After the My Hero Academia anime’s final season ended late last year, there has been plenty of curiosity about what’s next for Kohei Horikoshi, the comic artist behind the manga. Not long ago, he announced a surprising change of pace for his next work. Quit Laughing, Shijima is a horror/romance one-shot that was just released on the Shonen Jump app and website this morning.
The 61-page story centers on Azumi, a second-year high school student with a crush on his upperclassman, Shijima, who is known for her charming personality and boisterous laugh. From there, things don’t exactly go like a typical meet-cute. The standalone story was released in Japan on Aug. 10 in the 37/38 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, with a simulpub digital release in English on the Shonen Jump App.
It is Horikoshi’s first work in Shonen Jump since the My Hero Academia manga ran from 2014 to 2024. Before that, the author wrote Barrage and Oumagadoki Zoo for the magazine. My Hero Academia has quickly become one of the best-selling manga of all time, having surpassed 100 million sales, putting it in rare company alongside other recent hits like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and Attack on Titan.
The anime finished its official run in December, 2025 with an explosive eighth season from Bones Film that delivered excellent animation and cathartic character moments. On May 2, 2026, Bones released the “More” bonus special, which acted as a similarly satisfying epilogue. Lastly, there was the six-minute “I Am A Hero Too” mini-episode that adapted the manga’s final bonus material.
In the years since My Hero Academia’s manga ended in 2024, fans have joked that “unemployed Horikoshi” is one of the most visually impressive comic artists of the moment — he released detailed illustrations to coincide with new episodes of the show. With Horikoshi having finally put out his highly anticipated new one-shot that’s in a completely different genre, it will be interesting to see what the author does for his next serialized work.
You can read Quit Laughing, Shijima for free here.