Hello again, everyone. I know I had originally said my next update wouldn't be until the end of August, which is when I'm hoping I can upload at least the majority of what I'm calling the Team-Up Missions story arc, wherein I submit some short stories of my own that could fit into the spin-off manga of the same name, giving Kolya and others a chance at some team-ups we otherwise wouldn't have seen.
But today being what it is, there was no way I could go without saying something from the bottom of my heart. with this being the day that My Hero Academia's manga officially comes to an end, I would be remiss if I didn't join all you fellow fans in giving a heartfelt and resounding call of thanks to Kouhei Horikoshi, for having given us such an incredible experience of a story for the last ten years. I may have gotten into it a great deal later than most of you, but the story he told, the world he built, and the characters he gave us have already come to mean a great deal more to me than many of the characters in a lot of the other manga and anime I've experienced over the years.
On one hand, I am glad he got to tell the story he wanted all the way to the end, even if some of us may feel the ending was ultimately rather abrupt, but it's honestly better to have an actual ending, rather than getting cancelled or being forced to whip out an ending in the looming threat of cancellation. Sure, there are elements that ultimately didn't get as much attention or closure as we would have liked, or results that we didn't want, but if there's one thing I've learned from all my life of consuming stories and seeing how they're made, a harsh truth is that no matter how hard you work to cover everything, you'll ultimately and simply won't be able to please absolutely everyone. and it's the responsibility of creators to accept that fact, and still simply do their best to make the work that they themselves want to make.
On the other hand, I'm still very sad to say goodbye to these wonderful characters and this world in an official sense, as I'm sure many of us are, deep down inside. I can only hope, at this moment, that my story, going forward, can be able to satisfy as many of you as I can make it, to help provide even more of this world that we've come to love as we fall into it. Hell, I can only hope it's been able to satisfy you as long-time MHA fans so far already. If there's anything at all any of you would like to say to me in regards to your feelings on my story thus far, or your hopes for it going into the future, please feel free to PM me.
Horikoshi-sensei deserves to take a meaningful break while he comes up with whatever his next dream project to gift us all with, whenever that may be. In the meantime, I hope my story can be a worthy means of carrying on even an ember of the torch he's lit for all us MHA fans across the world. I have plans to start cross-posting this story on several other platforms while this will remain its original home, and I'm even having a couple series of artworks made for this story that will go up on DA in the near future, including a section of manga pages that could easily fit right into the events of the epilogue's final chapter, but that will be saved for when it's all done and ready to be seen by all of you, if you'd be interested.
I should probably get back to working on the Team-Up Missions Arc and the stories it will entail before we ultimately reach the point of no return before I get to rambling or repeating myself. I just didn't want to be too late in saying with all the sincerity in the world: Thank you so, SO much, Kouhei Horikoshi-sensei, for ten years of an incredible and inspiring story, not just for me, but for all of us that have been fans of your work, and who look forward to seeing what you'll come up with next when the time is right. I simply hope to make this story one that's worthy of even standing remotely close to what you've made while still keeping things fresh, interesting and unpredictable.
Arigatou gozaimasu!
Well, I hope to hear from you all with your honest feelings on this matter, and I will see you all with as many chapters as I'm able to have completed of this new story arc at the end of this month. Thank you all.