The anime adapation of Keigo Maki’sShikimori’s Not Just a Cutiehas been one of the Spring season’s most anticipated slice of life titles, and it is moving into its third week of airing. It has captured fans' attention for a couple of reasons. One of them being the protagonist’s friend in the series, Shuu Inuzuka, who not only looks like someone familiar, but sounds like him too.
Inuzuka’s character design looks quite similar toKatsuki Bakugo fromMy Hero Academia, with spiky blondish hair and a somewhat extroverted personality. However, if you listen closely, the character’s voice sounds like a calmer version of the same explosive voice fans often hear barreling out of theMy Hero Academiadeuteragonist.
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Appearance and Personality
Inuzuka’s character design in both anime and manga iterations of the series all look very similar to Katsuki, Beyond hair and extroversion, both characters are, in some way, companions of the series protagonist, have sharp, slanty eyes, are loud, and rambunctious and also have a surprising mature side to them.
The characters have similar traits but express them differently, like one is the censored version of the other. Further investigation reveals that Inuzuka is also voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto, but that’s as far as the similarities go. Inuzuka’s tamer personality allows viewers to hear the voice actor performance in various registers. It can be a bit strange hearing Katsuki’s voice express more than chagrin, aggression, anger, disgust, or any combination of them; however, it is also entertaining because it is almost as if Inuzuka is a nicer, happier slice of life variant of Katsuki.
Deviations From the Manga
The decision to include this character from the very first episode is also particularly interesting because he does not appear in the manga in scenes where he features in the anime adaptation, like when Izumi and Shikimori went to school to see their seat allocations for the year, which indicates a deliberate decision to feature Inuzuka in those scenesas a frequent companionof Izumi. The anime series adapts the content of various chapters and rearranges the chronology, context and even participants of particular events, with Inuzuka only making his debut in the 18th chapter where his anime appearance occurred in the adaptation of events from the first ten chapters.
Despite this late entry in the manga, Inuzuka’s appearance is still very striking, and he is quite expressive. The types of facial expressions that Inuzuka wears, particularly in his sparse appearances in the manga really make him look like Katsuki, who often has the whites of his eyes visible as he shouts every word. It is evident that the anime adaptation aims to make Inuzuka’s role even greater than it is in the manga, and his visual similarity to an extremely popular character from another work is not something that is unheard of in the realm of anime and manga.
This kind of relationship between a character, voice actor and the visual aspects of the anime is difficult to pin down to pure chance or deliberate intervention on the production side. Whether or not Shuu Inuzuka was designed intentionally to look like Katsuki we can’t really say unless, of course, author Keigo Maki comments on it, but the characters' sharing of a voice actor gives more weight to their similarity, and even more weight to the idea that even people involved in the production ofShikimori’s Not Just a Cutiehave made the same connection. Maybe it is all just a happy coincidence, but the resemblance is truly striking, and fans will keep making the connection between the two characters.
