“I have these lightbulb moments”: Kohei Horikoshi’s Process for Deciding My Hero Academia Character’s Powers is Both Unique and Unusual
Kohei Horikoshi needs no introduction as the writer and artist behind the massively successful series, My Hero Academia. The widely popular phenomenon established itself as a mainstream shonen manga among other industry titans like Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and Demon Slayer.
Horikoshi did not have it easy at first as a young manga artist entering the industry in the late 2000s, but he persevered despite the odds and achieved success in 2014 with his superhero manga, My Hero Academia.
An enormous fan of North American comics himself, Horikoshi made his first-ever professional American appearance at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con to an overwhelming crowd of adoring fans. Anime News Network (ANN) got a chance to talk to the mangaka about his humble beginnings and his quirks.
Kohei Horikoshi Revealed He Just Got Inspired To Draw Unique Characters
In the 2018 interview with ANN, the interviewer stated that Horikoshi gave unique powers and outfits to his characters and while there are numerous superheroes and villains in comics, they had never seen any characters like Best Jeanist or Tomura Shigaraki.
The interviewer then asked whether Horikoshi purposefully tried to come up with superpowers that were unlike anything in the American comic industry, and Horikoshi replied:
It’s momentum. I have these light bulb moments – I don’t spend hours and hours thinking about it. I just get inspired. So for example I’ll be at the convenience store, and I’ll see a roll of clear tape and I’ll think “hmm, maybe there’s a face in here somewhere”. And it’ll just happen that way.
Horikoshi’s “light bulb” moment is indeed unique and different from any other mangakas, as not many mangakas would have an eureka moment at a convenience store of all places. This further goes to prove the genius of Horikoshi’s mind and the distinctive quality of My Hero Academia characters.
Kohei Horikoshi Said That He Wants To Keep The Story Of My Hero Academia Concise
In the same interview, Horikoshi was asked whether he knew what the ending of My Hero Academia would be, or whether it would be an epic story like Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece. This is what Horikoshi had to say:
No, it won’t be infinite – I don’t have the stamina for it to be as long as One Piece. I’d like to keep it concise.
When asked how he planned the storyline for My Hero Academia, Horikoshi explained:
In general, I know what the beginning and ending of the story will be, but everything in between is made up as I go along.
This was not an unusual response as it is quite common among mangakas and comic authors to already know the beginning and ending of their stories. This helps the authors/creators to streamline and map the events of their stories accordingly, so the story does not end up going in a different direction than intended.
