A die-hard My Hero Academia fan embodied One for All this week with a perfect Nana Shimura cosplay.
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Instagram user Penberly struck a spot-on pose as Shimura (Photo by Ryzen Xia). The cosplay was so striking it made the rounds on social media, going from Pen’s Instagram to Reddit, where BNHA fans raved about it.
Pen apparently prepared the cosplay for Otakon 2018, which takes place this coming weekend in Washington, D.C. Pen is “new to cosplay,” with a history working as a Disney Character actor.
“The people in this world who can smille are always the strongest,” Pen wrote in one Instagram caption, referencing a quote from Nana Shimura herself.
“I wasn’t aware Japan had legalized open carry firearms,” joked one fan on Reddit.
“Her quirk: Guns for All,” added another.
As many commenters pointed out, hardly anything about Shimura is known at this point in the anime or the manga. However, in a lot of ways that just leaves cosplayers like Pen more opportunities to bring what they want to the character. So far, we know that she was the seventh holder of the One for All quirk, and she served as a mentor to All Might himself. From this, we can infer a few things about her personality, assuming that she passed on some of her ideals and philosophies to the self-proclaimed Symbol of Peace.
In the scant flashbacks we’ve seen, that seems to be the case. Shimura shows an idealistic fixation on justice and spreading joy, though she was not always confident in her pupil’s desire to be a symbolic hero.
Still, even in the few mentions of her so far, it is clear that Shimura is no saint. We know, for example, that she was a close personal friend of Gran Torino, who had little interest in being a hero by his own admission. We also know that the leader of the League of Villains, Tomura Shigaraki, is actually her grandson. The manic disintegration villain was really named Tenko Shimura, and he has nothing but contempt for his family legacy.
For those unfamiliar with Shimura or My Hero Academia in general, the series takes place in a fantastical future where superpowers have become all but ubiquitous. It follows Izuku Midoriya through his education at U.A. High School for heroes, as he inherits the All for One quirk and attempts to become the world’s Number One Hero.
My Hero Academia simulcasts on Hulu and Crunchyroll in the U.S., with new episodes every Saturday morning at 4 a.m. ET.
