Why Fans Should be Worried About My Hero Academia Backlash from China | The Anime Podcast

My Hero Academia Backlash from China

The My Hero Academia Backlash from China is very serious and should be cause for concern for all fans of the My Hero Academia Manga and Anime. My Hero Academia is facing backlash for naming Villian doctor in the manga "Maruta". According to Abacus News "Maruta was a Japanese code name for victims of human experimentation during World War II, which killed thousands of Chinese and Korean people."  With this knowledge its clear and understandable why people are angry, I would like to think its just art and the creator didn't have any disposable intentions. However, I am not as close affected as the Chinese and Koreans are so it's easy for me to say that.

  The outrage and backlash we are witnessing can cause the whole franchise to potentially be canceled. According to reports "Since the backlash, Tencent and Bilibili have removed the manga from their platforms. Bilibili confirmed the manga was removed “in accordance with China's policies” but didn’t elaborate further."

In case you might not know China is about to surpass America as the large consumer market in the world. It's pretty clear that My Hero Academia has a large number of Chinese fans. Reports say that on Weibo, posts related to the incident have more than 15 million views, with more than 6,000 posts and comments published over 12 hours.  That's a massive amount of attention and people, coupled with the fact that Tencent and Bilibili have removed the manga from their platform that's potentially millions of dollars lost right there.

Read: The Real Reason My Hero Academia Creator Apologized

This is a major hit to the My Hero Academia franchise and as a fan, I am very worried. Anytime money and politics enter the art space its the art that suffers. If this issue is not resolved quickly and or affects the income of the serious then its safe to say that the serious my finish prematurely due to lack of funds or political pressure.


South Korea and Japan are still lacked in an economic war due to ruling by a Korean court order demanding Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, to compensate the families of some Koreans who were forced into labor for the company by the Japanese during World War II. When you add now the fact that Koreans are also angry about the My Hero Academia debacle it's clear that this issue could really blow up bigger than necessary and become very political. Now countries in Asia seem to be relieving the horrors of world war 2 and the Japanese occupation of major cities and countries in Asia.

I really hope that this issue is resolved quickly and it doesn't really affect the Manga and Anime too badly to the point it's canceled.