Fans of My Hero Academia must stay strong this week. The mangaka Kohei Horikoshi will release the last chapter of the manga on Sunday. To celebrate the farewell appropriately, Eiichiro Oda, the mangaka of One Piece, will release a fitting “gift”.
What has Oda prepared for Horikoshi? The cover images in the One Piece manga are usually drawings by Eiichiro Oda. However, this new chapter will feature a drawing by Horikoshi instead.
You can view the drawing by the My Hero Academia mangaka in the tweet from opfanatic2024:
The image shows Captain Smoker dissolving into smoke thanks to his devil fruit powers. Next to it, there is an inscription from One Piece. Below it, the name of the marine soldier is written in Japanese script.
But there is more behind the image than one might initially think. It has actually been several years since Horikoshi created the drawing. In the SBS publication number 77, Oda revealed what the story behind the image is.
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The mangaka of My Hero Academia is a longtime fan of One Piece
What’s the story behind the image? Horikoshi submitted the image in a competition where fans had to draw images for One Piece in 2002. At that time, the 16-year-old Horikoshi was not yet the mangaka of My Hero Academia, but rather just a fan of One Piece. The first volume of My Hero Academia was only released 12 years later.
The image actually made it into the “Usopp Gallery Pirates” segment in issue 23. Horikoshi worked hard on himself and succeeded in getting his own manga published by the same publisher as One Piece.
Horikoshi told the story to Oda at a New Year’s event of the publisher. He was so impressed that he mentioned it directly in his own manga. It’s nice to see that Oda remembers the story and uses the image of young Horikoshi as the cover for the upcoming chapter.
What’s next for My Hero Academia? Horikoshi recently mentioned in an interview (via VIZ) that there are background stories he hasn’t incorporated into the manga. However, he has no intention of drawing and publishing them.
As it stands, the mangaka of My Hero Academia does not seem to want to release a sequel. Therefore, it may be that with the last chapter of MHA, the story is completely concluded.
Currently, fans only have the anime to enjoy the hero story. After the end of the anime, it may be that they have to say goodbye to the franchise entirely. However, there is another shonen manga that could follow in the footsteps of My Hero Academia: Popular manga gets an anime, could reach the level of Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer
