Interview with MHA Editor – Volume 1
The Honyasan bookstore mobile app in Japan released an interview with My Hero Academia’s editor on July 1, 2019 as part of their campaign to celebrate MHA’s 5th Anniversary.
Enjoy our translation of the interview below! Highlights include him discussing his three favorite characters and his first impressions of Horikoshi.
There’s also a video of the interview on YouTube, and the text in the article is pretty much a direct transcription of the video.
Fifth Year Anniversary!! First Article
The MHA Editor Speaks About Its 5 Year History – Part 1
When were you put in charge of MHA?
I started covering MHA at the end of 2017. The end of the year two years ago. It’s been about a year and a half since I started covering it. Chapter-wise, I started around chapter 167 which is included in volume 18. Story-wise, it was right before the start of the Culture Festival arc. Before working on MHA, I was originally assigned to “Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan” right after joining the company and worked on that for about 3 and a half years until it ended, and then moved to “Toriko” which I worked on just a bit right before it ended. So I’ve been assigned to three series so far.
What was your first impression of Horikoshi? Has that changed now?
Let me see. I was a fan of the series before I was assigned to it, and it started right before I joined the company. I’m in my fifth year here and MHA is on its fifth year too, though technically I’ve been in the company for slightly less time than MHA has been running (lol).
Since I was a fan first, I was really excited to meet Horikoshi and I thought he must be really confident and experienced to be creating a series that was selling and going so well. But after meeting him I learned he’s very modest, and extremely tough on himself, probably more than anyone else, and he generally never says anything positive about himself (lol). It seems he always wants to be looking for things to improve on. You know even to me, and I’m younger than him, but even to me he’s so humble. My first impression was that he’s just really not the type to be proud and haughty. And that impression still hasn’t changed. Of course now that time has passed we can joke with each other more and I feel like there’s less distance between us. But his personality has never changed. I think he’s that way with everyone.
Who’s your personal favorite character in MHA?
The first character I liked was Tokoyami, although his face isn’t human (lol). He’s an edgy boy with a bird head. I’m not sure if edgy is the right way to describe him but (lol) he’s a boy kinda like that. I originally liked him simply because he’s cool looking. His design appealed to the edgy middle schooler inside my heart and I thought he was cool. Since becoming the editor I’ve come to like other characters, one of which is the current No. 1 hero, Endeavor.
I really don’t know how to put this, but bringing a character out for a comeback is really difficult for a weekly manga, I think it’s almost impossible. Taking a character that was once categorized as a bad guy of sorts and turning the readers love of that character around in V-shaped recovery isn’t an easy feat (lol). I really feel like I got to see something amazing as we made the top hero Endeavor a popular character. I feel that his character is one that really allowed me to experience something special.
Another character I like is Monoma, he’s, how should I say this, he’s not a main character but there are bits of amazing philosophy in his lines, and I feel like that’s representative of MHA in some ways. It might sound weird but there’s really no random background characters in MHA, they all have their own unique thoughts and I think it’s amazing that each and every one has their own voice. During meetings, Mr. Horikoshi will often say things like “This guy is this kind of person, so he wouldn’t say something like that,” or just the opposite, “I think this character would do this in that situation”, and when I heard him saying things like that I realized that each and every character, even the side characters, is really an individual to him… or that’s how I see it. I feel that strongly with Monoma’s character so he’s the third character I like a lot.
Vol. 2 of this interview will be posted July 10th and we asked the editor about his favorite arcs and what he thinks the secret to MHA’s success is! Look forward to it!
We’ve also uploaded a video of this 5th Anniversary! Part 1 “MHA Editor Discusses 5 Year History” interview on the Honyasan Youtube account!! Check it out at the link below!!
https://youtu.be/1NnUn2ApHzQ
That’s all for now, we’ll be sure to translate part two of the interview when it comes out later this month. In the meantime, be sure to join the Subreddit Discord for discussions!