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Shanghai License Company Issues Statement After Chinese Social Media Criticizes Detective Conan Series for Collaborating With Banned My Hero Academia Franchise

The Shanghai Character License Administrative Company issued a statement on January 31 after Chinese social networking sites criticized Gōshō Aoyama's Detective Conan series for doing an illustration collaboration with Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia series. Chinese digital platforms had removed the My Hero Academia manga and anime in February 2020 following a controversy, in which the series had used the controversial name "Maruta Shiga" for a villain. The Shanghai Character License Administrative Company stated that that the collaboration was merely a friendly exchange between the works' creators.

Aoyama and Horikoshi drew illustrations of each others' characters and posted them on January 31 to celebrate twin anniversaries this year: the Detective Conan anime's 30th anniversary and the My Hero Academia anime's 10th anniversary. The two illustrations will appear in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine (where My Hero Academia was published) on February 16 and in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine (where Detective Conan is published) on February 18. YTV Animation also aired a collaboration promotional video between the two anime at the end of the Detective Conan anime's episode on January 31.

Horikoshi originally introduced the controversial "Maruta Shiga" name in My Hero Academia chapter 259. Horikoshi stated that he would change the name of villain Daruma Ujiko after the character's real name was interpreted as a reference to victims of human experimentation during World War II. The manga villain was shown to engage in human experimentation himself.

"Maruta" was the code-name for human experimentation undertaken by the Imperial Japanese Army's Unit 731 during the Second Sino-Japanese War of World War II. The Chinese victims of the experiments were called "maruta," the Japanese word for "logs" as a reference to the facilities cover story that it was a lumber mill. Victims, including children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the mentally handicapped, were purposefully infected with diseases, dissected, lobotomized, and amputated while still alive.

The staff of Weekly Shonen Jump's publisher Shueisha issued apologies in February 2020 in Japanese, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean.

My Hero Academia creator Horikoshi also issued an apology during that time:

By using the name "Maruta Shiga" in chapter 259 of My Hero Academia, I deeply offended a great number of readers. I am truly sorry about this. The character--with deep reverence and wanting to feel closer to the League of Villain's former boss, All For One--decided to take part of All For One's last name (Shigaraki) and make it his own (Shiga). I gave him the first name "Maruta" because he's round and plump. Any other meaning is coincidental, and I had absolutely no intention of hurting so many readers, which I now know that I did. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.
Going forward, I will do my utmost to make sure that this sort of thing never happens again.

Kōhei Horikoshi

Horikoshi launched the My Hero Academia manga series in Weekly Shonen Jump in July 2014, and ended it in August 2024. He added 38 pages of new content in the manga's 42nd and final compiled book volume in December 2024. Viz Media published the manga in English digitally and in print in North America. Shueisha's MANGA Plus service also published the manga in English digitally. The manga crossed 100 million copies in circulation worldwide in April 2024.

The anime's first 13-episode season premiered in April 2016. The anime's eighth and final season debuted on October 4 on YTV and NTV's affiliate channels. Crunchyroll streamed the anime worldwide excluding Asia as it aired in Japan, and began streaming its English dub on October 18. The final episode of the anime aired on December 13. The anime will get a new bonus episode titled "More," based on the manga's extra 431st chapter following the original finale, on May 2.

Aoyama launched the Detective Conan manga in Shogakukan's Weekly Shounen Sunday magazine in 1994. The manga has spawned a television anime that has been running since January 1996, as well as an accompanying anime film series. Viz Media publishes the manga under the name Case Closed, Funimation's original localized title. The English manga release uses the same English names from the original Funimation dub when applicable, and it uses the original Japanese names otherwise.

The Detective Conan television anime premiered on January 8, 1996, and celebrated its 30th anniversary on January 8, 2026. The series has aired more than 1,100 episodes.

Source: Kyodo News