My Hero Academia's Creator Just Wrote a Horror Manga — Here's What We Know About 'Don't Laugh, Shijima-san'
This piece covers the full plot setup of the one-shot 'Don't Laugh, Shijima-san,' including its central reveal. If you'd rather go in blind, read the chapter first.
Kohei Horikoshi is back in Weekly Shonen Jump, and he did not come back with another superhero story. On August 10, 2026, Shueisha published a new one-shot from the My Hero Academia creator in the magazine's combined issue #37-38, titled "Warawanai de yo Shijima-san" — rendered in English coverage as "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san," though the exact translation varies slightly depending on the outlet. It's a horror manga, it's the first entirely new work Horikoshi has published in Jump since My Hero Academia concluded in August 2024, and it's already generating the kind of scrutiny that comes with any major creator's first move after a decade-long flagship series ends.
Here's what's actually confirmed about the one-shot, what outlets are speculating about, and what any of it might mean for Horikoshi's next full serialization.
What "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" actually is
According to Anime News Network, ComicBook.com, and GameRant, the one-shot ran in Weekly Shonen Jump's combined issue #37-38, dated August 10, 2026. Most outlets, including GameRant and Anime Corner, cite a length of 61 pages, though ComicBook.com's reporting puts the figure at 60 — a minor discrepancy worth flagging, since it's not clear whether the difference comes from how each outlet is counting the color spread or front matter. Either way, this is a substantial one-shot by Jump standards, and it reportedly includes a center color page, which is typically reserved for chapters the magazine is treating as a notable event rather than a routine release.
Shueisha and multiple outlets have described the genre as "boy-meets-girl horror" — a fairly specific label that signals the story is built around a romantic throughline rather than horror as its sole engine. That framing matters for setting expectations: this isn't a straightforward slasher or monster story, but something closer to a horror-tinged romance with a supernatural threat underneath it.
The plot, as described by GameRant
Coverage of the actual story content varies in specificity. Anime Corner and Anime News Network keep their descriptions fairly broad, noting only that everyone in the story's setting seems to admire the title character while something darker sits underneath that admiration. GameRant's synopsis goes considerably further, so the plot details below are attributed specifically to that outlet's reporting rather than treated as universally confirmed.
Per GameRant, the one-shot is set in a seaside town and follows Azumi, a transfer student who falls for a girl named Shijima. Shijima's defining trait, per that same synopsis, is an infectious laugh that's made her broadly popular around town. The catch is that Azumi is apparently the only person who can perceive an ancient sea deity that the town quietly answers to — and the story's turn comes when it's revealed that Shijima has been designated as the town's latest sacrificial offering to appease that god.
That's a meaningfully different register than anything Horikoshi built during his decade on My Hero Academia. Where that series ran on found-family dynamics, escalating superpower spectacle, and a fairly optimistic core belief in heroism, "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" — at least as GameRant describes it — is working with folk-horror machinery: an isolated community, a hidden ritual, a protagonist whose only advantage is perceiving a threat everyone else is oblivious to. It's the kind of setup that lives or dies on tone and restraint rather than the big-canvas action Horikoshi built his reputation on.
Why this release matters beyond the one-shot itself
The context here is doing a lot of the work. My Hero Academia ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2014 to August 2024, and per Anime News Network, the series surpassed 100 million copies in worldwide circulation by April 2024, shortly before its conclusion. Horikoshi wasn't entirely done with the series after the main run ended, either — he contributed 38 new pages to the manga's final compiled volume when it released in December 2024, according to reporting on that release.
"Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" is, per ANN, ComicBook.com, and GameRant, the first entirely new manga Horikoshi has published in Weekly Shonen Jump since that ending. That framing is why a single one-shot is getting this much attention: it's not just a new story, it's the first real data point on what Horikoshi does creatively when he isn't tied to the franchise that defined the back half of his career so far.
A genre swing, not a safe follow-up
It would have been the lower-risk move for Horikoshi to follow My Hero Academia with something in a similar lane — another action-driven story with a large ensemble cast, built to slot comfortably into Jump's existing lineup of shonen action series. A boy-meets-girl horror one-shot is a much bigger swing, both in tone and in scale (a single 61-page chapter versus a multi-year serialization). Whether that's a deliberate signal about where he wants to take his career next, or simply a smaller-scale creative exercise between bigger projects, isn't something any of the current reporting confirms.
The character design debate
Once the one-shot published, some readers started drawing visual comparisons between its cast and My Hero Academia's. The comparisons aren't consistent across outlets, though, which is worth noting directly: GameRant's coverage says fans have pointed to a resemblance between male lead Azumi and Izuku Midoriya (Deku), My Hero Academia's protagonist, while ComicBook.com's coverage instead notes fan comparisons between the one-shot's cast and Ochaco Uraraka. Neither outlet frames this as an official statement from Horikoshi, and the two comparisons don't even point at the same character — which suggests this is scattered fan reaction rather than a documented, consistent observation. Character artists do tend to develop recognizable stylistic tics across projects (facial structure, eye shape, proportions), so some degree of visual echo between a creator's works isn't unusual on its own. Treat this as fan chatter, not confirmed creative overlap.
Is this a stepping stone toward Horikoshi's next series?
This is the question everyone actually wants answered, and it's also the one with the least confirmed information behind it. ComicBook.com raises the possibility that "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" could function as a stepping stone toward Horikoshi's next full serialization, rather than existing as a standalone piece with no follow-up. That outlet draws a comparison to Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami, whose 2025 sequel project followed a similar pattern of smaller-scale work preceding a larger announced project.
It's worth being precise about what that comparison is and isn't. It's speculation from a single outlet, not a reported plan from Horikoshi or Shueisha. One-shots from established Jump creators sometimes do turn into full serializations — and sometimes they're exactly what they look like: a standalone chapter with no further installments. Nothing in the current reporting says which of those this is.
An anime adaptation, before the ink is even dry
In an unusual bit of forward-looking interest, GameRant's coverage includes a quote attributed to Studio BONES president Masahiko Minami, expressing enthusiasm about adapting the one-shot into anime: "If there is an opportunity, myself and Studio BONES would be very interested in bringing the anime to life." That quote appears in GameRant's reporting specifically and hasn't been corroborated elsewhere in the outlets reviewed for this piece, so it should be treated as tightly sourced to that outlet rather than an independently confirmed industry position. Studio BONES is a notable name to have attached to this kind of comment regardless — the studio has a long working relationship with Horikoshi, having produced the My Hero Academia anime across its entire run, so interest from that specific studio carries more weight than a generic expression of enthusiasm from an unrelated production house would.
Still, a president expressing interest is a long way from an official adaptation announcement. There's no confirmation of a deal, a production slot, or even active development discussions — just a stated openness to the idea, tied to a single one-shot chapter.
Where readers can actually find it
One practical wrinkle worth flagging for international readers: per GameRant, one-shots like this typically aren't added to Manga Plus's free catalog the way ongoing serialized chapters are. Manga Plus, Shueisha's own digital platform, is usually the fastest legal route to day-and-date English access for new Jump content, but standalone chapters tend to fall outside that pipeline. That means readers outside Japan hoping to check out "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" for free through official channels may find it harder to access than a typical new chapter of an ongoing series, at least until or unless it gets picked up for a more conventional release.
The bottom line
What's actually confirmed here is fairly narrow: Horikoshi wrote a 61-page (or 60, depending on the outlet) horror one-shot, it ran in Jump's August 10, 2026 combined issue with a color spread, it's built around a boy-meets-girl horror premise involving a seaside town and a sea deity, and it's the first new manga he's published since My Hero Academia ended. Everything past that — the character design comparisons, the idea that this sets up a bigger serialization, the anime interest from Studio BONES — is either explicitly speculative, tightly sourced to a single outlet, or both.
That's not nothing, though. A one-shot this deliberately different in genre from a creator's just-finished decade-long flagship is itself a statement, even without a follow-up announcement attached. Whether "Don't Laugh, Shijima-san" ends up being a curiosity that Horikoshi moves on from, or the first visible piece of whatever comes after My Hero Academia, is the actual open question — and right now, nobody outside Shueisha and Horikoshi himself seems to know the answer.
No serialization announcement has been made. Watch for Shueisha reader-response data from the issue, any statement from Horikoshi about future plans, and whether Studio BONES' stated interest in an anime adaptation turns into anything official.