A group of My Hero Academia readers recently alleged that All Might, the former Symbol of Peace from My Hero Academia, was canonically bisexual and circulated a known and proven mistranslation of a manga panel and interview as evidence.

The discourse surrounding All Might began as Twitter user chiffocado loudly exclaimed in an October 19th tweet “BI ALL MIGHT” and presented a panel from the My Hero Academia manga which shows All Might explicitly stating that he and Sir Nighteye, his former sidekick, “broke up” and an unsourced interview in which author Kohei Horikoshi claims that that he felt “the need to address [sp] the fact that All Might likes boys and girls!”:

This tweet quickly gained attention and popularity, garnering 4.5-thousand retweets and 13.3-thousand likes at the time of writing. It prompted an outpouring of similarly minded readers who believed the unsourced declaration:

However, fans quickly pointed out that the panel from chapter 126, as presented, was a well-known and thoroughly debunked mistranslation:

In the accurate translation, after Mirio Togata asks why he must introduce Deku to Sir Nighteye instead of All Might, the hero declares that it would be “awkward’ to see his former partner, due to All Might succumbing to the very wounds and physical condition that Sir Nighteye warned him about before breaking off their partnership:

LGBT+ users also took issue with the spreading of a false panel, as some believed that the circulation of the panel was a bait-and-switch for those looking for genuine representation in media:

The controversy surrounding this panel dates back as far back as August of 2017, with fans quickly disproving the false translation:

My Hero Academia fan translator sugarmagic also gave a detailed breakdown of the panel when readers first began circulating the edited panel:

“Let’s break down the Japanese here word by word:

訳あって (wake atte) means “for some/a certain reason,” where the reason is ambiguous. This is used specifically if the reason is not readily apparent.

気 (ki) here means “feeling” or “mood”

And マズイ (mazui) is a widely-defined, negative word ranging in meaning from unpleasant, to ugly, to clumsy, to awkward. From the context, it’s clear that unappealing or awkward are the intended meaning.”

Ultimately, after being bombarded by fans correcting the false information, as well as fans who were upset that they were tricked into believing that bisexuals had received representation, chiffocado apologized for posting the image, but declared that believing All Might to be straight “is just heteronormative bs”:

    • Get My Bounding Into Comics Newsletter

    About The Author

    Spencer Baculi
    Spencer Baculi
    Editor

    Spencer is the Editor for Bounding Into Comics. A life-long anime fan, comic book reader, and video game player, Spencer believes in supporting every claim with evidence and that Ben Reilly is the best version of Spider-Man. He can be found on Twitter @kabutoridermav.

    Related Posts