One of the most popular manga of the modern age is coming to a close—a decade after it first began, Kohei Horikoshi’s seminal shonen series My Hero Academia will come to an end this summer.
The news was confirmed this morning by Weekly Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha, who laid out the scheduling plan for the five remaining chapters of the blockbuster series. My Hero Academia, which is currently on a two-week hiatus after beginning its epilogue at the beginning of June, will return on July 1, releasing weekly until chapter 430 is published on August 5. The series will end just days after the release of the fourth movie in the My Hero anime adaptation franchise, My Hero Academia: You’re Next, which is set to debut in Japan on August 2.
“Some might think, ‘there’s still five chapters to go?!’ while others may think, ‘just five chapters left?!’ But I’ll do my best to make sure both camps enjoy these last five chapters with Deku and the others,” Horikoshi said in a statement released by Shueisha today (translated via IGN). “It was a rocky road, but I was able to draw Deku and his friends for nearly 10 years thanks to everyone who kept on reading. It was a dream. Thank you so much!”
One of the best-selling manga series of all time, it’s hard to overstate My Hero Academia’s impact on the superhero comic landscape in the last decade—not just in manga’s ever-growing reach around the world, but its impact on western superhero media, both on the page and through its similarly blockbuster anime adaptation, which has been airing around the world since 2016. Plans are, in some form or another, still underway to attempt brining the series to life in a live-action western movie adaptation, closing the loop on just how much Horikoshi’s work and influence will have impacted superhero fiction—even well after it comes to an end this August.
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