Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia manga concluded with the release of the final chapter in the combined 36th and 37th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump on August 5, 2024. In a recent interview with Nippon TV’s News Zero, the creator admitted to feeling a sense of loneliness as the 10-year journey concluded.
“I feel surprisingly lonely. I was thinking, ‘Finally, I can reach the goal’.”
Looking back on the series, Horikoshi expressed a mix of surprise and disbelief at the manga’s success. Despite the manga’s immense popularity, with over 100 million copies in circulation worldwide, Horikoshi described his reaction as more puzzled than triumphant.
“Honestly, I don’t really get it. I never felt like ‘Yesss!’ or anything like that. It’s not humility; I genuinely thought, ‘WHY?’ Maybe it just kept going for a long time,” he confessed.
The global phenomenon that My Hero Academia became was equally unexpected for the creator. Horikoshi emphasized that international acclaim was never a goal, stating, “I didn’t intend or aim for it at all. What I drew just happened to cross the sea and be accepted by people of different cultures.”
As the series wraps up, several commemorative releases are planned following the series’ end. The final volume 42 will be released in December, a fan book in January next year, and the first art book of the series in April. Additionally, a large-scale original art exhibition is scheduled for next summer.
Adding to the excitement, a secret project related to the series is also set to be revealed on August 5, 2024.
Kohei Horikoshi started serializing the manga in Shueisha’s Shonen manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump in July 2014. Its chapters have been collected in 41 tankobon volumes as of August 2024.
