Not Naruto, My Hero Academia mangaka's drive came from drawing Mega Man

My Hero Academia's mangaka, Kohei Horikoshi, is a person who admits freely that his influences have, to a great extent, led to what the story has turned out to be today. As a matter of fact, a lot of fans don't know that, in Horikoshi's career, Mega Man is a source of inspiration, especially for his most renowned work.

Prior assertion was that Masashi Kishimoto, the author of Naruto, was a big fan of Mega Man, but it was My Hero Academia mangaka who is a huge fan too. In an interview held in 2018, he mentioned that Mega Man was the primary reason he chose to be a manga creator and that was a way for him to enjoy his life.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the My Hero Academia series.

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My Hero Academia creator Kohei Horikoshi and how his love for Mega Man set him on his road to being a mangaka

In an interview he gave in 2018 with prominent Japanese website Comic Natalie, My Hero Academia mangaka Kohei Horikoshi revealed that one of his earliest influences, when it came to drawing, was the Mega Man X2 video game. He explained that the game kickstarted his journey to becoming a very successful author in the medium.

There was a long-standing assumption that it was the Naruto author, Masashi Kishimoto, who was a big fan of the series, but it turns out that Horikoshi is heavily inspired by the game too.

Horikoshi also went on record to say that he spent a long time drawing the character Crystal Snail, which eventually led to him getting praised by his friends at school when he was a kid. That positive reinforcement and attention spurred him on to pursue drawing at a more professional level, which eventually led to him becoming the celebrated author that he is today.

This isn't the first time that the My Hero Academia mangaka has been vocal about his influences, citing Marvel and DC Comics as a major source of inspiration for his work. He has also mentioned that Tite Kubo's Bleach series was a significant influence on his work as well, which is something not a lot of people noticed at first about the series.

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Horikoshi's impact as a mangaka

Bakugo and Deku when they were kids (Image via Bones).

My Hero Academia mangaka Kohei Horikoshi has become quite known and successful with this series, selling millions of copies while also having a well-received anime adaptation by Studio Bones, which is due to have its seventh season this year. Furthermore, Horikoshi has been praised for his art, which has only gotten better throughout the years in Weekly Shonen Jump.

By the same token, while the My Hero Academia mangaka initially gained a lot of praise for this series, recent arcs have been criticized quite heavily in the fandom. There have been some divisive decisions in the story, which is due to end this year, although that hasn't stopped it from being one of the most successful shonen series of the last ten years or so.

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Final thoughts

The My Hero Academia mangaka, Kohei Horikoshi, has gone on record stating that one of the first series to influence him when he was a kid was the Mega Man franchise. The series has been mentioned by the mangaka, along with the likes of Marvel, DC Comics, and Bleach, as the key works that influenced him.

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