My Hero Academia paved the way for Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren and more anime in the West

In an interview, Hiroyasu Matsuokathe CEO of TOHOattributed to My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) the success of other animes in the West.

Matsuoka said that the Toho Animation had difficulties before the arrival of My Hero Academiaand stated:

At that time, I was responsible for overseas, and overseas distribution companies started visiting me daily for negotiations. They desperately wanted to get their hands on My Hero Academia. We discovered them increasing their offers despite the previous ones still being analyzed, and rival companies were also entering the market, increasing the price even further with increasingly exceptional numbers.

This led us to recognize anime’s potential for success abroad and we began to focus on expanding our business abroad. Of course we needed to address the domestic market, but motivated by how we could expand anime abroad, we didn’t neglect the rapidly expanding anime boom. We had already built a network to some extent, so we were able to handle works like Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and The Apothecary Diaries.

With the conversation taking place in 2023, Matsuoka commented:

Of the productions that will be released next year, the one that excites me most is Kaiju nº 8.

Season 7 of the anime series adaptation of the manga My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) by Kōhei Horikoshi began airing on April 6th, 4 summary episodes will be shown, new episodes will only start airing on May 4th, 2024.

Horikoshi started publishing the manga My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia) in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in July 2014.

Izuku Midoriya wants above all to be a hero, but he doesn’t have a single drop of superpowers. Without the possibility of attending the UA High School for Superheroes, his life seems to have reached a dead end.

It is then that an encounter with All Might, the greatest hero of all time, gives him the opportunity to change his destiny…