r/BokuNoHeroAcademia • u/[deleted] • Feb 07 '22
Manga Is my hero still banned in China? Spoiler
So don't want to spoil the story but there Is a charachter that has a name of a Imperial japanese officer in ww2 Who did bad things in China. So China banned the mha, my question Is Is the show still banned despite the name change and apologize?
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u/celestialempress Feb 07 '22
I haven't seen any source saying the ban's been lifted, so as far as I know it's still in effect. Your explanation is incorrect, though.
A character was originally given the name Maruta, which has "log" as one of its meanings. Unfortunately, this was also the code name given to the victims of Unit 731, Japan's horrifying branch of human experimentation during WWII. Many of its test subjects were Chinese and Korean prisoners of war, so it's understandable why a lot of fans were uncomfortable with that. Horikoshi actually never intended the name to be a reference to that, apologized immediately, and changed the character's name to Kyudai. It's a lot easier to understand why China would bring down the banhammer on the series with that context.
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u/SenatorShockwave Feb 07 '22
Yeah he was just trying to refer to him as a round fat dude afaik. When this happened twitter went bananas and started looking at character birthdays and saying Horikoshi was a nazi because Bakugo and Hitler share a birthday.
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Feb 07 '22
Thank you so much for the explanation and Sorry for the mistake. Thank you for sharing this we must not foeget history even if it's painful so we can stop doing ever again
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u/elenuvien1 Feb 07 '22
Horikoshi actually never intended the name to be a reference to that
i wonder if that's a PR explanation or just a giant coincidence that he made a person doing experiments on people share a name with a real life war project of experiments on people.
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u/Swiss666 Feb 08 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
Neither beforehand nor after MHA sported some attempt at being "edgy" by doing such references to historical events, so I can believe in an unfortunate coincidence or a poor attempt at underlining the evilness of a character (the Doctor would be likened to a war criminal) while not realizing the weight of that name, which according to many discussions at the time is something younger generations of Japanese citizens like Horikoshi's are barely aware of if at all, one of the many reasons relationships between Japan, China and Korea are still so tense.
My issue is rather that in all the chain that goes from the planning phase to that issue of Jump reaching shelves, apparently no one realized or questioned that and thought it would be wise to change the name before printing.
Worse, an uninteded consequence is that copies of Jump with the previous name are likely going to become sought-after collector's items over time :/
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u/elenuvien1 Feb 08 '22 edited Feb 08 '22
a poor attempt at underlining the evilness of a character
that's my thinking. of course i have nothing to base it on but i've always thought that this was horikoshi's way to reinforce that the doctor is bad, because he's linking him to something atrocious in real life and continuously portraying the character in a negative light.
the coincidence is just too specific for me to believe it's simply that. a real life project about human experimentation referenced by a character doing exactly that? with the exact same kanji?
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u/Dex_Hopper Feb 07 '22
Totally think that is a connection, and the wrong people just got pissy about it because 'iT'S In tHe pAsT'. If it's for the sake of children reading or watching, what fucking child is going to know what the reference is to?
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Feb 07 '22
I had no idea. Which character?
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Feb 07 '22
Sorry king i can't spoiler unless you read the manga It's a really big twist that's going to happend in season 6
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Feb 07 '22
I'm fully up to date
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Feb 07 '22
Ok king the character Is the doctor of OFA the twist it's that was the doctor that said Deku was quirkless. I don't Remember his name
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u/Buttercup4869 Feb 07 '22 edited Feb 07 '22
Maruta, his name before the change, means log, and was the dehumanizing term used by Imperial Japanese Unit 731 during WW2 to refer to the people they conducted human experiments on
It is not the name of the officer
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u/augustfolk Feb 07 '22
Horikoshi said it was a coincidence, but it’s certainly a specific coincidence that the mad scientist that experiments on children is also named after a war crimes group that experimented on people.