My Hero Academia Creator Surprises Fans with Iida Sketch

As My Hero Academia continues the story about how Izuku Midoriya will one day become the number one hero, series creator Kohei Horikoshi has taken care to flesh out the world around the young hero in training. This is especially true for each of his classmates in Class 1-A, and while some of the young heroes still need their time to shine in the spotlight, one of the favorites that has made a name for himself has been Tenya Iida. After taking a central role during the Hero Killer Stain arc, Iida has gone on to such popularity that he was recently immortalized in merchandise.

Horikoshi himself was excited to see Iida join the ranks of Banpresto’s line of My Hero Academia collectible figures alongside fan favorite heroes like Todoroki and villains like Shigaraki, and to celebrate the occasion the prominent creator shared a fun new sketch of the young Ingenium to Twitter. Check it out below:

Noting that Iida’s panicked expression has been hilariously brought out through this collectible, Horikoshi is loving that Iida was captured in such a way. This is pretty indicative of Iida’s run in the series as well as he often is the one tasked with running in major events. Their first major run in with villains at the USJ, for example, Iida’s big role was to run back to U.A. Academy as fast as he could in order to alert the heroes.

Iida shifted in a big way later throughout the series as we began to learn more about what makes him want to be a hero. He might have gone further into the background following the events of the Hero Killer Stain arc in which he inherited his brother Ingenium’s name, but fans are still waiting for the day that Iida gets to shine again.

Until then, at least he’s joined the line of great collectible figures alongside others like Ochaco Uraraka and Himiko Toga. What do you think of this sketch or Tenya Iida in general? 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 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. If you wanted to check it out for yourself, you can currently find the series streaming on Crunchyroll and FunimationNOW. Funimation will also soon be bringing My Hero Academia’s second big movie, Heroes Rising, to North America on February 26th.