My Hero Academia Mangaka Kohei Horikoshi Threatened With Home Visit by Angry Fan on Chinese Social Media
A user on a Chinese social media site threatened to travel to the home of My Hero Academia Mangaka Koehi Horikoshi in response to the manga’s previous use of a word seen as offensive to some in the Chinese culture.
On April 1st, threats made by a user on Chinese social media towards Hirokoshi were brought to public attention by Twitter user antelope, who sought help warning Hirokoshi:
我能报警吗？可以帮我转发吗？这是真的吗？我还录屏了视频，我希望平哥安安全全 pic.twitter.com/9HsonJ0H4B
— antelope (@antelop42811165) April 1, 2020
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The user reportedly took issue with Horikoshi’s use of the word ‘Maruta,’ which some Chinese readers viewed as offensive due to the word’s cultural association with Japanese World War II war crimes, as a villain’s name in the manga.
Horikoshi’s subsequent apologies and explanations were unsatisfactory to the user, who threatened to visit the author’s house on April 15th:
OMG a very serious situation a Chinese is saying he will invade Horikoshi’s house on April 15th, it is probably fake but I’m worried #SupportHorikoshi #wesupportyouhorikoshi https://t.co/d42VbQGMg4
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 1, 2020
The person even now reaffirms the incident and now reveals his extremist side when attacked in the comments, I am concerned https://t.co/xZ1iyg9r2y pic.twitter.com/I8Um2EoVCo
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 2, 2020
While the user’s identity currently remains unknown and some were unsure if the threats were authentic or not, the posts have since been reported to Weekly Shonen Jump’s Manga Plus service editor @momiyama2019:
Some new information, now several people are aware of the threat, the video is being widely reported, I also warned Manga Plus editor @momiyama2019 and there were solid indications of the threat’s falsehood, the person’s real identity is becoming more evident https://t.co/Ch25klH8zj
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 2, 2020
As of writing, the unknown user has since been reported to authorities and has apparently shown no further indication of assaulting Horikoshi:
The user @antelop42811165 responsible for discovering the threat was the one who informed me about the situation, he also reported the video to the authorities, npw a large number of chinese criticizing the suspect in his video. +https://t.co/qCuaIurk1T
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 13, 2020
The suspect has not made many posts recently and his videos are all about music videos, in this tweet explain more about what threats are.https://t.co/1RJDyPLr23
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 13, 2020
Seeing the whole situation I now believe that they are false threats, but we did our part to warn about the risk
— MHA NEWS ♂️ 🇧🇷 #SupportHorikoshi (@animenews_news) April 13, 2020
The situation, including the April 13th updates, were also covered by Anime YouTuber Hero Hei.
What do you make of these latest threats against My Hero Academia mangaka Kohei Horikoshi?
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