l’ve been reading BNHA for about 3 years now and liking it for the most part except for one loud, obnoxious, sweaty turd by the name of Bakugo that sort of ruins my enjoyment everytime he appears on panel. More accurately it’s the way the narrative treats him that rubs me the wrong way so l thought l’d explain why here, l’m bored and it might create a funny shitstorm who knows.
First of all let me preface this long winded wall of text by saying that even if his overwhelming popularity doesn’t necessarily surprise me, l still find it pretty funny that despite the constant claims of caring about the poor downtrodden victims of the world and other displays of affected compassion so prevalent on this website your average Tumblr fangirl is hopelessly in love with a character who bullied his universe equivalent of a disabled kid for years, topped it off by telling him to kill himself, and showed exactly zero remorse about it at this point of the narrative. Good ol Sigmund would have had a field day with this phenomenon, l think he called it the return of the repressed.
Anyway as previously stated l’m not surprised he’s popular, genius asshole rival types tend to be very well received by fandoms and Bakugo fits that trend. What surprised me though is the seemingly very commonly held opinion that even if you might dislike Bakugo as a person, you can’t deny he’s a brilliantly written, fascinating character! Well yes, yes l can, and that’s what l’m going to do right now because the idea Bakugo is well written is utterly baffling to me and l’m a bit tired of reading dumbshit “To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Bakugo Katsuki” drivel everytime l click on a BNHA thread on some random site. Here we go.
Contrary to a commonly parroted opinion, he doesn’t suffer any serious consequence for his actions
One of the most commonly held opinions about Bakugo, and why he’s supposedly so well written is that he doesn’t get a free pass for his behavior and gets accordingly treated by the people around him. This is complete nonsense.
l think everybody would agree, even his most staunch defenders, that the worst thing he’s done is bullying Deku for the best part of a decade and inciting him to commit suicide. Just to make it clear, a few weeks ago here in France we had another case of teen suicide in the news. 14 year old girl, good student, top grades in her class, a bit socially awkward and introverted, jumped out of her bedroom window and died after a year of hardcore bullying from real life Bakugos and Bakugettes. This stuff is serious, kids do kill themselves over it. lt shouldn’t be treated flippantly, so obviously BNHA does portray it responsibly right? Yeah right.
To this day, l don’t think a single character has commented on let alone condemned Bakugo’s treatment of Deku. Let’s start with the victim himself. Another popular opinion among the fandom is that Deku actually resents Bakugo and this is a refreshing, realistic take. Too bad it’s just empty words that don’t translate into actions. Deku supposedly both admires and hates Bakugo, but leaving aside the fact admiration and hatred are incompatible feelings, he never shows any sort of hostility towards Bakugo. Worse, he bends over backwards to help Bakugo everytime Bakugo is in trouble, puts Bakugo alongside his three closest friends in a mental image, and despite supposedly both hating him and wanting to surpass him, shows great reluctance to fight him when provoked until he understands it benefits Bakugo.
l know the obvious rebuttal is it’s a core part of Deku’s character, this self sacrificial madness that made him the successor of All Might in the first place, but the result is the same: Bakugo doesn’t suffer any negative consequence for his past treatment of Deku and his continuing hostility is met with praise, respect, empathy and a zealous desire to help him.
So Deku’s Deku, whatever, surely other characters have an issue with Bakugo’s past and present behavior. What about Deku’s closest friends? l don’t think llda has ever said anything. Todoroki doesn’t seem to give a shit, despite being a victim of domestic abuse. Ochako maybe? She has a crush on Deku, it probably pisses her off to see him getting treated like garbage. Nope, she off handedly mentions it and then she shows concern about Bakugo and praises him. Other students then? Kirishima is shown in his flashback attempting to fight off bullies, but it apparently doesn’t stop him from being surgically attached to Bakugo’s nutsack now. Ok, so no one among the students seems to give a fuck but surely the teachers would acknowledge there’s a serious problem here and try to adress it. Woops guess not, Aizawa acts like a sort of caricature of the “you both should talk it out!” inept teacher and both him and All Might would rather focus on praising his ambition. More on that failure to acknowledge Bakugo’s critical flaws in the next section, because it’s even shittier writing.
That’s about his most serious offence, but even on a more innocuous level, his terrible personality doesn’t really impact him in any significant way. His classmates essentially adopt a “awww, that’s our Bakugooo!” attitude when dealing with him, he’s treated like a joke but he’s still accepted, and even someone like Kaminari follows him around for no conceivable reason despite the fact he gets copiously shit on everytime he tries to communicate with him. Must be a masochist.
So that was a pretty comprehensive summary of what’s wrong with the idea characters react accordingly to Bakugo, but this isn’t the worst part of his characterization. What really propels Bakugo into shithouse character category is something else, and that’s what we’re going to see now.
The narrative utterly fails to acknowledge his fatal character flaws and uses blatant false equivalences to justify his role
l remember when we got an insight into Bakugo’s motivation back during his fight against All Might. Before reading it l thought “ok, maybe his character will get more interesting, maybe he does have a noble reason to be a hero and he just goes about it in a terrible way”. Turns out he wants to be a hero because he really liked how All Might kicked the shit out of everyone he fought. That’s it. That’s his backstory.
l understand that for some people, this is a good thing. The fact the narrative doesn’t try to justify his actions with a maudlin backstory is indeed a positive in theory. Of course it ultimately doesn’t matter because he ends up being portrayed as someone to be pitied anyway, l’ll have more on that later, but let’s focus on his core character for now and why it’s a spectacular clusterfuck.
Bakugo is absurdly self centered, has a might equals right worldview, very little empathy, a hair trigger temper, a loud, foul mouth and his default answer to most interaction is violence, either verbal or physical. He wants to become a hero because he identifies heroes with winners and wants to prove to the world he’s the biggest winner of all.
lt doesn’t take a nuclear physics degree to understand he’s a terrible fit for the job. So obviously this must be repeatedly stressed by the narrative, especially by the people in charge of his education, right? Haha good one, sorry but no can’t do that’d be good writing!
To make myself understood: to my knowledge, no one has seriously questioned his character yet despite numerous chances to do so. And no, l don’t think Best Jeanist giving him a haircut counts. Worse, he’s being blatantly protected from obvious criticism and most of the comments about him from his teachers and peers praise how serious he is in his ambition. Which, ok, l get it, could be interpreted as people going “well he’s really motivated so we’ll just have to focus on that and deal with details later”. Problem is the “details” aren’t details at all, they’re radical issues and “later” never comes.
Let’s take an example. Bakugo got targeted by the villains because they saw him act like a cartoonishly crazy clod on live tv. The results were him giving terrible publicity to his school and ultimately endangering his classmates and pro heroes. So how does the narrative treat the situation? Is he being chastised for his embarassing public display? Of course not. The only guy who mentions it is some journalist asshole who’s clearly supposed to be the bad guy and it makes Aizawa angry that his precious Kacchan is being questioned, again parroting the “he really wants to be a hero!” mantra. Being ambitious is apparently enough to be forgiven when you fuck up horribly, no one ever talks about the incident again except in another scene l’ll deal with later.
lt’s not the only instance obviously and you quickly notice a trend. Bakugo can act like a batshit lunatic on live tv and no one bats an eyelid but Deku gets lectured about his lack of charisma and humor because pro heroes need to have a good public image, especially if they want to succeed All Might. Stain is engaged in a crusade against “fake heroes” whose motivations are selfish but the target of his ire is Iida while Bakugo conveniently avoids interacting with him. Endeavor is portrayed as a very lacking n°1 hero due to his mindset which is very similar to Bakugo’s but he’s never compared to him, instead it’s Todoroki who gets the parallels in seriously forced ways.
All of this is bad in itself, but the absolute worst part of his characterization is the way the narrative routinely insists on using false equivalences to maintain his role as the main rival.
Deku and Bakugo are obviously supposed to represent the two sides of All Might. Deku represents insane selflessness while Bakugo is strength and ambition. The idea is Deku must get stronger and more ambitious while Bakugo must get more selfless. lt’s pretty simple. The problem with that is, if Deku has made serious progress in terms of fighting ability, Bakugo has yet to do anything remotely on the same level in terms of selflessness. Actually, he’s consistently been a terrible wannabe hero, but he’s never treated as such. lnstead he gets equal praise and status as Deku as one of the class leaders and Deku gets lectured alongside him by All Might, as if he needed to be told to get inspiration from Bakugo.
Worse though, and that to me is the absolute worst scene in the manga and the one thing that cemented Bakugo as a horribly written character, before their rematch Deku validates his awful personality and shit behavior. For the first time in the story, Bakugo shows some self reflection. He asks himself “if All Might chose you does it mean my way to look at him was wrong?” The obvious answer being “uh yeah actually you fucking idiot because you want to be a hero without giving a shit about helping people and your worldview made you abuse your power to fuck with someone weaker than you for years” but no, Deku falls over himself to reassure him that “no one said you were wrong!”
And there you have it. No one said he was wrong. Being motivated by self aggrandizement and actively attempting to destroy the life of a person already in a position of weakness is an equally valid path to heroism as being willing to give your life for the sake of strangers. This is the message Bakugo embodies. l personally find it baffingly absurd.
On a certain whiny edgelord ninja and why despite their differences the way the narrative treats them is remarkably similar
This is getting tiring so let’s conclude with a controversial topic, the comparison between Bakugo and good old Sasuke Uchiha. Now before you man the pitchforks, l know they’re very different characters. Their backstories, personalities, ambitions, and most importantly character arcs are completely different. As an aside, there’s a particular subgroup of idiots in this fandom that seems convinced BNHA is some sort of bold deconstruction of the battle shonen genre, often citing the fact Bakugo didn’t join the villains unlike Sasuke as an example of subverting tropes. So l just wanted to make it clear that the rival joining the villains isn’t a common shonen trope and Kishimoto actually wrote Sasuke as a subversion of the “former antagonist becomes friends with the protag” cliché. Bakugo’s character arc is a trope played completely straight. He’s basically a kindergarden bully version of Vegeta.
Anyway, the reason l mentioned Saucy is because, again, a popular argumentation in favor of Bakugo is to claim unlike Sasuke we’re not supposed to feel sorry for him and he gets properly called out for his actions, and l’ll conclude by showing why it’s bullshit by talking about his rematch with Deku again.
This sequence acts as a sort of closure to the first part of Bakugo’s arc. Events from the first 100 chapters find their conclusion here, and it was a golden opportunity for Bakugo’s character to be seriously challenged and maybe for him to realize something crucially needed to be a hero. Unfortunately and contrary to all claims about Bakugo owning up to the logical consequences of his actions, Kouhei’s genius idea was to portray Bakugo as a victim in need of saving.
Let’s be very clear here: the only result of a hundred chapters of Bakugo being an overall terrible human being and humongous failure as a fledgling hero is him throwing a toddler’s tantrum in the middle of the night and PEOPLE ACTUALLY HUMORING HIS BULLSHIT.
l’ve already talked about Deku validating his terrible worldview before but l think the one thing l probably find the most repulsive is the idea Bakugo is indirectly compared to the other characters Deku tried to help, which include a kid who suffered from domestic abuse, an orphan, and a literally tortured little girl. His shitty worldview comes crashing down and his idiotic behavior had actual negative consequences for everyone around him, so obviously the proper response is to go “nuuuuu kacchan don’tbe sad plz :(” and make sure he gets everything he wants. A reassurance there’s nothing wrong with his mindset, a fight, a pep talk from All Might, a pacifier and a blanket.
And that is basically why l find Bakugo poorly written. Just like Sasuke, his awful behavior never gets him in serious trouble, and if it does, he’s never held accountable for it and the narrative instead focuses on his “suffering” and how to alleviate it. His insanely abrasive personality doesn’t stop him from getting friends and being generally accepted by everyone, and his fatal character flaws are ignored to disproportionately focus on his qualities and praise him for it. The only clear difference between Sasuke and Bakugo narrative treatment wise is that Bakugo doesn’t have drooling addlebrained in universe fangirls, which doesn’t stop the fandom from desperately wanting him to fuck the heroine in some sort of bootleg version of SasuSaku.
tl;dr: Bakugo is a shit person and a shit character
Remember that time Gandhi punched a man into the stratosphere? Or when Nelson Mandela dropped the atom bomb? While such events might make for a good game of Civilization VI, the societal and cultural implications would be rather bleak.
That’s the world of Boku no Hero Academia. A world where peace is assured, not by treaties and accords, but by the threat of overwhelming force. The threat of All Might bearing down upon you with all his might.
The surface level problem with this arrangement is not so much an issue for the majority of law-abiding citizens. At least, it wouldn’t be if not for the way this society pushes people toward villainy (which I wrote about here).
The deeper issue here, is the idolization of violence.
Pictured above are 4 of the top 10 ranked heroes in Japan. There are 2 others, but they don’t support my claim, and the remaining 4 are unknown.
All Might – OFA: punches so hard the sheer pressure changes the weather Endeavour – Hell Flame: kills it with fire Ryukyu – Dragon Form: claws, fangs, probably eats livestock whole Edgeshot – Foldabody: makes body thin as a razor, punches at speed of sound
Ignore the Shigarakis and All For Ones of the world, they are few and far between. Consider the more innocuous criminal, like a shoplifter. What strategies would any of these heroes employ in that case? Step 1, offer chance to surrender. Step 2, murder? These heroes do not have a non-lethal option.
And that’s a real problem. Not just for these heroes, but for the society that elevated them to the top 10, rankings which account for popularity more than anything else.
Every child dreams of being All Might. Everyone looks up to this incredible powerhouse. The term “Hero” was meant to mean “one who saves others,” but has twisted to mean only “one who fights villains.” This perverse understanding of what makes a hero pervades society at an institutional level.
Take it from Aizawa, the UA entrance exam is illogical and harmful, stemming from society’s fascination with brute strength. To get in to the UA Hero course, you need a combat-capable quirk. This system precludes people like Shinso or Aizawa from gaining admission, people who posses some of the greatest and most useful quirks any hero could ask for.
But the exam never asks, “What’s your true potential?” It begs but two simple questions, “How many villains can you beat up? How many people can you save (from villains)?” And the results end up looking like this:
That’s right, Lord Explosion Murder is the star of this year’s class. Bakugou’s quirk and personality are only useful for trying to kill things. Maybe he just needs a better role model. Who does he look up to? Oh, right, it’s All Might.
All Might is a defacto demi-god of this world. Outside of villainous circles, you won’t find anyone who doesn’t idolize him. But what good is that idolization? If someone like Bakugou genuinely believes himself to be following in All Might’s footsteps.
Well, maybe this is an isolated problem. All Might is UA’s celebrity alumni, of course they’ll try to keep up that image. But the other hero schools can’t all be like that, and the hero licensing program is bound to be–
Oh, nope. It’s all violence, all the time. Neat.
Granted, the provisional license exam does have a rescue phase, but almost everyone passed that. The part intended to cull 95% of the applicants is combat-based. Are there even enough villains in the world to justify being this focused on combat?
As tragic as it is, the elevation of violent heroes is only half the problem,
Because this is a zero-sum scenario: if brutality rises to the top, then utility is pushed to the bottom.
Non-violent heroes simply do not have a clear path to success. I’m using Shinso as an example again, because there are so few like him that manage to rise to the point of being mentioned in the story. The realm of heroism is all but institutionally sealed off for them.
Society wants heroes who fight villains. That is what their purpose has become. And anyone who can’t conform to that mold gets pushed out. Maybe Stain was on to something; heroes have deviated from their original purpose, they now exist only for the spectacle of the fight.
All Might’s position as the Symbol of Peace does not extol heroism, but rather violence in heroism’s name.
At first glance, the world of BnHA seems like it might be a fun place to live, but that’s because we’re viewing it from the perspective of the top 1%. For most people, the only difference between their world and the real one is that they are in constant danger.
Let’s review what we know about quirk law. Only licensed heroes are authorized to use quirks in public. You may use quirks privately, but they must be registered and there are myriad restrictions. You must obtain a license to use quirks for your job, also with various limitations.
On the surface, pretty commonsense. In practice, these laws target the lowest common denominator and thus punish everyone else. If you ever had a teacher who demanded silence from the class because one person misbehaved, it’s like that on a societal scale.
(excerpt from the spin off “BnHA Illegals”) This guy can move slightly faster than a brisk walking pace by holding 3 points of contact with the ground. He’s not allowed to do that. He becomes a vigilante hero, which is a crime.
The “Illegals” manga features several people who turned to the “crime” of vigilante heroism because of the draconian regulation of quirks. It’s on the level of thought-crime, guilty until proven innocent.
While licenses make sense in the real world with regards to vehicles and guns, it doesn’t make sense for quirks because A) nearly everyone has them, and B) it’s not a choice to obtain it.
(excerpt from chapter 85) Let’s talk about a case where these laws don’t just inconvenience an individual, but harm all of society. Momo has the quirk “creation” which is very tightly regulated for the sake of the economy. With a hero license she can create anything she needs for heroing, but anything else is (officially) off limits.
This is legislating to the worst case scenario, which, I contend, is a poor strategy in this world. It works from the assumption that she would use her quirk selfishly and excessively. If she created billions of dollars, she would ruin the economy and we would all suffer.
But what if she used her quirk selfishly and in moderation? She could make anything she needs for a modest life, or the money appropriate for a modest living, and it would have no impact on the economy. A good outcome for her and a neutral result for the rest of us. There’s no reason to prohibit this.
And, of course, the law doesn’t consider the best case scenario. What if she uses her quirk selflessly? What if, for example, every couple years she set aside a month to create smart phones for everyone in the world? Would that wreck the economy? One particular industry, sure. Would it benefit literally everyone but electronics CEOs? Would it save thousands of child laborers in sweatshops? YES! That’s a brilliant trade off! But, even if she applied for a business quirk license, I think she’d be denied for the potential disruption of the economy.
(Side note: It has been a topic of many forums whether Momo can make things as complex as a smartphone. I say yes. Recall in the School Trip Arc, she made a tracking device and matching GPS unit. It’s absolutely within her ability.)
Rapid fire round: what should these people do if society was more lenient? Shinso: suicide hotline operator. Todoroki: work inside a nuclear cooling tower, heat up water at the bottom, cool down steam at the top, infinite energy. Uraraka: construction worker work at NASA.
As civilians these quirks would be restricted. Even as heroes these quirks are going to waste from a utilitarian perspective. No one benefits from this arrangement. There is so much potential in the world, and its governments seem dedicated to squandering it.
This is a society that is oppressive to the majority. Quirks could fuel the next stage of human evolution, but laws keep society grounded in the stone age. How can anyone in that world (aside from the 1%ers in their ignorant bubble) not resent that? This is the philosophy that breeds villains, and I can’t help but agree with it.
It’s quite in the early morning throughout the 1-A dorms. Sundays before six a.m. are often like that, Shinsou thinks as his eyes force themselves open. The sun is hardly peaking through his blinds even though the sky is light. It’s not surprising for him to be awake so early. He’s never slept well through the night no matter how hard he tries to. Sighing, he turns into the warm body sprawled softly next to him. Shinsou blinks more of the blur from his eyes and lets a private smile slip on to his lips as he takes in his sleeping boyfriend’s expression.
Midoriya’s lips are parted just the smallest amount, his breath fanning gently on to Shinsou’s cheek and his brows are furrowed as he dreams. His green curls are haloed by the slowly rising sun and become a hundred different shades in the peaceful morning light. It’s breathtaking. He shuffles just a bit in his sleep and sighs as he slips closer to Shinsou’s body. Shinsou doesn’t always like waking up early, but he supposes it’s worth it if he gets to wake up to this.
He’s content with staring at Midoriya’s sleep slack face when a small explosion from above rocks his room and is just loud enough to rouse his boyfriend from slumber. Shinsou promises himself he’ll get Bakugou back in some way before days end. Green eyes blink open sluggishly and then Midoriya’s lips are splitting into a bashful, tired smile and it makes Shinsou’s stomach flood with happy warmth.
“Mmmm,” Midoriya hums, then inches the rest of the way to the other boy, letting his head fall forward on to Shinsou’s chest, likely in an attempt to get comfortable again and fall asleep if he’s lucky. “Shinsou,” he says in a lulled sleepy tone and the warmth in Shinsou’s stomach flares to the rest of his limbs and makes him so indescribably happy.
“I like it when you say my name like that,” Shinsou admits quietly into Midoirya’s mop of curls. Midoirya, in response, hums again but pulls away, a little more awake but still sleep-soft at the edges.
“Why’s that?” he asks, so much more honest about his curiosity when he’s not sharp with consciousness. It’s something Shinsou loves to exploit. But this morning it seems like it’s his turn for confessions.
“Because when you say it like that it makes it sound like you don’t want me anywhere else but right here,” he punctuates his words by wrapping an arm loosely around Midoriya’s waist and pulling him just a little closer, giving himself the ability to hide his face in his boyfriend’s hair. Midoriya wiggles one of his arms free and slips it around Shinsou’s waist as well.
“It sounds like that because it’s true.” Shinsou hadn’t thought he could get any warmer that early morning but Midoriya was someone who seemed to always be able to prove him wrong…
Cheloneuniverse 