My Hero Academia Studio President Talks Past, Present, And Future For The Franchise
Despite the recent series finale of My Hero Academia, the superhero shonen franchise keeps finding unique ways to stay in the public eye. Following the epilogue episode, My Hero Academia: More, which expanded on Deku’s world now that he and his classmates are adults, another entry recently hit the screen. My Hero Academia: I am a hero too focused on Eri’s life after the series, proving there was still gas in the tank. Recently, we here at ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Studio BONES president Masahiko Minami about working on the series and what the future might have in store.
For over ten years, BONES has been the premiere production studio working on Kohei Horikoshi’s superhero shonen series. While the animators have worked on the main series, they have also worked on the likes of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, the special shorts, and the four films that further expanded on this universe. Minami was more than happy to discuss how the ball got rolling on this unique partnership: “It’s been over a decade since I met the writer, Horikoshi-sensei, and what really attracted me to My Hero Academia was the power and themes of the series. I’m very happy we were able to adapt this work into the anime for fans to enjoy!”
An Original Anime World
While Minami was more than willing to talk about the past, while also thanking fans for checking out the special that recently hit Crunchyroll starring Eri, he was remiss to pin down whether BONES was working on another My Hero Academia project. Many fans have wondered if there would be a third season of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes and/or another movie to focus on Class 1-A as adults. While nothing was set in stone, Minami also didn’t close the door completely during our discussion.
Luckily, what Minami was able to discuss was how Studio BONES was willing to venture into the world of original anime projects. For those who might not know, the production house has been well known for the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist, Gachiakuta, and Mob Psycho 100, though these properties were all based on established stories. Metallic Rouge, which is a recent anime release, was an entirely new story created by BONES for the screen, which the studio and Minami consider to be “essential.”
“When it comes to our production style, we are always looking for orginality and how we can achieve that. Normally, when we work on a story that has already been established with its world and characters, we mostly have to think of how to bring that to animation while keeping the spirit. For original works, it’s one hundred times more difficult because we have to go entirely from scratch. Even with how challenging this is, BONES is still committed to original animation.”
The Challenges of Anime In The Present
Like many other production houses, BONES has had to deal with its fair share of challenges. Even with the anime industry flourishing in recent years thanks to the easy availability of streaming, this fact does place some interesting hurdles in the studio’s way, “It’s a better environment today thanks to the way that people can access anime globally, but what’s worrying me about the industry is to keep producing animation to match the scale of accessability. Anime isn’t something you can ‘manufacture,’ it doesn’t work like that, so there’s an inherent limitation on how much we can make. As the industry gets bigger and bigger, we have to work on anime a lot more meticilously and with far more attention to detail.
Even if My Hero Academia never returns with a new story, anime or otherwise, its creator is still hard at work. Kohei Horikoshi is releasing a new horror story in a few days’ time, which will finally give the mangaka the chance to explore the genre in a brand new way. Titled Don’t Laugh, Shijima-San, Minami has already teased that BONES might one day adapt this story, but only if the stars align.
