruka, Sakura Spider of Earth-19966 and Ochako Uraraka of Kohei Horikoshi’s work. While the manga writer he has been very open with his references to American comics, it seems that Marvel prefers to remain silent.
So, let’s bring you up to speed with the theory. It all came to light when Hida Haruka debuted in the Marvel Universe a couple of years ago. The young woman, who hails from Earth-19966, was an average student whose life changed when she was bitten by a radioactive spider. In most of it, her origin story follows that of Peter Parker, and they share the same kind of powers. But when it comes to looks, well, you can see why. Midoriya could easily mistake her for Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia):
The great resemblance between Sakura Spider from Marvel and Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) is undeniable.
After all, the young woman bears a striking resemblance to Uraraka Ochaco. From the color of her hair and eyes, the shape of her face, the hood that resembles the young heroine’s helmet, to her small, muscular body, the comparisons are easy to add up. It only gets worse when you realize I brought it from her Sakura Spider is white and pink, just like Ochaco’s outfit in My Hero Academia. (Boku no Hero Academia). And when it comes to their personalities, both girls are headstrong and optimistic despite dealing with villains on a regular basis.
Recently, theories about the two girls living together in the same universe arose when Sakura Spider reappeared in the Marvel Universe, and this is her last appearance since her debut in Deadpool: Samurai. Of course, fandom speculation ran wild once Deadpool: Samurai features an actual cameo from All Might himself. There’s no denying that Marvel is aware of My Hero Academia’s (Boku no Hero Academia) influence on the superhero scene, and the manga’s creator is a notorious Spider-Man fan. If the publisher wanted to pay homage to Kohei Horikoshi’s work, basing a new Spider-Verse hero on one of his own characters would suffice. So if you consider Sakura Spider to be a secret nod to Ochako, know that you are not alone in this.
The origin of Sakura Spider and her resemblance to Ochako from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia)
As we mentioned, Hida Haruka is more similar to Spider-Man than to Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) because of her story, she gained arachnid-based superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Not long after this, her parents were killed in front of her by a Hydra agent, after which she was taken in by her aunt Mei and her uncle Tsutomu. Devoting herself to her father’s philosophy of “With great power must also come great responsibility”, in pursuit of justice, Hida became the super hero Sakura Spider.
Despite her aesthetic resemblance to My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia), Sakura Spider has her own origin story that we learn about in Deadpool: Samurai.
Iron Man recruited her into the Samurai Squad, but was horrified to learn that she would be working with Deadpool.. Despite being frustrated by his antics, by working together they managed to foil a bank robbery until they were attacked by Loki, who attempted to recruit Deadpool into a team of villains he was putting together. Sakura Spider was reluctantly impressed when Deadpool’s apparent bluff of having called the Avengers scared Loki, and was shocked when Captain America arrived on the scene.
Sakura Spider and Deadpool were sent to recruit teen idol-singer Neiro Aratabi, who was the host of a symbiote she named Kage. Reprimanding Deadpool not to do anything to embarrass her, Sakura Spider revealed that she was a huge fan of Neiro and Deadpool accused her of having a crush on her. After seeing Neiro’s performance, she and Deadpool unsuccessfully tried to sneak past the security guards and were chased outside. Seeing Neiro being attacked by Loki, Sakura Spider used her webs to throw Deadpool towards him before being subdued by the security guards.
Since All Might from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) appears in Deadpool: Samurai, it is not unreasonable to think that Sakura Spider would be inspired by Ochako Uraraka.
As we can see, despite her great aesthetic resemblance to Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia), her origin is different from that of the aforementioned heroine. She is still a variant of Spider-Man.