‘My Hero Academia’ Animator Shares Sweet One For All Tribute

An animator who works on the My Hero Academia anime posted a touching tribute to the One for All lineage on Twitter this week.

Yoshihikiko Umakoshi celebrated his fourth anniversary with My Hero Academia on Wednesday. He marked the occasion with a drawing of Izuku Midoriya, All Might and Nana Shimura, all standing side by side with broad grins on their faces. They stood three abreast in the same pose — fans on hips, chest puffed — will All Might’s face cut off above the nose.

“Belated congratulations on my fourth anniversary of the Heroacademia series,” Umakoshi wrote. “Congratulations.”

The tweet racked up over 25,000 likes and over 5,000 retweets in a matter of days, as BNHA fans fawned over the original art. It made its way to the show’s subreddit as well, where the English-speaking audience was just as pleased with it.

“Oh my god, this is so cute!” one person commented. “I wish Hori did a similar scetch. Also I’ll die if we ever see Nana and Midoriya interact.”

Umakoshi has an impressive resume in the anime world. In addition to the main series, he worked on My Hero Academia: The Move – Two Heroes. In the past, he has worked on shows including Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist and many others.

These days, Umakoshi’s job titles include character designer, animation director and even chief animation director. However, it’s clear that he can still sit down with a pencil and sketch things out the old fashioned way with no problem.

My Hero Academia: The Movie – Two Heroes saw its official release in Japan on Friday. In the brief time that it has been out, it is already a massive success. At the time of this writing, it holds a 99% positive rating on Google and nine out of ten stars on IMDb — though that is only based on 22 votes.

It will be nearly two months before American audiences can see what all the hype is about. The movie is getting a special five-day-long run in theaters in the U.S. on Sep. 25, 26, 27, 29 and Oct. 2. The showings on Sep. 25, 27 and 29 will reportedly feature the English dubbed audio, while the others will have Japanese dialogue with English subtitles.

The film’s official website lists the 400+ North American theaters that have picked up the movie. The plot centers around a field trip for Class 1-A, while All Might and Midoriya take their own trip to a mysterious island, where researchers want to gather information on their shared quirk.

“After the end of the climatic Final Exams, the U.A. Class members head off to their school field trip for Summer break,” a synopsis reads. “However, before they head off to the school field trip, All Might and Deku accept an invitation from someone to go abroad to a floating and mobile manmade city, called ‘I Island.’ All researchers in the world, from both East and West, are gathered in this place, known as the Hollywood of Science, where they research quirks as well as hero supplemental items at the special ‘I Expo’ convention that is currently being held on the island.”

“This is where Deku meets the quirkless girl, Melissa. Melissa also is like him, quirkless. Deku is able to connect with Melissa by recalling when he too was quirkless. During that time, suddenly, despite an iron wall of security surrounding the island, the system is breached by a villain who hacked into it! The people living on the island are all taken hostage! Now, the Hero Association needs to act quickly to deploy their unshakable ‘Plan’ or else―! The only person who can grasp that key, is none other than the Number One Hero, All Might!”