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My Hero Academia Gets 1st Worldwide Character Popularity Poll, Ad in New York Times

Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia ended its 10-year run on Monday, and to commemorate, Shueisha is taking out an ad in the morning edition of The New York Times on Monday featuring an English comment from Horikoshi:

Click the below image to see a larger version:

©Kōhei Horikoshi / Shueisha

Horikoshi's comment reads:

Thank you for all the love and support for My Hero Academia! Seeing everyone enjoy the series was a joy for me as well. As you continue your daily lives, I hope you will fondly remember Deku and friends every now and then.
Kōhei Horikoshi

The advertisement will also be published in the International edition of The New York Times including in Japan on August 6.

Not only that, Shueisha will host for the first time a worldwide character popularity poll for the manga.

The "World Best Hero" popularity poll is open now and voting will end on September 30 Japan time. Fans can vote once a day.

The results for the first round of voting, called the "Main Stage," will be announced on December 2 at 7:00 p.m. JST (5:00 a.m. EST) via a livestream on the Shonen Jump YouTube channel. A special final round of voting, the "Plus Ultra Stage," will then be held for 24 hours to determine the #1 character from among the top 3 in the "Main Stage." Each person can vote once an hour for a maximum of 12 votes during that period.

The Shonen Jump YouTube channel will again announce the final winner via a livestream on December 3.

The winning character will have a statue created in their honor. Horikoshi himself will draw an illustration that will serve as the model for the statue.

Shueisha also announced a fan art contest. Fans can submit their fanart on X (formerly Twitter) with the hashtags "#WBH_FANART" or "#頑張れって感じのファンアート" (DoYourBestFanArt). 10 works will then be chosen and winners will receive digital data with a personalized signature from Horikoshi. The submission deadline is September 1 and winners will be announced on September 15.

The manga is also commemorating its conclusion with its final fanbook in January, first art book in April, and a new large-scale art exhibit in summer 2025. The 42nd and final volume will release in December.

The manga is also getting a board game titled Boku no Hero Academia YOUR BEST MEMORY to commemorate the manga's completion. Shueisha Games will release the board game in winter 2024.

Even though My Hero Academia the manga has ended, the anime's seventh season is still ongoing, the fourth anime film, titled My Hero Academia: You're Next, opened on Friday and debuted at #1, and there's still that live-action Hollywood film in the works over at Netflix.

With all that plus all the news announced today, it seems like My Hero Academia fans will have something to look forward to for a long time to come.

So, who will you be voting for in the poll?

Sources: Press release, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web