[TRANS.] Kohei Horikoshi Answers To Questions About Internship (First Part)

Kohei Horikoshi, the mangaka of My Hero Academia. Interviewed made by Comic Natalie, with questions from fans too.

Q:In July, “My Hero Academia” will celebrate its 4th anniversary. Congratulations. KH: Oh, it’s almost 4 years. Thank you very much. Q: I appreciate to ask you about the content of “My Hero Academia”. In the volume 18 that is the last one that has been released, it has been developed an internship to confront the villain by Deku and his friends that has decided to conduct themselves to Hero Agency Internships and we can consider that as the longest episode of My Hero Academia. KH: The speech of “Internship” has started when we thought “let’s do a long novel!”. Up until now, “HeroAca” has episodes that continued without a break and the longest took around 2 volumes. But, for example, manga like ONE PIECE, has continuously long episodes.

Q: If we have to talk about the longest one, there are even episodes that lasted more than 10 volumes KH: I had the thought that wanted to try challenging a such long novel. Then, I also had the intention to introduce character that could be important to draw in “My Hero Academia”. However when I was drawing, to be honest, it was quite hard and I could not help (laugh). On the way it became like “This is not okay” for me. Q: That thing means it was too much hard to handle a long novel? KO:It’s not about the difficulty(*hard) in regard of a novel, it’s more something about the story. Because the content has ended to be too much dark and my mood, on the way, went into millions of pieces. Q: Surely, in “Internshp”… as a sort of “first time”, there were heavy episodes in which some characters have died. KH: If I read other manga and take a look at movies, I really like gloomy stories. I like bad ending, I am also find with horror and splatter…but this was difficult to draw by myself. I am that kind of person that gets different mood based on what I am drawing. FIRST PART