Yoshihiro Togashi, best known for the Hunter x Hunter manga series, joined Twitter this month and reached over 1 million followers in just a day since his first tweet. He has over 1.4 million followers as of the time of writing.
His first tweet was dedicated to the Hunter x Hunter series. He teased four new chapters, which if published should mark the end of a 3 year long hiatus.
The appearance of well-known manga-ka caused a huge fuss on the platform, from cheerful reactions to questions whether the account is authentic or not.
Yusuke Murata, the artist for the One Punch Man manga by ONE (serialized on Shueisha’s Tonari no Young Jump) reacted and left a comment saying we should wait until it was confirmed. A few hours later, he quoted Togashi’s first tweet with a comment: I was told it’s his account. The tweet received 282 thousand likes and 136 thousand retweets.
Livedoor News Editorial Department reached out to Shueisha and received the same answer, further noting that the account is not operated by the company but the author himself, so they can’t give an explanation about his tweets.
Togashi’s first tweet teases four new chapters with a photo of a paper sheet with a number “6” on it. It gave a parody idea to Koji Oishi, the author of his ongoing manga series Tomatoypoo no Lycopene on Shueisha’s online manga service Shonen Jump+. He posted a photo of his own manga’s script with a caption similar to Togashi’s: 4 pages left now.
Murata quote-tweeted Oishi’s tweet with the exact same caption to Togashi’s.
Riichiro Inagaki, the author of Dr.Stone illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, also reacted to Oishi’s tweet saying “I’m sure this is fake!” to jokingly mean he is not Togashi.
The two had a brief chat on the platform:
Oishi: As expected of you, Inagaki-sensei, for finding about it. Yes, my name is Masaki Suga [a popular actor in Japan].
Inagaki: Eh, same here… What a coincidence…
Oishi: Huh, you have the name, too.
Yoshihiro Togashi launched Hunter x Hunter manga series in 1998 in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. The series has been a subject of frequent breaks and has been on a hiatus since November 2018, due to the author’s health issues. The manga has 36 compiled volumes and sold over 79 million circulating copies as of November 2021.
Source: Twitter
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