Murder, He Screamed

The Shounen Manga Protagonist.

Over the years, we’ve seen a particular template when it comes to the lead character of shounen (boys) comics in Japan, a combination of hot-blooded, gutsy, brash, and head-strong qualities. They’re edgy with a chip in their shoulder. You have Naruto, the titular knucklehead outcast striving to become the greatest ninja in his village. There’s Asta, the magicless male lead of Black Clover who works to become the Magic Emperor. Even Luffy, the comedic rubber man of One Piece, is so fixated on his goal of becoming the Pirate King that he drags everyone, willing and unwilling, into his antics.

My Hero Academia released in 2014 and its anime adaptation aired in 2016. In this series, super powers called Quirks have become commonplace, and the people everyone idolizes are Heroes. Early on, we’re introduced to Katsuki Bakugo, a boy whose temper is as explosive as his quirk. He’s talented, cocky, and driven, all key elements of a standard shounen protagonist. He wants to become the greatest hero like his idol, All Might, and he has the skills to obtain that goal.

However, Bakugo is not the main character in this story.

Deviating from the norm, My Hero Academia follows Izuku Midoriya, a soft spoken, timid, and quirkless boy who also dreams of becoming the world’s number one hero. A chance encounter with All Might grants him the chance to reach that goal. To understand what makes him an inspiring protagonist, I’d recommend reading my friend Gwen’s article My Hero Academia Asks: What Makes a True Hero? on Love Thy Nerd’s website.

Back to Bakugo. Instead of taking his place on the stage of hot-blooded shounen leads, he’s regulated to the rival archetype. He who had been lauded by his peers as the best must now make room for someone he viewed as a mere stepping stone. While it took Naruto 107 episodes to get to the big rival fight between Naruto and Sasuke, Bakugo ignites the rival fight with Midoriya in Episode 7. Feeling robbed and deceived, he lashes out at everyone, especially Midoriya, every chance he gets.

I will admit, when I first got into the series, Bakugo was my second least favorite character (my least favorite is Mineta, for obvious reasons). He was loud, abrasive, and abusive. He bullied Midoriya throughout their childhood, treating him like trash just because he was weaker than him. In Episode 1, he flat out told Midoriya that he should go kill himself. As a teacher, and a human being in general, this infuriated me. You never tell anyone that, under any circumstance. It was cathartic watching Midoriya take him down a peg in the hero-villain simulation. Much to his chagrin, Bakugo was forced to accept that Midoriya now stood on the same stage as him.

Although Bakugo had some incredible fights and displays of prowess, he still came off as the short-tempered carnage muffin we met at the start. Villains attack the school? He beats them down with brutal efficiency. Takes first place in the sports festival? He rages over a hollow victory. Different day, same muffin. Bakugo’s violent nature worried everyone, characters and audience members alike.

Then, Season 3 aired. What started as an outdoor training camp ended with Bakugo kidnapped by the League of Villains. Their leader, Shigaraki, appealed to Bakugo’s dissatisfaction with his treatment in his school’s hero course, offering him a place in their ranks. I grew anxious. Bakugo had many of the destructive qualities of a villain, including telling everyone and everything to “go die.” This was a Sasuke moment. This was where the rival becomes an enemy.

However, both Shigaraki and I underestimated Bakugo’s values. As Aizawa, Bakugo’s homeroom teacher, put it best:

“He is trying harder than anyone in his pursuit of becoming the ‘top hero.’ If the villains saw that and thought they had an opening, then I believe they are being short-sighted.”

Yes, he wanted to be the greatest, but he wanted to be the greatest hero. Despite the tantalizing offer, Bakugo shot it down and the plan to convert him blew up in the League’s face. In a disjointed rescue attempt, Midoriya, All Might, and several students and pro heroes wrenched Bakugo from their clutches.

Unfortunately, this did not end without consequence. During the confrontation, All for One, history’s most notorious villain, emerged from hiding. In a clash of state-wide proportions, All Might struck him down, expelling the rest of his already fading power. The world’s Symbol of Peace was forced to retire. In an attempt to fill the void, officials sped up and intensified the provisional hero license exams for students.

Bakugo, Midoriya, and their classmates all took the license exam, but, to our surprise, Bakugo was one of the few people who failed the test. I’ll admit, I thought it was another serving of humble pie for him. He was cocky and brash throughout the exam, and he got the results he deserved. However, he grew uncharacteristically quiet. When he told Midoriya to meet him at the training grounds in the middle of the night, I knew something was up.

Without any teachers around to prevent them from going all out, Bakugo vs. Midoriya Round 2 had begun. In a sense, this rematch was Bakugo’s awkward attempt at venting his frustrations. Oddly enough, out of everyone he could have sought out to help clear his head, he went to Midoriya. He didn’t go to any of his close friends. Not even Kirishima, who had treated him as an equal since the beginning. Midoriya was the only one who could understand his pain.

This became all the more evident when, in a brief break in the action, Bakugo unloaded that which tore him up the most:

“Why was I…Why was I the one who ended All Might?!”

He lamented his weakness. If he had been stronger, kept himself from being kidnapped, then All Might wouldn’t have spent his power and retired.

This was the first time Bakugo showed an emotion other than rage. In both the Japanese and English versions of the anime, Bakugo’s voice actors commanded sterling performances. You could feel the despair in his cries as his voice cracked. And, for the first time, I felt something other than dislike for him. I actually started to care.

Three things weighed on Bokugo’s shoulders to lead up to this moment.

First were the expectations piled on him by others. At a young age, everyone marveled at his extraordinary quirk, the power to create explosions with his hands. These praises fed his ego and confidence. Upon entering high school, where he was no longer the biggest fish in the pond, that confidence was shaken. Not only were the expectations higher, stepping-stone Midoriya joined him on equal footing. Although declared a talented genius, Bakugo actually put in a lot of work, and now, he had to do a lot more.

Next came the frustration of not meting those new expectations. Every time he had a victory, it would be overshadowed by somebody else, most notably Midoriya. As All Might put it, “There’s no way Level 1 power and Level 50 power can improve at the same rate.” Midoriya’s progress would be much more apparent because he had less prior experience. Bakugo, who had experience, would show improvement at a slower pace. However, Bakugo didn’t see it that way. He felt lacking and tried even harder.

Then, the kidnapping happened. All things considered, it should be no surprise that high schoolers lost to a group of criminals. To Bakugo, however, it was the worst case of weakness. His capture, his inability to defend himself, spat in the face of his efforts. Coupled with the notion that he was the reason All Might’s secret was exposed, two of the three guilt ingredients were complete.

The third and final components to Bakugo’s breakdown were the outside reminders of his shortcomings. Midoriya’s rise and All Might’s fall have already been addressed at length, but there were many others. At the beginning of the series, a slime villain caught him, and he’s reminded of that event several times. His sports festival victory was unsatisfying because his opponent did not face him at full strength, leaving him unable to test his prowess and earn the win. Monoma, a student from a rival class, threw several verbal jabs about Bakugo’s class being villain magnets. The public announcement of failing the license exam fueled the fire further.

There was one source of painful reminders I had not expected: his parents, and not for the reasons you may think.

After the kidnapping incident, the academy decided to change to a boarding school layout to protect the students. All Might and Aizawa made home visits to discuss the transition with the parents. Bakugo’s parents were open to the idea. They showed genuine concern for their son’s wellbeing. His mother in particular recognized that his talents and everyone’s fawning over shallow accomplishments made him reckless, and requested for the teachers’ continued care and guidance.

However, during a comedic display of Bakugo and his mother yelling at each other like it was a normal family dynamic, she made a chastisement that had more weight than she probably realized:

“It’s your fault to begin with for being so weak! You got caught, and now you’re causing everyone trouble!”

I’m sure she didn’t mean to say something so cutting. Yet, for Bakugo, this fed his guilt and worsened his mental and emotional state.

Everyone’s expectations, the failure to meet them, and the reminders of those failures coalesced until they erupted in his emotional fight with Midoriya. His lowest point became some of the greatest character development we’ve seen in the series. When the fight concluded, he was fully informed of the relationship between All Might and Midoriya. Although he’s still very rough around the edges, he’s begun treating Midoriya as an equal, and I now treat him as a proper, well-developed character.

Now, this second fight with Midoriya redeemed him in my eyes as a character, but there was another event that redeemed him on a more important level: as a person. However, this incident takes place further along in the manga, where the anime is currently nowhere close to. With that said,

SPOILERS AHEAD IN 3…

2…

1…

NOW.

At the beginning of the series, All Might shared an interesting fact about true heroes: they could all recall a point in their youth where their bodies moved to help before their brains could keep up. We saw that in Midoriya when he ran headlong to save Bakugo from the slime villain, even though he had no powers or tools to assist him. Again, refer to Gwen’s article above.

In brief snippets throughout the most recent manga arc, we see Bakugo assisting Midoriya in mastering his ever-evolving quirk. He feels guilty for how he treated him and is working to make up for it, to rectify his behavior.

During the latest fight against the League of Villains, Midoriya squared off against a beefed up Shigaraki. Both combatants ran each other ragged in an intense battle of attrition, vying for the upper hand. In the midst of the deadly exchange, Bakugo noticed an attack that Midoriya would have been unable to avoid.

All Might’s words echoed as Bakugo flew in, moving before he could think, to defend Midoriya and take the lethal blow.

In that one act, Bakugo redeemed himself. His transformation from carnage muffin to true hero was complete. Bakugo’s growth may have been a slow burn, but it resulted in the creation of an amazing character.

He’s no longer a flat, single-note personality.

One might say he’s…

Dyna Might.