Why anime in Fortnite is such a big deal
This week kicked off with the launch of another returning anime collab in Fortnite. The latest addition rings the bell for another round with the anime adaptation of Kohei Horikoshi’s smash hit manga My Hero Academia. This time players can deck themselves out like Shoto Todoroki, Eijiro Kirishima, and Mina Ashido, battling with countless other wisps of pop culture ephemera within an ever-shifting battlefield. It’s a simple opportunity to play around with a set of fan favorites, and it’s just the latest example of a continuing trend in Fortnite that has resulted in standout visuals and some truly impressive feats of licensing wizardry.
No matter what the series may be, the fact that multiple anime titles have coexisted in Fortnite is a pretty big deal. It would be one thing if we had but a fleeting chance to flirt with a few Plus Ultra skins. The fact that items you earn or buy in the shop are yours to keep means we’ve been treated to heretofore unheard-of levels of worlds colliding. Sure, there may be plenty of mobile games out there with crossover campaigns that pop up seasonally and occasionally intermingle. There’s nothing out there on the scale of what Fortnite has been doing.
Like many fledgling obsessions, Fortnite started its anime collaborations with Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto’s series provided an immediately recognizable hook for Epic’s battle royale game. With Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi in the mix along with some of the anime’s iconic accoutrements, players were quick to share improbable GIFs and videos. Manga publisher Shueisha—the giant behind Shonen Jump and the majority of the titles teaming with Fortnite—and anime studio Pierrot likely wouldn’t consider this madness “officially sanctioned.” (We
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