My Hero Academia Fans Criticize Female Character Nejire Hado’s Design

Jorge Arenas |

Oct 2, 2018

In the season three finale of My Hero Academia, fans were properly introduced to “The Big Three,” or the top students of U.A. High School. In fact, much of the episode focused on U.A.’s top student Mirio Togata and his superhero ability or quirk. But that isn’t what caught the eyes of some fans, who took issue with the depiction and appearance of Nejire Hado.

These fans took issue with Nejire Hado’s bust size. They claim that she is overly sexualized using creator Kohei Hoikoshi’s original drawing as a comparison. But some fans were also upset about how another character, Minoru Minetra leered at Nejire.

Check out some of the comments below:

Okay, we gotta have a talk here Studio Bones…. pic.twitter.com/WQxHn7bZsA

— Spooky Lemy ??? (@OnelnLemillion) September 30, 2018

Just to clarify, I’m not mad at Bones or anything. I’m just sharing this cause I think it’s kinda funny, albeit sort of weird and perplexing.

— Spooky Lemy ??? (@OnelnLemillion) September 30, 2018

Since this tweet was recently featured in an article, I wanted to clarify a few things. I am by no means upset, or att*cking Studio Bones. I simply posted and shared this because as I was going through the manga and rewatching the episode, it was quite noticeable, in a funny way.

— Spooky Lemy ??? (@OnelnLemillion) October 1, 2018

Studio Bones has done an amazing job with the My Hero Academia anime, and I truly love and appreciate all their hard work. I was simply pointing this out and bantering with others in the replies because I found it all to be quite humorous. Thank you, and have a nice day!

— Spooky Lemy ??? (@OnelnLemillion) October 1, 2018

;

oh gosh i thought i was the only one having a problem with this asdfghjkl https://t.co/7dl1d6qcbs

— Nejire Hadō (@ShxckingTwists) October 1, 2018

ComicBook’s Kofi Outlaw would write, “My Hero Academia couldn’t have picked a worse week to start exploiting a female character.” He also describes her character design:

“Not only is Nejire drawn with a much bigger bosom in the show, the anime actually gives some perverted indulgence to the alteration, courtesy of Minoru Mineta, who is shown clearly leering at Nejire’s big chest.”

Kofi seems to be in the minority of fans about Nejire’s design. Many were ecstatic about how full of life she is:

Nejire Hado is the cutest Omgee ?
She so bubbly and full of energy. pic.twitter.com/Nvk2KQXHYz

— ✨ stan todoroki shouto ✨ (@whitney70143375) September 29, 2018

NEJIRE HADO YOU HAVE MY HEART pic.twitter.com/nhWRu6nQRi

— ?????? (@amajiikii) September 29, 2018

One fan called out Outlaw’s article criticizing Nejire’s design.

apparently there’s a whole article about nejire hado’s boobs
literally shut up queen nejire is valid in all forms

— Queen Nejire ?? (@QueenNejire) October 1, 2018

Now is there a problem with Nejire Hado? Many fans of anime will admit that Japanese animations have for as long as I can remember taken great liberty with not only the female form, but the male form as well. More often than not, they exaggerate certain features to an extreme. This isn’t anything new by any means. It’s one of the common tropes associated with anime.

In fact, one of the core themes of the first season was seeing the symbol of peace and justice, the superhero All-Might, slowly lose his powers and only be able to maintain for a certain period of time before returning to his weak form.

All-Might

The reason you see exaggerations is because of old cultural stylistic issues of Japanese theater. An exaggerated facial feature, speech pattern, even bust are all there to give certain cues to the audience about what they’re watching. My Hero Academia makes great use of this throughout all of its characters, but especially young Midoriya. His emotions are on full display through exaggeration.

Faces of Midoriya

It’s something you only see used in comedies in the West. Just watch something like [easyazon_link identifier=”B003UAHIM0″ locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Space Balls[/easyazon_link] and take count of how exaggeration is used. In Anime, it’s not limited to just comedy.

The importance of exaggeration of acting both in the physical and emotional sense, in the story, can be traced back to the old Kabuki and Noh theaters. Dialogue, movement, and appearances were all heavily exaggerated. All of which acted as markers of importance to the story.

So when the Japan creators started to create their own animated shows and entertainment the cultural habit just transferred from one medium to the next. Just look at this photo here. What do you see? If drawn out this would be an anime, right?

Kabuki-theatre