My Hero Academia introduced the world to its heroes several years ago, and the Class 1-A kids are still at the top of our favorites list. From Izuku to Tsuyu and beyond, the group has its own supporters, and even the second-tier stars of the class are key players in the series. So are characters like Hagakure, and finally the creator of My Hero Academia is addressing the scandal sparked by the heroine last year.

If you recall, a certain piece of album cover last year left the fandom baffled, and we had Hagakure to thank for that. After the heroine’s character design was finally shown, creator Kohei Horikoshi was asked to gift the girl her own cover. This art would showcase Hagakure without her invisibility getting in the way of fans. But when the art dropped, netizens were amazed by the high school student’s NSFW cover.

Now, Horikoshi said the art used was never meant to be seen by the public. The cover art was selected out of necessity as the artist ran out of time to write new work for Hagakure.

“This color page has nothing to do with the plot, right? That’s because it was like a reference sheet to test Hagakure’s color scheme that I drew years ago and had no intention of publishing anywhere. But then I ran out of time to to draw a new piece and was asked, “Don’t you have any color drawings you can use?!” Well, I usually don’t care if the color page has to do with the chapter, but in this case it was kind of baffling,” revealed Horikoshi in the latest installment of My Hero Academia to be released in Japan (via RukasuMHA).

So there you have it. The artwork that caused the scandal was originally created for reference purposes. It was only selected and approved for publication due to time constraints. Of course, that reasoning won’t be enough to appease everyone, but at least fans can rest easy knowing that Hagakure’s provocative cover wasn’t intentionally inked. And hopefully the character will get better cover later on…!

Did you think Hagakure’s cover art was inappropriate when it launched…? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below or give me a call on Twitter @Megan Peters CB.