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Artist Ken Ogino: Jump Wouldn't Run My Manga With Female Hero 11 Years Ago Without Eroticism

Ken Ogino, artist for The Ossan Newbie Adventurer manga, recalled on Wednesday his time working for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Ogino said on social media that when developing his manga series Lady Justice with a female superhero in the lead, the editors told him they would not publish it unless he focused on eroticism.

Ogino's remarks came after a fan posted on Monday about Lady Justice's launch 11 years ago. The fan said, “My impression is [Ogino] came to [Jump] armed with just a passion to draw erotic content, only to be crushed. Looking back now, it was quite daring of him to compete with a hero-themed series at the height of My Hero Academia's popularity.”

Ogino responded by clarifying how Lady Justice actually came about: “I conceived the work around the theme of 'American comics, made in Japan,' and based on the idea of 'quintessential Japanese = moe,' I made the protagonist a female hero. Rather than wanting to 'draw erotic content,' I wanted to create a tough female hero, and I intended the erotic elements to be just a bit of spice. However, the editors told me, 'If the protagonist is female, we won't publish it unless it focuses on eroticism,' so I reluctantly drew it …”

Ogino followed up his post by saying he is "envious" that manga creators now can draw a female protagonist in Jump even without erotic content. He added that when he worked on Lady Justice, he had no intention of challenging My Hero Academia. “The one-shot version [of Lady Justice] ran before My Hero Academia began serialization. I was in the middle of drawing the drafts for my serialization when My Hero Academia started, and my editor and I scratched our heads like, 'Why now…?” Ogino recalled. “So, it wasn't like I was trying to compete with [My Hero Academia]; it was just a coincidence.”

Lady Justice ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump between May and September 2015, and Shueisha published two volumes. Ogino currently provides the art for The Ossan Newbie Adventurer manga.

Sources: Ken Ogino's X/Twitter account (link 2, link 3), @Utikirist_xujx's X/Twitter account via Hachima Kikō