My Hero Academia's creator and artist, Kohei Horikoshi, may already be considered one of the manga world's greats, alongside talents such as Akira Toriyama, Eiichiro Oda, Tite Kubo and others. His hit superhero manga has made him a star, but he's known for more than that. For example, he loves drawing certain parts of human anatomy.
Some manga artists are known for not just their drawing style, but also their tastes and preferences in material and subject matter, such as Masashi Kishimoto drawing toes and Tite Kubo drawing trendy outfits on his characters. Kohei Horikoshi, for his part, can't resist the urge to draw human hands all over the place.
The Many Hands of Kohei Horikoshi's MHA & Social Media Accounts
Kohei Horikoshi puts great emphasis on human hands in My Hero Academia and has admitted as much himself, as a post on Twitter shows. According to Horikoshi, hands are the most expressive part of the human body aside from faces, and he gets frustrated drawing inexpressive hands in his manga's art. It may also be noted that some of Horikoshi's author avatars involve hands, such as the one shown on that Twitter post. In fact, it depicts one hand coming out of another, and he has informally drawn himself as hands in other art, too. It's not unusual for manga artists to use cute or funny avatars for themselves in messages to fans, but Horikoshi takes the extra step of expressing his love of hands in this way.
The art of My Hero Academia emphasizes the hands of many characters -- most of all, Tomura Shigaraki, the series' biggest and baddest villain aside from All For One himself. Shigaraki's Decay Quirk is based on touch with all five fingers, and his villain costume involves clamping gray, dismembered hands all over his arms, face and upper torso. These hands symbolically tie into his gruesome and traumatic past as a boy. Then there's Izuku Midoriya, who primarily uses One For All through his hands, repeatedly breaking his fingers and upper arms. Izuku now has scars all over his hands, especially his right hand.
Other characters likewise emphasize their hands in one way or another, such as Itsuka Kendo, the "big sister" of class 1-B, whose Quirk swells her hands to enormous size to capture enemies. She once even fanned away poison gas with those oversized hands. Meanwhile, Katsuki Bakugo only fires his Explosion Quirk through his hands, and Ochaco Uraraka's zero-gravity Quirk is based on touching items or people with the pads on her fingertips.
What Do Hands Represent in MHA and Fiction
Fortunately for Kohei Horikoshi, his fondness for drawing hands isn't at all conspicuous in his manga's art, because human hands have been highly expressive and meaningful in many works of art, dating back thousands of years in all cultures. Hands are universal symbols of all sorts of things, so My Hero Academia's heavy emphasis on hands and fists is intuitive and familiar for anyone who reads or watches this series. For one thing, this is an action shonen series, so fists are expected to be involved, from Izuku and All Might's Smash attacks to Itsuka Kendo's big fists, not to mention emitting Quirks from the hands, like Katsuki Bakugo and Mina Ashido. It fits neatly into the conventions of how comic book and manga action techniques work.
Hands are also highly expressive in other ways, from a friendly wave or the peace sign to an upraised fist or even "flipping the bird," and expressive hands can speak volumes in a manga panel with no dialogue or narration. Izuku might have a hand over his face as he cries, or a battle-weary All Might can raise his fist to declare "I won" -- something Endeavor the flame hero likewise did when he vanquished the Hooded Nomu. Characters can also hold onto each other's hands during difficult situations to demonstrate teamwork and solidarity. Heroes can literally provide a helping hand to civilians in need, and of course, villains like All For One and Tomura Shigaraki want to hold the world in the palm of their hands.
