As My Hero Academia and Chiikawa unveil adorable new crossover art, Kohei Horikoshi pairs Deku with a cute new friend, while Nagano goes ahead and merges them into a single character.
My Hero Academia is a superhero-themed shonen that is one of the most popular manga currently published in Japan, with more than 65 million copies of volumes sold. Chiikawa (short for 'Nanka Chiisakute Kawaii Yatsu,' aka 'Something Small and Cute') on the other hand, began as a one-page comic strip published by Nagano, a famous artist who previously worked on the Pokémon franchise, online through their Twitter account. The main character is a small, cute creature known as Chiikawa, who doesn't speak but only makes sounds like "wow" or "ahhh." The series became incredibly popular over the past couple of years in Japan, generating a wave of merchandise, collaboration, and even a Chiikawa café chain. Eventually, the daily strips were collected and released in print, with an animated adaptation scheduled to premiere sometime in 2022.
Now, the creators of these two mega-hits have teamed up for some awesome art. Kohei Horikoshi is very active on Twitter and uses the popular social media platform to share original art, such as a beautiful drawing of the three main characters of My Hero Academia. Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki are seen interacting with the cute trio from Chiikawa. On the Chiikawa side, Nagano drew the manga's three characters as the three heroes from My Hero Academia in art that was published in May 2's Jump Giga magazine, creating adorable versions of all three.
The Chiikawa manga depicts the everyday lives of its small, cute characters, so it looks very different from Horikoshi's epic tale of superheroes struggling to save the world. However, My Hero Academia's success was also due to the ability of its author to make the characters feel realistic and relatable, which was achieved mostly by showing their everyday lives as students of the prestigious U.A. High Academy for heroes. It feels nice to imagine Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki catching a break and relaxing in the Chiikawa world for a while, though the diminutive new version of Deku created by Nagano probably wouldn't stand up for long against All For One.
While My Hero Academia is currently in its last story arc, and is set to conclude in 2022, Chiikawa will probably keep going for a very long time, and Nagano updates the comic on Twitter almost every day. According to the reactions on Horikoshi's Twitter, fans loved this collaboration and can't wait to see another crossover between the young superheroes of My Hero Academia and the kawaii icons of Chiikawa - perhaps one in which the cute new version of Deku gets to use his abilities.
Source: Kohei Horikoshi, Jump Giga