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While manga creators are generally respected or seen as good people, some fans critique their works harshly. The phrase "Never Meet Your Heroes" feels apt, as some mangakas have turned out to be awful people, such as Rurouni Kenshin's creator, Nabuhiro Watsuki.
For whatever reason, real or imagined, the fact remains that some fans will hate a manga creator down the line. Sometimes it's for legitimate grievances like an actual crime they committed. Other times, it feels like fans are grasping at straws. This list will chronicle 10 manga creators that are hated by readers, going over the reasons why they are hated.
Disclaimer: This topic is subjective, so content warnings, including child abuse, s*xual assault, among other topics, apply for severe reactions and language. The author's opinions are the only ones reflected in the article, though plenty of fan outcry is included likewise.
Masashi Kishimoto, Shuwata Ramunemura, and 8 other manga creators who earned their readers' ire
1) Nabuhiro Watsuki
Starting off with Rurouni Kenshin manga creator Nabuhiro Watsuki as an example of why readers hate a manga creator for a particular reason. Following his arrest owing to evidence of over 100 s*xually explicit videos of minors being found in his home in November of 2017, many manga fans were very quick to condemn him.
While some fans dropped Rurouni Kenshin altogether, others waited for the trial verdict before deciding anything. The backlash only worsened when the mangaka was given the equivalent of a "slap on the wrist" punishment of a fine of roughly 200,000 yen (approximately USD $1,500) and allowed to continue making manga several months after his arrest.
This enraged many fans as they disowned Rurouni Kenshin. Moreover, they harbored resentment that Watsuki was allowed to continue publicizing for the creator and company that kept him.
2) Tatsuya Matsuki
Interestingly, the opposite happened in the case of the manga creator of Act-Age. Following Tatsuya Matsuki's arrest on August 8, 2020, for groping middle school students in June of that same year, the mangaka was sentenced to a year and a half period of jail time, with a three-year suspension.
This had more official backing behind the fan backlash for the manga creator. The official response was that all sales of Act-Age were suspended in August 2020, which was subsequently de-listed by Viz Media following his arrest. It was a swift and decisive action, which was applauded by many fans of the series who witnessed it.
Suffice to say, there's no legal way to read Act-Age anymore, and many are happy about it, given Matsuki's crimes. It goes to show that even for manga creators, crime doesn't pay.
3) Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro
Another case of a mangaka getting into trouble with the law was Toriko creator Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro. The gist of the 2002 case was that Shimabukuro got arrested over soliciting s*x from a teenager, resulting in a two-year prison sentence with a four-year suspension and the cancelation of the manga Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi!.
The backlash predated Watsuki's, but his case brought Shimabukuro's crimes to the public eye outside Japan. As a result, many people expressed their discontent by disowning Toriko. The case might've been older, but fans weren't quick to forget it when it was brought to light.
The backlash got to the point where it seemed to be a factor in Shimabukuro's follow-up manga, Build King, being highly criticized and cut short. Apart from that, the manga's highly derivative nature also became a hot topic among plenty of critics.
4) Shuwata Ramunemura
The mangaka of the romantic comedy Gal Cleaning is particularly notorious for symbolically torching and burning his own creation. The story comes from readers of the series saying that manga creator Shuwata Ramunemura lost his mind by chapter 8 when it was announced that the series would be getting canceled due to low sales.
The manga is an adorable story about a guy moving in with a rather unsanitary girl as he finds ways to clean things in her apartment. Interestingly, this led to one reviewer dubbing the main character "the Sherlock Holmes of cleaning."
Then chapter 8 happens, where the art takes a nosedive. The manga creator's writing gets progressively like a doujin (self-published creative works), which ends with a side character having repeated traumatic flashbacks to a r*pe scene. While Ramunemura wanted to leave an impact on society with his work, the cancelation of his manga brought in the wrath of his fans instead.
5) Aki Arata
This was another problem coming from the manga creator's side and specifically from a shojo manga creator. Houou Gakuen Misoragumi, aka The Beautiful Skies of Houou High, is a less popular book by Aki Arata that was published from 2008 to 2010.
The plot involves an abusive mother deciding the best way to "cure" her daughter from being a lesbian is to send her to an all-boys school. This could work if the story does not appear to agree with the mother. However, the daughter falls in love with a guy in the end.
As such, the manga has been called wildly homophobic and misogynistic, owing to the sheer amount of abuse the main character, Kei, undergoes. Many English readers and publishers even officially disowned this particular series since the manga creator wasn't available for comment.
6) Hajime Isayama
According to shonen manga readers, when a series ends badly, then the manga creator must be open to face all kinds of backlash. One of the most recent social media backlashes to a mangaka came in the form of the online treatment of Hajime Isayama following the release of Attack on Titan's final chapters.
It is one thing to hate an ending, it's another to send death threats, verbal abuse, and attempt to shut down any discussion of the aforementioned series because the ending didn't the general populace's expectations. Other criticisms of the series included hatred of Gabi Braun for killing Sasha Braus, Eren going wildly out of character, and the entire story feeling meaningless after the ending.
Hate never dies on the internet, it just goes into hiding. Although Isayama got a better reception than most when the heat died down, several fans haven't forgiven the ending.
7) Yuto Tsukuda
Yuto Tsukuda's Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma is a fairly popular series that is generally liked by fans. However, the ending left a bitter taste in many readers' mouths. The Le Cuisiner Noir arc and Le Dessert arc are largely hated by fans owing to their lack of complexity and unsatisfactory execution of the narrative structure.
Fans often cite that the romance between the two main characters was ruined by revealing that they are half-siblings. Moreover, the Noir arc, in particular, moved characters backward. For many fans, the manga felt like it went for several unnecessary twists and repeated itself far too often for their liking.
To add to that, the consulting chef for the manga was out on maternity leave during that time, which explains a lot with regard to the food being less appetizing and less realistic in the preparation and judging aspect.
8) Eiichiro Oda
In a recent "Most Hated One Piece character" poll, series' mangaka, Eiichiro Oda, was listed as the second-most hated character from the recently released One Piece Film: RED. This is naturally confusing to an outsider who has no idea why the manga creator of one of the most successful and longest-running shonen manga would get enough hate to earn the second spot.
Many theories have stated reasons, such as the manga's length at over 1,000 chapters burning fans out to Oda himself exceeding his own deadlines. Some fans have even mentioned that the undoing of important characters' deaths, including Saul's, provides a conflict with the reader's emotional state of mind.
Ultimately, this listing should be taken with a grain of salt. Considering that fans and critics of One Piece have been lobbing accusations for nearly a decade, it's a bit much to take in.
9) Masashi Kishimoto
If Eiichiro Oda receiving hate was a surprise, then Masashi Kishimoto's mention is yet another shocker. There are a few reasons as to why the Naruto author is hated, although not a lot of them have much backing and quickly devolve into fandom opinions on how Naruto ended and if Boruto is a worthy successor at all.
Some hate Kishimoto for the Sasuke bias in the manga, which includes not committing to making him a straight villain until the end of the series. Others credit him with the "Talk No Jutsu," wherein the titular protagonist talks down all the villains, much to the annoyance of the fans.
A few others consider Kishimoto misogynistic due to his treatment of his female characters. While that is a fair critique of Naruto, saying that a creator must hate women because of that is a little too much.
10) Kohei Horikoshi
The acclaimed author of My Hero Academia is no stranger to criticism of his work. My Hero Academia seems to have fans chomping at the bit to destroy the mangaka for many things, including Mineta's existence, the NSFW art drawn featuring the reveal of Invisible Girl Toru Hagakure, Bakugo's attitude in general, outrage from a villain's name perceived as a reference to Japanese war crimes during World War II, among several others.
Some of the complaints concerning the manga creator are valid, such as the mishandling of female characters, while some aren't. My Hero Academia fandom tends to be reviled as toxic for many things, including people shouting down others, racism, homophobia, etc. It's hard to know sometimes what is true or not when emotions run high on the internet. Suffice to say, curating one's online experience seems to be the way to go when dealing with fandoms.
These are the 10 manga creators that are hated by their audiences. As stated prior, while some of these complaints are valid, others feel more like fandom inventions intended to cause drama. Feel free to suggest mangakas who were missed in the comments, alongside any complaints one might have about any of the ones profiled here.
