My Hero Academia creator Kohei Horikoshi has officially responded to the controversy surrounding a suggestive cover depicting Invisible Girl. Last October the series sparked an intense backlash with a color page image of Class 1-A student Toru Hagakure, aka Invisible Girl, that was immediately tagged by many in the manga's fan base as a grossly inappropriate depiction of the character.
As reported by Comicbook.com, Horikoshi states that he never intended to use the image, but that it was hastily and unwisely chosen in an attempt to meet a publishing deadline. In the statement, which is reported to appear in the Japanese version of the manga's latest volume, Horikoshi goes on to explain that the controversial image was actually a years old "reference sheet" he intended to use for in-house color testing purposes and that it, therefore, had no connection to the My Hero Academia chapter it appeared in. Horikoshi ends the note by saying he is quite surprised by the use of the image in the chapter as that was not his intention to publish it at all, let alone in the actual manga.
Invisible Girl's Controversial MHA Cover Was an Accident
What set fans off about the cover for My Hero Academia Chapter 368 was that it depicted Hagakure, who in the manga is an underaged, high school student, in a highly sexualized position with an abundant lack of clothing. While similar images are common in adult-oriented manga, they are certainly not often found in youth-oriented shonen manga series such as My Hero Academia. More upsetting, however, was that the image depicted a character, who is supposed to be 16. While this was not My Hero Academia's first controversy Horikoshi has been involved with for his inappropriate depiction of high school-aged female characters, but the graphicness of the image and the fact that it was a color page was just too much for many fans to accept.
Inivisble Girl's Face Reveal in My Hero Academia Was a Big Deal for Fans
The path to the publication of the image began innocently enough. For over 300 chapters the only way Horikoshi depicted the Invisible Girl was similar to the classic black & white movies' depiction of invisible people as a hovering set of clothes without a clearly visible head, face, arms, hands, or legs. That all changed in Chapter 337 when Invisible Girl stepped in front of Deku to block a laser blast directed at him. Toru deflected the blast, which caused a burst of light that illuminated Invisible Girl's face in such a manner that it was revealed for the first time. It was a great character reveal that garnered substantial interest from the fan base.
From that point forward, fan pressure for Horikoshi to present a more complete image of Toru grew. Ultimately, Horikoshi was asked to include an image of Toru Hagakure when she was not invisible in an upcoming chapter, which turned out to be Chapter 337. Unfortunately for Horikoshi, rather than it being an occasion helping to "lock in" and expand the My Hero Academia fandom, the image "mix-up" not only incited serious fan anger and backlash but also lead to more than a few fans abandoning the series. While My Hero Academia's creator has clarified that the image's publication was an accident, it has yet to be seen how angered fans will respond.
My Hero Academia is available to read from Viz Media.
Source: Comicbook.com