My Hero Academia Creator Returns to Shonen Jump After 2 Years With New Horror Manga
My Hero Academia‘s creator has returned to the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine two years after its finale with a brand new Horror inspired manga. Kohei Horikoshi has been moving on from the hero series for the past couple of years as the manga officially ended its story with a few epilogue entries that helped to further flesh out Izuku Midoriya’s future as a hero. With even those entries getting their official anime adaptation this year, the franchise has officially all come to an end. So the creator’s now moving forward.
Kohei Horikoshi has officially returned to Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine this week with a brand new one-shot manga story, Quit Laughing, Shijima. This new story is set in an entirely different world than the hero series, and shows the creator’s chops more when it comes to a Horror based setting. With this new story now in action, Horikoshi has sparked a potential whole new avenue to explore in the future.
My Hero Academia Returns to Shonen Jump With Quit Laughing, Shijima
Quit Laughing, Shijima is a 60 page one-shot manga story that sees Kohei Horikoshi introduce a completely different world than what was seen in My Hero Academia. In a seaside city, Azumi is a young boy who originally transfers from out of town and is enamored with a young girl named Shijima. Her laugh is infectious, and it has seemingly made her the center of attention for everyone in the city. But all the while, something monstrous seems to be lurking in the seas around them. It turns out, that it’s a being that only Azumi can see.
It’s revealed that Shijima is actually meant to be the latest sacrifice from this city in a long history of sacrifices to this elder god of the sea. Thus Azumi decides to try and save her by any means necessary, and looks a lot like Deku in the meantime. It’s a story that definitely could spark a much longer series if Shonen Jump wants to do so, and clearly has a dark and mystical world that would allow Horikoshi to flex some more of those creepy character designs and art that he would briefly get to do so in My Hero Academia‘s own run through characters like Tomura Shigaraki.
Is Quit Laughing, Shijima Going to Get Its Own Anime?
As it turns out, Studio Bones (the studio behind My Hero Academia) would be interested in maybe turning this one-shot story into its own anime someday. Speaking to ComicBook, Bones president Masahiko Minami stated, “If there is an opportunity, myself and Studio BONES would be very interested in bringing the anime to life” when asked if there was any interest in the story. It’s clear that after working with Horikoshi so long on My Hero Academia, the studio wouldn’t rule out an adaptation for this one.
My Hero Academia has officially ended its own anime adaptations of Kohei Horikoshi’s final manga materials, and this one-shot proves that the creator himself is also moving on to new works. Whether this story leads to a much fuller serialization later on is still up in the air, but there’s clearly a cool idea here that could end up being the creator’s next big work.
