Here's What My Hero Academia May Have Meant to Do With Dr. Ujiko's Controversial Name

My Hero Academia latest manga arc is getting both the hero and villain worlds in position for an epic war, and the new chapter revealed that the heroes were making a decisive first strike against their new adversary. Tomura Shigaraki and the League of Villains have taken control of the Meta Liberation Army, and forged an even more fearsome military group called the Paranormal Liberation Front. Thanks to a well placed spy, the heroes finally identify the true identity and origin for Dr. Ujiko, All For One's right-hand man. Unfortunately for My Hero Academia, the name they chose for Ujiko (Maruta Shiga) has sparked major controversy - though it turns out the outrage may be over a simple misunderstanding!

Warning My Hero Academia Chapter 259 SPOILERS Follow!

As it turns out, Dr. Ujiko / Maruta Shiga's real name written out in Japanese is a reference to horrific war crime experiments. As Comicbook.com's Megan Peters explained:

"In Japanese, the name is written out as 丸太, and it has a dark history. The word in their language refers to victims of human experiments during World War II. The unspeakably gruesome acts were done by Japanese forces to those captured during the war including Korean, Chinese, and other foreign detainees. These acts of war saw little consequence once World War II settled, and there are those in Japan who aren't even taught about the grotesque experiments in school. The fact that Horikoshi chose this name for the doctor has rubbed many the wrong way..."

However, some My Hero Academia fans that are more fluid in Japanese have come to defense of the series and its creator Kohei Horikoshi, claiming this "Maruta Shiga" name controversy is just a misunderstanding. As per Twitter user (@CDCubed):

"...another angle is the wood connection in Quirkless people's names or nicknames (the idea being, wood = useless lump). Deku = wooden puppet Toshinori Yagi -> gi = ki = tree Maruta = log Decent chance the doctor's revised name will be wood-related (maybe Kabu = stump?)"

PS6/ another angle is the wood connection in Quirkless people's names or nicknames (the idea being, wood = useless lump).

Deku = wooden puppet
Toshinori Yagi -> gi = ki = tree
Maruta = log

Decent chance the doctor's revised name will be wood-related (maybe Kabu = stump?)

— Caleb Cook (@CDCubed) February 3, 2020

That's a pretty reasonable explanation, given how manga (especially shonen manga) likes to play little games like this. In fact, My Hero Academia's penchant for invoking names and themes from other popular works could easily make its 'wood names' trend an homage to Dragon Ball's tradition of giving characters names related to vegetables.

Dr. Ujiko's name is being changed to avoid the controversy - if the new name is wood-related, we'll know what was really up.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he's eventually scouted by the world's best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes.