Scary Realistic My Hero Academia Cosplay Proves Izuku Isn’t as Cute as You’d Expect

Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia recently entered its fifth year of publication in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, and in that time we’ve seen the young Izuku Midoriya make major strides towards becoming the number one hero in the future. One of the major reasons fans have stuck with the young hero in training for so long is that while he might have his super cool moments, for the most part Midoriya is just kind of adorable. Most of the detractors for the series didn’t like his inherently emotional nature, but that’s part of what makes him so cute.

That can be said for the rest of the series as well as Horikoshi’s art makes great use of Western superhero comic book boldness with manga character reactions and sensibilities to form adorable new kinds of designs. Faces contort in fun ways, and the series often makes Midoriya much cuter with each of his wild reaction faces to fun situations…but what if they weren’t so adorable.

We all know about “anime faces,” but artist @ainturwaifu (who you can find on Instagram here) proves that even though all of these reactions and cute character designs look fine in the manga and anime, bringing them into the real world would be far more frightening and otherworldly than you would expect. Check it out below:

While Izuku Midoriya’s stunned reaction doesn’t make you blink twice when seeing it in the anime, seeing it brought to life in this fashion definitely makes it much scarier. It’s the kind of look you wouldn’t want to see alone in the dark, and @ainturwaifu has a ton of other hilariously scary examples of twisting faces like this on their page! Seeing these so twisted, does make one second guess that upcoming live-action movie though.

Will you be able to look at My Hero Academia the same ever again? Does this worry you about the upcoming live-action adaptation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

My Hero Academia was originally 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.