My Hero Academia’s manga might have come to an end last year, but the original creator behind it all revealed that he originally had a much different idea in mind for Izuku Midoriya’s final moments. My Hero Academia is currently gearing up for the TV anime’s return later this Fall for its final season of episodes, and that means even more fans are going to see how the decade long run of the story came to an end within the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Deku’s ending in particular sparked a lot of debate back then too as fans came to terms with the finale.
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Warning! Massive spoilers for My Hero Academia’s ending to follow! My Hero Academia ended its original run in Shonen Jump with a flash forward jumping ten years into the future following the end of the war against All For One and Tomura Shigaraki, and Deku had since become a teacher without the use of One For All. But as the final pages of the story came to an end, Bakugo and the rest of the former Class 1-A students revealed they pooled their money together to give Deku a power suit that would let him be a hero once more. But according to series creator Kohei Horikoshi, this ending wasn’t the original plan.
My Hero Academia Creator’s Original Plan for Deku’s Ending
According to comments made by series creator Kohei Horikoshi for My Hero Academia’s new exhibition running in Japan (as translated by @shibuyasmash on X), when asked about the changes from the opening chapter’s future tease of Deku saying it was a story about how he became the greatest hero only for the final chapter to then be changed to include everyone else who became great heroes, Horikoshi revealed that the original plan was for Deku to remain a teacher. He’d still be powerless after losing One For All, but ultimately satisfied.
“I originally planned for it to end with Deku becoming a teacher and saying ‘You can be a hero!’” Horikoshi began. “Having used up his powers but looking fully confident…like that. The reason it was changed is because the series was no longer a story just about Deku and One For All.” As Horikoshi continued to explore the ending to the series, he also realized that the scope of the series had changed from how he had originally planned it to go.
What Does This Mean for Deku?
As Horikoshi elaborated further, the overall theme for the series was reflected better in this new version of the ending, “In this series I was exploring ‘What does it mean to be the greatest hero?’ and the answer this manga came to is that it means ‘reaching a hand out to others,’ so I thought I would put the answer in writing and that’s how the final monologue of Chapter 430 became what it is now.” So while it originally had Deku passing on hope to the future, it instead became much more collaborative.
This expansion to the rest of the heroes is something fans started to notice after All Might was originally retired after his fight with All For One. Rather than focus squarely on how Deku was going to make up for the lack of All Might’s power, it instead fell on hero society on a whole to support one another in the face of such a loss. This continued even years after the war, and eventually led to the new version of the future that saw Deku be both a teacher and the future pro hero he always saw himself as.
HT – @shibuyasmash on X
