Manga
Eiichiro Oda ('One Piece') bids farewell to 'My Hero Academia' with a heartfelt tribute
Kōhei Horikoshi drew a character from ‘One Piece’ when he was 15 years old and just starting his career as a mangaka, and Oda never forgot him.
After 10 years and 430 chapters, the story of Deku and My Hero Academia has come to an end. The Shonen was one of the most popular and important manga series of the last decade, and the most important mangakas of the world did not take long to say goodbye with a series of messages and illustrations reminiscent of those made after the death of Akira Toriyama. The community of artists in Japan could not be more united, and their support for each other could not be more beautiful and inspiring. Specifically, today we bring you the farewell of Eiichiro Oda, who was one of the first to say goodbye to ‘Boku no Hero’.
Although his message was in a joking way, classic for him, his drawing was one of the most exciting and symbolic. “Now you can play Pokémon GO as much as you want. Thanks for 10 years of hard work,” the author wrote. He accompanied his words with an illustration of Smoker that was inspired by an identical illustration made by Kōhei Horikoshi at the age of 15, when he was not yet the mangaka behind My Hero Academia, but a simple fan of One Piece. The fact that Oda remembered and returned such a sign of respect is one of those details that touches the heart.
How do you feel about the ending of My Hero Academia?
Time will tell how the ending of My Hero Academia will be remembered, but the first impressions from the community were not entirely positive. Full of loose ends and with a somewhat rushed time jump, Deku ended up forgotten by his friends, without Uraraka and without powers. No one remembers that he saved the world, and he is never crowned hero number one. In fact, it doesn’t take long for people to call for a “Shippuden” version to clean up the mess and prevent Deku from ending his days in a precarious and mundane job.
However, it wouldn’t hurt to ask yourself the question: which manga that recently ended has convinced its fans? After all, last year’s ‘Tokyo Revengers’ was no small thing, and not long before that, the creator of ‘Shingeki no Kyojin’ apologized for the ending of the series on the verge of tears due to fan pressure. Not to mention what people thought back then about the endings of ‘Bleach’ (many thought Kubo hated Ichigo for what he had in store for him), or even ‘Naruto’ (which showed the protagonist having his relationship with Hinata in a side-show movie, and made him Hokage in a separate special). Knock on wood with One Piece.
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