[AFASG 2016] My Hero Academia Feat. Daiki Yamashita

My Hero Academia (often called Heroaca for short) is a Japanese superhero manga series written and illustrated by Kouhei Horikoshi. It has been serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump since July 2014, and 11 volumes have been collected in tankoubon format. The series has been licensed for English-language release by Viz Media, and began serialization in their weekly digital manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump on February 9, 2015. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without superpowers in a world where they are the norm, but who still dreams of becoming a superhero himself, and is scouted by the world’s greatest hero who shares his powers with Izuku after recognizing his value and enrolls him in a high school for heroes in training. The manga was adapted into an anime television series; the first season aired from April 3 to June 26, 2016, and a second season has been announced.

The appearance of “quirks,” newly discovered super powers, has been steadily increasing over the years, with 80 percent of humanity possessing various abilities from manipulation of elements to shapeshifting. This leaves the remainder of the world completely powerless, and Izuku Midoriya is one such individual. Izuku Midoriya is a regular middle school student in a world where people with superpowers known as “Quirks” are the norm. However, he dreams of one day becoming a Hero, despite being bullied by his classmates for not having a Quirk. Izuku’s unfair fate leaves him admiring heroes and taking notes on them whenever he can. But it seems that his persistence has borne some fruit: Izuku meets the number one hero and his personal idol, All Might. All Might’s quirk is a unique ability that can be inherited, and he has chosen Izuku to be his successor! Enduring many months of grueling training, Izuku enrolls in UA High, a prestigious high school famous for its excellent hero training program, and this year’s freshmen look especially promising. With his bizarre but talented classmates and the looming threat of a villainous organization, Izuku will soon learn what it really means to be a hero.

This time, AFASG presents stage event for featured anime “My Hero Academia” with upcoming guest Daiki Yamashita, seiyuu of Izuku Midoriya. Daiki Yamashita is newcomer male seiyuu. He comes from Shizuoka and now he is working for seiyuu agency Artsvision. His seiyuu debut was in 2012 for PSP game “Tales of the Hero Twin Brave” and anime “Little Busters” just in one month difference. Daiki got his first main character debut in 2013 on anime “Gaist Crusher” as Rekka Shirogane and following in the same year “Yowamushi Pedal” as Sakamichi Onoda. He won the 2014 seiyuu awards as best newcomer male seiyuu. Today is second day of AFASG! Kojacon Team is very happy to attend Heroaca stage event which contain talk show and of course quiz for audience. Let’s proceed to the main part if you want to know further about Heroaca anime and get along better with Daiki!

Hi Daiki! Welcome to AFASG 2016! Do you want to greet the audience here?
“WHAT’S UP GUYS?!” is it the correct greetings in English? Nobuhiko-san (cast of Katsuki Bakugou) told me to say that so I can look cool in front of you! Or am I wrong? Did he just tricked me? LOL Okay once again in the proper greetings! Hello everyone! I’m Daiki Yamashita seiyuu of Deku, Izuku Midoriya from Heroaca. Nice to meet you all today!

Is it your first time to Singapore? What do you think about this country?
Yes this is my first time coming to Singapore. This country is so beautiful, I like it! Anyway, I’m quite shocked about today’s flight, we took midnight flight and just arrived this morning. But that’s not the problem. You know, in Japan now is snowing, very very cold winter so I was wearing coat and scarf etc but when I landed, it’s like “OMG!! Singapore is very hot!!” and I just stripped everything away. I took 5 hours flight from Japan and just slept for a few minutes, then after landed in this morning and take a short rest at hotel now I’m here! Seeing so many audiences come today, I feel like a bit jetlag and nervous now. LOL

Is there anything you want to do in Singapore?
Yeah! After this stage, there will be a “Free Time”!! So I want to enjoy Singapore later, like to eat some local foods. Any recommendation for me? Please tweet to my account what food and where can I eat that food, okay! Actually Nobuhiko-san talked about some foods back there at airplane, but I couldn’t really hear him, sorry. By the way, I just arrived this morning and didn’t have breakfast properly, and now is lunch time and I’m here on stage so I’m seriously hungry! LOL

What is your impression to come to overseas anime event like this?
Really surprised! There’s a lot Heroaca cosplayers here, so happy to see them all! Thank you so much for watching Heroaca! Beautiful!! So beautiful!! I saw cosplayer of Uraraka, Kacchan, and another Kacchan LOL. And wow, most of them are girls as expected! I think no one gonna be All Might because his style is so suspicious, but If anyone cosplaying him now (before or after transform is okay), please let me know! I’ll search for you!

Let’s proceed to Heroaca topic then! Please give us brief introduction about Heroaca anime!
First of all I wanna say thanks for watching Heroaca! For those who doesn’t watch this anime yet, just try to watch it, okay! Basically this anime is another kind of general boys superhero story, but the interesting point is each character in Heroaca has different strong personalities and with deep emotion, they make the story very very attractive.

Is there any unique feature on this anime?
For charming point, humm.. What to say.. In my opinion, there are many different ways to enjoy this anime from many view points. Like maybe, you can emphasize your emotion by seeing Deku, and other characters in Heroaca try to do all efforts as they can to become a hero. Even All Might, he is actually already a hero. But even an absolute hero still need effort to sustain himself as a hero. So if you tired after working or studying full day, just try to watch this Heroaca anime to encourage you all! You should keep going and you should do your best as always!

How about your character, Deku? Any comments about him?
Does he has a different characteristic if compared to another shujinkou? So actually what is shujinkou personality? I don’t remember LOL. I think typical of shujinkou is very powerful and has a lot of self-confidence, right? But Deku, At first time he was a weak boy, really weak, and he is not a confident boy I guess. Because of that, he wants to give himself more support from anyone so he could improve himself. Just like his quirk “One For All” a Quirk that becomes more powerful the more people it is given to, and results in the user being able to call upon great physical strength. He’s quite kawaii~ yet passionate guy, isn’t he? In addition, Deku never leave a halfway works. Whenever he started to do something, whatever responsibility may come later, he wants to fulfill it until the end. Acts as Deku is like living as Deku himself.

That’s good! Do you ever experience the same case like Deku? Something you should finish and couldn’t be left halfway?
Yeah maybe.. You know actually my father was a tennis player, but now he is just a tennis coach. So when I was a kid back there, my father trained me to play tennis. I learned how to hold a racket and swing it, brutally though LOL Since my father thinks about his own son should do a very good tennis, he kinda strict on teaching me. He always say to me for not losing to everyone or I should win every match, and so on. From my childhood memory, I think that’s the same with Deku’s case to have a strong will for fighting and gonna lose to others.

Each Hero has a different quirk, right? Whose quirk power do you want to have? Tell us the reason why.
Difficult question! I don’t want to choose one! Can I have all quirks? LOL I think the most powerful quirk is owned by Todoroki, his quirk “hannen hanrei” is very cool, right? You can control your ice side and fire side power at once! If I’m still in high school now, I supposed to choose his power. But in current condition, I’ll choose the simple one like Kirishima, whose quirk “kouka” or hardening. The power allows him to harden his body to become nearly invulnerable and he becomes the very strong weapon himself. So simple, isn’t it? Anyway if I can choose new quirk outside the anime, I want to have a power of not gaining weight regardless how much I eat! LOL

Which episode(s) from Heroaca anime is your fave?
Eps. 10 part B. When the villains use their powers to scatter and ambush the students around in order to attract All Might for a trap. Deku ends up stranded and surrounded on a boat along with his classmates Asui and Mineta, but after learning more about their powers, he comes up with a plan to turn the tides literally, while Iida is chosen by the others to break through the enemy trap and call for help. Let’s see the cut scene together! You can see, All Might like a perfect teacher there and the student s just works together to achieve their goal.

Who is your fave female character in Heroaca?
I like Mount Lady! She is Heroine whose Quirk Giantism that allows her to grow from her height of 162 cm to 2,062 meters but her fights with Villains often cause a lot of collateral damage and her size prevents her from fighting in closed spaces actually. She also tends to make provocative poses to attract the media’s attention.

Any interesting story about Heroaca that you’ve experienced?
In previous Heroaca event in Japan, Yuki-san (cast of Tsuyui Asui) also came to the stage with me. Her quirk is “Kaeru” gives her a frog-like appearance and abilities such as superior swimming, a tongue that can stretch 20 meters, sticking to and climbing vertical walls, superhuman leaping, and numbing venom. You know, that she said she was watching the video of frog’s daily lives in youtube to imitate the sound of frogs, so she could speak like frog LOL

Thanks for today, Daiki! Since the time is almost over, please say goodbye to everyone here!
What a great stage we had today! Thanks Singapore! Thanks everyone! I didn’t imagine so many people will gather around here, and there’s even standing audience, thanks for coming to Heroaca stage! Please keep supporting Heroaca and don’t forget to watch Heroaca 2nd Season in 2017! Before I leave, I want to do somthing like we always do at every Heroaca event in Japan. Please stand up and say “PLUS ULTRA” together, won’t you? Singapore! PLUS ULTRA! SMASH!!! Thank you very much and see you all again later!

After talk session, they’re having signing session only for 5 lucky audience who win jankenpon match against Daiki. All audience who came is asked to stand up and do the janken match (so bad that Kojacon team lost at the second round LOL) and the winners will get poster of Heroaca anime with Daiki’s sign on it. Match was ended with 3 winners from general janken and 2 winner is chosen by Daiki! Congratulations! But that’s not all! Teaser PV of Heroaca Season 2 was playing on the screen! Everybody must be waited for the sequel, right!

Special Thanks to:
SOZO PTE,. LTD
AFASG 2016 COMMITTEE
ARTVISION OVERSEAS STAFF

Photos Credit: MY HERO ACADEMIA OFFICIAL TWITTER
Image Credit: MY HERO ACADEMIA OFFICIAL WEBSITE