My Hero Academia: Do Deku and Uraraka Get Together in the Manga?

The My Hero Academia manga by Kohei Horikoshi finally concluded in August 2024 after a sensational decade-long run in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Though MHA is a shonen series, it is well-known for its character ships among the fandom, and you must already be aware of the Deku x Uraraka ship known as IzuOcha. Fans have been patiently waiting for over a decade to watch this pair fall in love and even get married at the end of the MHA series. As My Hero Academia has come to an end, did Deku and Uraraka get together? Let’s find out more about the sweet ending Horikoshi sensei planned for the most favorite pairing in MHA here.

Spoiler Warning:

This article includes spoilers for the ending of the My Hero Academia manga by Kohei Horikoshi, so proceed with caution.

Do Deku and Uraraka Date in My Hero Academia?

Even though Horikoshi sensei stated that he deliberately avoided including romance, he always sprinkled some romantic interactions between Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka since the beginning of the MHA series. They were always seen blushing and their hearts throbbing during their meetings. Even their Japanese and English VAs openly shipped the pair just like the fans.

All this made the fans dream about Izuku and Ochoco’s ship sailing in the final moments of MHA. To everyone’s disappointment, Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka did not end up together as a couple at the end of the My Hero Academia manga. However, that doesn’t mean the end for the IzuOcho ship, as a newly released epilogue chapter (chapter 431) confirmed that there is still hope for Deku and Ochaco.

MHA Epilogue Chapters Hint at IzuOcha Becoming Canon

In the final My Hero Academia chapter, i.e., chapter 430, there is a major time skip of approximately 8 years in the story, during which we saw our superheroes in their adulthood. As the timeskip began, fans expected to see Deku and Ochaco as a couple already. However, creator Kohei Horikoshi did not fully address this romantic situation, which led to disappointment among some fans.

But fans were drawn to a particular panel when Izuku was shown gazing at Ochaco while the two of them relished the snowfall. We did not have the fortune to see them together in love or confess their love to each other as we had hoped. Fortunately, Horikoshi released a new epilogue chapter after the official conclusion of his manga. In chapter 431, the author explored the lives of the heroes in their adulthood.

There is a reunion party for Class 1-A students after Shoto becomes the No. 2 hero in the Hero Billboard Chart. At the party, the heroes discuss their love lives, where Shihai Kuroiro and Kinoko Komori from Class 1-B, and Kaminari and Jirou from Class 1-A are dating. During this moment, Deku ponders a version of himself he hadn’t discovered yet when he looks at Ochaco from a distance, who was enjoying the day with her friends.

Izuku and Ochaco Finally Decide to Spend More Time Together

Deku’s thoughts get cut short as the heroes receive an emergency signal, but thankfully, the incident wasn’t as serious as they had hoped it would be. Thus, the heroes began to leave the party one by one. Of all people, Bakugo advised Izuku that it is high time for him to start prioritizing his life first after spending his whole life sacrificing and protecting people.

As Ochaco began to walk back home, she thought about not getting a chance to talk to Deku during the party. As she remembered her the moment she admitted her feelings for Deku, Deku found her in the crowd and rushed to her. He admitted that everyone may be special in his life, but he affirmed that he wanted to spend more time talking to Ochaco from that day on.

Even Himiko Toga (who almost killed Ochaco during the war) urged Ochaco to live the life she truly wants in her dream. And the moment we have all been waiting for happened as both Izuku and Ochaco confessed they want to be more connected. After a month of talking together, they held their hands together and realized they had been feeling the same thing all along.

Kohei Horikoshi sensei may have decided to leave the Deku and Uraraka romance up in the air, as they didn’t officially become a couple at the end previously. However, this ambiguous panel in the new epilogue chapters gives fans hope that Deku and Ochaco might end up together in the future.

Romance Taking a Back Seat in MHA Series

Similar to other Shonen manga, it is evident that the romance aspect in My Hero Academia takes a back seat. Take One Piece, for example; it is natural for romance to get sidelined. Kohei Horikoshi indirectly confirmed La Brava and Gentle becoming a couple in the series in the final manga chapter, but he decided not to tackle any romance with the main heroes when the manga was simul-published.

Kohei Horikoshi’s Official Comments on Romance in MHA

When asked about why the romance was never a focus in his MHA series, Kohei Horikoshi finally revealed the truth to the fans in a Q&A session.

Instead of wanting to portray romance in the story, I just wanted to show the contrast between Ochako and Toga with their views on love. Since romance is a very strong stimulus, as soon as you include it in the story, that’s all anyone is going to talk about, so I deliberately avoided adding it to the story.

However, since the setting of the series is at school after all, it would be rather dishonest to completely ignore romance, so it was pretty hard to think of a balance. Thankfully, since Deku was always doing other things, he was unaware of any romantic feelings, and it turned out to be a good thing for me.

However, when Chapter 394 came around, the topics did touch upon that stimulus called love, so I knew that it would be strange not to follow up on that point later in the story, which is why I chose to write about it.

But once Horikoshi covered everything as he planned, he decided to open the door for romance between Deku and Ochoku in he epilogue chapter:

I never thought that romance would go well with the theme of the story of My Hero Academia, which is “to save and be saved,” nor would it make sense to include it in “the story of how we all became Heroes.” So that’s why I decided to touch upon it in an epilogue, like a postscript of sorts.
However, rather than depicting romance itself, I wanted to depict love in a form as part of something even greater, but I wonder how it turned out?

In the end, the final panel of the epilogue chapter depicting them holding hands and smiling together alludes to their eventual union as a couple. Horikoshi didn’t want to do a simple high school romance between Izuku and Ochaco; that is why he took his sweet time to create a beautiful bond between Deku and Ochaco, a culmination of their friendship, respect, and love for each other.

The wait was totally worth it as IzuOcho is finally canon at the end of the My Hero Academia series. New reports suggest that these extra pages of epilogue will be adapted in the My Hero Academia Season 8 anime. Therefore, we can look forward to the anime team fleshing out this romance in the last season.

That said, what do you think about this decision to make IzuOcho canon by the My Hero Academia mangaka? Let us know in the comments below.