Why the new My Hero Academia manga cover is not sitting well with fans

My Hero Academia is arguably one of the most popular modern shonen anime and manga series presently. The manga is at a crucial stage and fans are bracing themselves for a good conclusion. However, the fanbase seemed to have noticed something that they found completely unacceptable.

The cover image of My Hero Academia chapter 368 was quite problematic, and the fanbase was quite upset with the mangaka of the series, Kohei Horikoshi. Social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit went berserk when they saw the illustration on the cover image of the series.

Let’s understand why the My Hero Academia fanbase was upset.

Disclaimer: This chapter reveals Toru Hagakure's appearance which was shown in the manga.

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My Hero Academia: The illustration on the cover of Chapter 368 had left the fanbase fuming

One of the biggest problems with this illustration is the fact that the character, Toru Hagakure, has been sexualized a lot. Not only is this quite problematic, but the issue is also amplified because of the fact that this character is just a student.

She isn’t 18 years old, and sexualizing a minor is something that is absolutely unacceptable. The fanbase was fuming when they came across this image and raised this issue on Twitter as well.

Despite the sensitive nature of this issue, some went to the extent of justifying Horikoshi’s design by talking about the legal age of consent in Japan. While some might have attempted to justify their favorite mangaka's actions, they merely exposed a much deeper problem that Japan as a country faces every day.

This isn’t the first anime and manga series that has sexualized minors, as the animanga community is actively fighting against such representation in this media format.

The My Hero Academia fanbase also took this opportunity to criticize the mangaka’s writing in some of the recent chapters. One of the Twitter users stated that Horikoshi’s reason for drawing Hagakure in this manner could be due to the fact that he wanted to retain a good chunk of his readership, which would have tanked owing to the poor writing standards in some of the recent chapters.

Many fans got the wrong end of the point when they justified Horikoshi’s illustration by stating that Toru Hagakure’s battle uniform was her being naked with just gloves on. The point that people are trying to raise here is that the illustration in question is clearly an attempt at sexualizing the character. Hagakure using her quirk and making herself invisible isn’t.

That being said, the character’s abilities could have been revised when this series was created considering the fact that an underage girl can’t wear clothes in order to utilize her quirk efficiently. My Hero Academia fans now hope that this wouldn’t be repeated, but considering Horikoshi’s track record, it isn’t altogether impossible.

The anime and manga community also is hoping that their favorite artists continue writing great content without resorting to sexualizing any of the characters in the series. These are some of the biggest problems that this industry is facing and My Hero Academia’s latest chapter cover is a mere example of this problem.

Be sure to stay tuned for more anime and manga updates as 2022 progresses.