HERO’s Web, the digital manga platform that hosts the Go for It, Nakamura! (Ganbare, Nakamura-kun!) boys’ love comedy manga series, has published a statement from the title’s author Syundei. This comes a week after Syundei announced they would be deleting their X account amidst alleged online harassment, causing an uproar among fans.
To give some background, the Go for It, Nakamura! manga recently got an anime adaptation, which is currently airing on Crunchyroll in the West. Along with the boost in popularity the original manga received thanks to the anime, there were also people who took issue with specific scenes (like a perceived suggestive interaction between a high school student and a teacher) and took to criticizing the author directly through social media. This soon escalated, with the hate spreading to non-canonical pieces of artwork Syundei posted, as well as some of their previous works depicting age-gap and student-teacher relationships. Users also took issue with a comedic (non-explicit) “tentacle scene” that’s only present in the manga. The complaints eventually got so severe the author said they “didn’t see the point in continuing as a manga creator” (source: ANN), and promptly deleted their X account.
In their new statement shared by HERO’s Web, Syundei addressed some of these points. They comment, “In Episode 5 of the TV anime Go for It, Nakamura!, there is a scene where a teacher and a student exchange personal contact information. However, this is intended solely as suggestive BL-style depiction and carries no deeper meaning. The author and the anime production team do not endorse teachers and students exchanging personal contact information.”
Syundei also notes that there were some things they specifically requested from the anime’s production team, like: making sure the relationship between the male lead Aiki Hirose his teacher Sou Otogiri is depicted within the appropriate limits of a teacher-student relationship, avoiding scenes that are sexually exploitative of the female students, and overall modifying the manga’s “vulgar” scenes so that they would be suitable for viewers of all ages. Syundei says that the anime production team honored their wishes.
Somewhat shockingly, the mangaka also announces that, although some of their past titles have depicted tropes like age-gap relationships and student-teacher pairings, they will no longer be using such themes in their future work. The decision comes in light of a “recent surge in horrific crimes committed by adults against minors,” according to Syundei.
