My Hero Academia creator Kohei Horikoshi is apparently a big fan of Komi Can't Communicate.
The manga author posted a pencil sketch of Shoko Komi, the shy protagonist of Tomohito Oda's Komi Can't Communicate, on his personal Twitter account. "I've been watching the anime," Horikoshi stated simply in his tweet, which was attached to a drawing of Komi, whose design appears to have adapted rather effortlessly to the super hero artist's drawing style.
Komi Can't Communicate tells the story of Shoko Komi, a young woman whose intimidating beauty leads many to believe she's intentionally being aloof, when in reality she is just painfully shy and socially awkward. Things change when Komi meets Hitohito Tadano, an average boy who does his best to not stand out, but who nonetheless decides to help her with her goal of befriending 100 people.
Oda's slice-of-life series first debuted in 2016 and continues to be serialized to this day, with over 23 collected volumes released. An anime adaptation, which is being produced by Pokemon's animation studio OLM, premiered in October is currently airing its first season. The anime is being streamed internationally as one of Netflix's big anime exclusives for the fall season, alongside the latest season of the Pokemon anime and the highly anticipated anime adaptation of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's Part 6, the Stone Ocean arc. The show is directed by Doraemon and Space Brothers' Ayumu Watanabe and Yokai Watch's Kazuki Kawagoe. Voice actor Aoi Koga, who portrayed Kaguya Shinomiya in Kaguya-sama: Love is War anime, plays Komi, while Black Clover's Gakuto Kajiwara fills the role of Tadano.
Horikoshi, meanwhile, is continuing to work on the My Hero Academia manga, which published its latest chapter on Dec. 5. The on-going adventures of Deku and his superhero classmates continues to be one of Japan's most popular entertainment franchises, as the manga was recently named the fifth best-selling manga series of 2021, with over 7 million copies sold. The series third theatrical feature, World Heroes' Mission, was released earlier this year and vastly outperformed the franchise's previous two movies at the box office. Despite its on-going popularity, both Horikoshi and publisher Shueisha have hinted that the battle between the heroic One for All and the villainous All for One will soon reach its climax. Weekly Shonen Jump announced earlier this year that the manga had entered its "final act," and Horikoshi has stated in interviews that the series has already gone on for longer than he had anticipated.
The manga for both Komi Can't Communicate and My Hero Academia are distributed in North America by VIZ Media.
Source: Twitter