The My Hero Academia manga has achieved a new circulation of over 65 million copies as it readies the release of its 33rd collected volume.
The new circulation figure was announced via Japanese entertainment site Comic Natalie. According to the report, Kohei Horikoshi's manga homage to superhero comics has achieved a circulation of 40 million copies in its home territory of Japan, with another 20 million copies distributed to international audiences around the world. This puts the series just ahead of the lifetime sales of other iconic manga such as Boys Over Flowers, Initial D, and Japan's latest smash-hit series, Jujutsu Kaisen, by a few million copies. In addition to its new sales achievement, publisher Shueisha also released a new motion comic trailer for Volume 33 of the manga, which is scheduled to be released in Japan on Feb. 4.
The cover art for Volume 33 was also recently revealed. The full color illustration shows series protagonist Izuku "Deku" Midoriya, clad in his menacing vigilante costume, alongside two of his UA High School classmates, the gravity-defying Ochako Uraraka and the speedy Tenya Iida.
My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and premiered in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in 2014. The series, which is set in a world where most humans are born with super powers, has become one of the most successful manga franchises of the last decade, spawning multiple spinoffs, an anime adaptation, and a series of video games. Now in its eighth year of serialization, the manga still managed to be the fifth best-selling series overall in Japan in 2021, with over 7 million copies sold. The series' latest movie, World Heroes' Mission, was released worldwide in 2021 to the best box-office performance in the franchise's history.
Despite it's continued popularity, the story of Deku and his fellow superheroes in training has been confirmed to be nearing its end. In 2021, Shueisha teased the series was in its "final act," and at the latest Jump Festa convention, Horikoshi released a statement that revealed that, barring any unforeseen delays or hiatuses, he was expecting to complete the series sometime before the end of 2022. The manga has already begun wrapping up several story threads, including revealing the identity of the traitor within UA High School and setting up plans for the heroes' final battle with the series' main antagonist, the power-hungry All for One.
All five previous seasons of the My Hero Academia anime are available for streaming through Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll and Funimation. A sixth season is scheduled to premiere this fall. The first 30 volumes of the manga are currently available in English from publisher VIZ Media.
Source: Comic Natalie, YouTube