Chinese, South Korean, and Western people on Twitter demanded an apology from Horikoshi because of the name of One For All’s Doctor being revealed in the manga. They were enraged by the name, “Shiga Maruta”, because they claimed Maruta was referencing the infamous Unit 731 from World War 2.
The Chinese, Korean, and Western, accounts then bombarded Horikoshi with hate and demanded he change the name of the character and apologize. Using hashtags like “Hero_do_not_harm_innocent_people” and “APOLOGIZE_HORIKOSHI”.
The original report is below if you have not seen it yet.
Horikoshi and Shonon Jump did indeed end up apologizing, posting the apologies onto Twitter.
In the below video, I explain why this is troublesome.
He has nothing to apologize for and he now opened the floodgates to potential future hate, as the people outraged know they can now attempt to get him to change things that they may dislike in the series. They succeeded this time after all.
It is understandable that Horikoshi would want to clear up the logic behind the name ( Horikoshi claims “Shiga MAruta” is referencing the character Shigaraki, and playing on the Doctor’s physical appearance as well. ) but he did not need to apologize or change the name to make that clarification. It’s too late for that now though.
All it took was about 24 hours after Horikoshi apologized for people to find something else to be outraged about.
Now they’re claiming that the show should be called “My Fascism Academy”. The reasoning; certain birthday dates of characters in My Hero Academia are apparently shared by historically terrible people.
As you can see the post is already taking off. Over 10,000 Retweets. Over 14,000 Likes. At the time of writing this at least, surely when you read this report, the numbers are even higher.
( Thank you NoriyukiWorks for the news tip ! )
Video discussion of this report;
9 Response Comments
omg these people need to get lives. Asia is practically trying to make Japan have their own version of “white guilt”.
p.s. loving the news site dude. It’s a good way to get info without needing wifi or time to watch a video. With these stupid internet mobs brigading people left and right, keeping the community informed is key to help protect the people we’re fans of.
…You can’t force someone else to accept another’s apology. I almost can’t bare with the level of naivety and self-righteousness in this article. I agree that some people are out of line, but you’re also completely ignoring the protesters’ justified feelings and reasons, and the complexities of the situation.
First of all, just to get it out of the way, 丸太 as a name is extremely rare, and whenever it’s used, it’s usually pronounced ‘ganta’ instead of ‘maruta’ to avoid references to unit 731. But horikoshi used furigana to specifically say it’s ‘maruta’. Combined with him saying ‘I put so much thought into every one of my names’ in one of his earlier volumes, that’s why the outrage started.
Second, the protest was largely about normalizing war-related terms in a war-denying Japan. Have you ever watched any documentaries on unit 731? It was arguably much, much more inhumane than Auschwitz. Words related to these shouldn’t be used in entertainment, because it changes and shifts its meaning. This is a huge issue in the current Japan, where Unit 731, Nanking Massacre and comfort women are still denied by not only the government, but also a large number of people. (Here’s a reminder that, a lot of recent news about Japanese right wing is ignored by most English media.)
Third, the apology wasn’t sincere at all. The first protesters were Koreans, yet the apology was ONLY issued towards Chinese people, AFTER Chinese websites took down MHA manga and anime, AFTER game collaborations went into halt. The first announcement they made had no intention of apology whatsoever.
Lastly and sadly, the outrage is also largely connected to the extremely toxic fanbase of Chinese MHA fans and their actions over the years. There is so much history and bs here that I don’t want to get into. Some of these ‘outrage’ is actually retaliation against the toxic fanbase. I DON’T endorse these, but it’s extremely biased to leash out attacks and blames without at least mentioning the history/situation.
Still, it’s ridiculous that you want to pressure or force forgiveness out of someone else. It’s ridiculous that you think you know better while being uneducated on the situation. It’s ridiculous to imply that you can tell someone else what to feel.
How gullible can a person possibly be to seriously think that someone can celebrate both nazism and communism (as the image imply)? Not even counting that these birthdays have been known and celebrated for years and only now someone thought of that? Ridiculous. This is some flat earth society level of disconnection from reality and bad faith, but yet again, the Korean fandom is pretty famous for its toxicity (they bullied a singer until he committed suicide for a slip in a interview) and chinese are, well, chinese. I honestly find it pretty hypocritical, and frankly ridiculous, this supposed indignation on the chinese part especially, since their country is not exactly the most respectful towards others. It’s pretty telling when even SJW don’t want to be by your side on a supposed racist attack, and oh, if they tried to get their help.
But even if the protest was right, the moral high ground was lost the moment the bullying started. Nothing, NOTHING, allows anyone to reach that level of vicious attack, to the point that several hundred chinese Twitter accounts were created for the sole purpose of promoting this protest (funny thing, that one, since Twitter is supposed to be banned in china). There is a difference between not wanting to forgive and actively attacking someone and that limit has been passed several times over. Expecting any kind of empathy at that point is incredibly self-entitled, sorry
Hello username godsamit. Thank you for expressing your ideas from a Chinese’s perspective. However, I am afraid some of your opinions are biased and kind of misleading. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to tell you what and how to feel. I am here just to show people what I thought and hope other people can get a more complete picture of what happened based on both of our words.
For your first point, yes 丸太 is referred to victims of human experiments during WW2. However, from what I have observed on Twitter, most Japanese people claimed that they only know 丸太 (maruta) means logs in Japanese but never had related this name to victims during WW2. In fact, a lot of Japanese people even said that it was their first time to ever heard about unit 731. Apparently common Japaneses have never been taught about this history in schools. This is because Japanese government has a tendency to deny war and not teach young generations about the past, which is very frustrating.
So, based on this fact, there is a possibility that Horikoshi, who is relatively young, actually just like every other Japanese and does not have an idea about what unit 731 did during WW2 let alone referring 丸太 to provoke Chinese and Korean fans deliberately.
As Horikoshi has explained in the second apology, the reason why he named the doctor 丸太 is because his appearance is fat, as these two Kanjis also represent fat. In addition, fans have also noticed that every BNHA character without a quirk has a name related to “wood”. From what we have learned from the manga, the doctor also does not have a quirk. As 丸太 means “log” in Japanese, there is a possibility that Horikoshi named this character because he wants a name which links to “wood”. As you has stated, 丸太 can be pronounced as Ganta. However, 丸太 means “log” only when these two Kanjis is pronounced as Maruta. The doctor’s new name has been announced today. We can see a Kanji 木 (wood) is in the new name. Horikoshi is directly refering the name to “wood” this time. It further confirms BNHA fans’ theory, that every character without a quirk has a name related to “wood”.
For your second point, I totally agree that the tendency of Japanese government to deny war is very disappointing. However, this tendency is not caused by Horikoshi and I believe it should never be used as an excuse to cyberbully individual mangaka. As what I observed on Twitter, things went out of control quickly and many people registered new Twitter accounts only to harass and send insulting messages to Horikoshi, Shueisha and BNHA fandom. I respect people who tried to protest in a peaceful way, and I don’t think cursing others and attacking individual mangaka is a good way to protest or ask for apology. Unfortunately, those irrational protesting people left other BNHA fans with a stronger impression than those rational ones. If those people are so angry about Japan’s war denying behaviors that they can’t help it, I suggest they should go for Japanese government directly.
For your third point, I want to let you know that Korea does not have the copyright of weekly BNHA chapters. So Korean people has no other ways but to read BNHA new chapters scans on illegal sites for free. Japanese fans are very angry about that and some of them keep demanding Shueisha to not apologize. I think it would be impossible for Shueisha to apologize to Koreans in their public announcement otherwise their attitude would indicate a tendency to tolerate illegal manga scans. In addition, you mentioned that the second apology only came out after China has banned the everything related to BNHA. Well, from what I learned, Chinese websites banned the manga on the same day Korean people started to protest. At the same time, Japanese people tend to have really really long meetings before they can finally make any decisions. I think this just reflects that Chinese people are so efficient and Japanese people are so inefficient.
I hope you don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to force you to forgive Horikoshi or Shueisha. I am not trying to tell you what or how to feel. I am just stating other possibilities of what Horikoshi’s real intention for the name 丸太 are and give some background information about cultural differences and copyright issues. Again, I want to state that I also feel very frustrated about Japanese goverment’s war-denying tendency. But I don’t think people have the right to cyberbully individual mangaka, especially when his real intention is unclear. Some may think Horikoshi deliberately used this name while some may think it was just a coincidence. The fact is, no one can really determine whether Horikoshi actually intentionlly used this name to normalize war-related term or not. So to people who are keep insulting Horikoshi, PLEASE STOP. If you do not accept the apologies, you may choose to not read BNHA anymore or you may choose to continue to protest in a peaceful way. Cyberbullying won’t solve anything but only increase hatred between each other. Thank you for your reading.
Hi Lunarossa94, I don’t know if you’d ever read this. But if you do, I want to ask you a question: by your logic, is the HK protest completely illegitimate?
You know, because some protesters beat up tourist for speaking mandarin? Because the lynch people who try to pass their “road block”? Because they literally set a man on fire?
You know, since “Nothing, NOTHING, allows anyone to reach that level of vicious attack”?
Do you still have any empathy for HK people? Since you said “expecting any kind of empathy at that point is incredibly self-entitled”?
There’s going to be extreme individuals in every movement. They DON’T make the entire movement invalid. Don’t you realize that people who even bother to go on twitter, which is banned in China, tend to be more extreme?
I of course DON’T side with those people. I despise what they do. But they also DON’T discredit the protest.
Hello erithel55657, I thoroughly enjoyed your response! It was better written than mine lol. It was such a well-rounded speech.
I just wish to add that, despite all the immaturity and ugliness, a major portion of the protest is not directly targeted towards Horikoshi himself. Instead, it’s this sentiment that no matter what the intention is, any disrespect towards victims in WWII shouldn’t be tolerated. The damage is done, and someone/something needs to be held responsible. There can’t be easy getaways like “I had no such intention”.
Of course, that leaves tons of room for discussions and problems. e.g. over-interpretation, voluntary censorship…
I read, I read Godsamit and I’d like to ask a question. Do you even realize that you’re still pretending to be in another person’s head, and to understand a language and a culture better than those who were born in it? Because that’s what happened and what you’re still doing. Assuming someone is willingly mocking you and your culture. That’s how this whole mess began. Koreans read the illegal scans and prepared a mob days in advance, willingly ignoring the Japanese who were trying to explain the whole situation and even trying to teach them their own language. Why refuse any confront in first place? Why blindly go on like an angry bull? Why refuse to even talk to the counterpart? Why go on asking for more even when you got what you were previously asking for and changing your goals? You really think that every single soul in WSJ (because is not only the author who controls the Manga, far from it, and that’s the reason Isayama fleed from that magazine) never caught such a supposedly obvious reference that would have stirred a controversy? Every single person in WSJ is more stupid than you? Truth is not an easy gateway when is truth. Will to do something is what differentiate some good sex from rape after all. Your reasoning is that those two things are exactly the same thing.
And about HK, you’re familiar with the concept of civil war? Every single country in the world had one at some point and it’s not exactly on the same level as some Twitter drama. My country had several too. We killed Germans and they killed us in retaliation. In WWII, how coincidental. That was a mess of a period. But if a German person accidentally bumps on me, I don’t dig up my dead ancestors to harass him. I would find it disrespectful. I ask if he was intentional and, if it wasn’t everyone go their way. I can understand people fighting for their freedom, much less stirring up some internet drama and refusing any sort of confront because someone is too opinionated to admit they made a mistake in first place.
PEOPLE ARE TOOO “HUMANE” SO DELICATE…SO SENSITIVE! SO FRAGILE!!! ESPECIALLY ABOUT HISTORY….THAT IS WHY HUMANS WILL ALWAYS BE BROKEN & ARROGANT! KREKREKREKREKREKREKREKREEEEEEH!🌚😈☠️👁
These people,probably bots, aren’t even Japanese! They are criticizing Horikoshi-sensei(who is Japanese) about his own characters and products! So what if their birthdays are the same as an evil person born long ago! Over time birthdays will overlap so it’s not surprising to see two horrible people be born on the same day from different years. Life has gotten too easy for they sensitive snowflakes. They need to realize that a show will have a “bad word” or “terrible quality’s” like demon slayer being about demons! People will only see the top layer of it and never delve deeper into it. I support Horikoshi-sensei and I hope he doesn’t stop this amazing creation!!