With its end drawing so close, My Hero Academy took a whole new approach to telling its story, and surprisingly it’s actually working. Mangak Kohei Horikoshi is clearly pushing himself to new limits to create compelling battles in the Final War. However, the result of this pressure to produce new chapters has somewhat distorted the form of the series, reducing the length of its chapters, but surprisingly it performs better.
Chapter #397 best represents this phenomenon. Despite being an extremely exaggerated chapter detailing part of the final battle between All Might and All For One, it is only 7 pages long, too short for a Shonen Jump series. However, the brevity of this chapter really helps to make every console important and gives the fight more weight that it shouldn’t. It also forces Horikoshi to cut out any extra moments that can often get in the way of Shonen’s battles like characters discussing what others are up to. Ultimately, it allows Horikoshi to really focus on creating stunning artwork, making his incredible talent shine even more.
The shorter chapters of My Hero Academia are really good
This is in contrast to the typical weekly production cycle of Shonen Jump manga. Outside of certain holidays or weeks off, each mangaka must write a chapter of approximately 20 pages each week. While most mangakas have assistants to help them meet this deadline, it’s still an exhausting process. However, if a series is big enough, the mangaka will have some leeway with this schedule. Hunter x Hunter went through several long hiatuses (although it was caused by Togashi’s poor health, as a result of his hard work) and series like One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen were published. Take regular breaks for about a week of them. every 4. My Hero Academia is no exception, although this time of crisis has clearly caused these extremely short chapters as well.
However, the high quality of these releases makes the shorter chapter lengths well worth it, although fans may be disappointed they didn’t get more content that week. However, if this chapter is not released as a shorter version then it is likely that it will not be released, which creates even more frustration. This trend could revolutionize the way manga is made, not only cutting down on hiatus but also benefiting mangakas who are forced to release new chapters every week. Shorter chapters can make this much more manageable.
My Hero Academia’s shorter chapters could revolutionize Shonen Manga
It is currently unclear whether this trend will spread to other Shonen Jump manga. Recently, One Piece also had some chapters in the epic Egghead Island arc that were less than 20 pages long, but these were still much longer than the chapters in My Hero Academia. Hopefully this is a sign that My Hero AcademyIts shorter chapters are actually causing a change in the manga industry rather than just a flash.
My Hero Academy available to read from Viz Media.