MHA or My Hero Academia and one of its characters Bakugo Katsuki has been gaining traction from many viewers since the day the series started. This Series doesn’t have any deficit of any “Quirky” characters, Bakugo Katsuki is one of them.
Now, there is a matter to consider, Bakugo isn’t your usual run-of-the-mill side character.
He has a solid presence with his charm in the series of MHA, much different from a regular side character.
Bakugo is portrayed as the protagonist’s rival throughout the entire season, be it for good or bad.
He has his own set of challenges to overcome, and a specific goal to reach, and for that, he is shown to be desperately struggling along the way.
He is a major character, the next most important character after the protagonist, though some viewers may have other opinions.
However, in this article, we won’t discuss his importance but the evolution of his character throughout the series as we’ve seen.
Now, without further ado, let’s jump right into the topic.
Table of Contents
Bakugo Bullied Deku
Bakugo Katsuki and the protagonist of the story Midoriya Izuku had a unique and complex relationship among them.
Since early childhood, he was good friends with Izuku and both aspired to become great heroes, albeit their motives to become heroes were different.
Since they both admired All-Might deeply, they had some goals in mind.
Bakugo wanted to become strong like All-Might and even surpass him to win against villains in fights.
On the other hand, Izuku never dreamt of surpassing All-Might but wanted to save troubled people with a smile on his face, just like All-Might.
Their difference in approach to becoming heroes created an invisible wall between them, which became clearer as Bakugo awoke his quirk but Izuku remained quirkless.
After his quirk awakened, everyone including his friends and even teachers started praising Bakugo too much for his quirk was very special.
Ah!! Way to destroy a pure mind!!
All that praise only fanned his ego, which was built up over a long time due to his capability to accomplish any task or perform any feat more easily than other same-aged children.
On the other hand, due to some abnormalities in him, Izuku remained quirkless, and Bakugo with his enormous ego couldn’t accept his weak friend and Bakugo started to bully him.
He started to call Izuku, “Deku” which translates as, one who can’t do anything right.
Deku had a disposition to help anyone in need because his body starts to move before he can think after watching anyone in danger as he displayed in episode 2.
When Bakugo turned into a troubled person in front of Deku, the same thing happened, but the result was a bit extreme, as Bakugo started to bully him even more.
The reason for such behavior was that he couldn’t accept a weaker Deku was trying to help him, his ego was hurt.
His bullying went on till Junior-High and intensity increased day by day.
It increased even more when Bakugo realized Izuku plans to apply for UA High School despite being quirkless where he also wanted to apply.
There was an instance, where he told Deku to jump off the roof if he wanted to be reborn with a quirk in the next life.
Wow!! What a toxic fella!!
However, the long journey of character evolution of Bakugo starts from here, where he turns from a capable childhood friend to an elite bully.
Bakugo Entered UA High
Bullys are territorial and they lose their authority upon entering a new territory.
This is where Bakugo Katsuki is different, he isn’t like those standard bullies.
He is more like a, my way is the highway, kind of guy.
So, upon entering UA High, nothing changed for him as he didn’t feel the need to mingle with other classmates.
He was the same as usual here, pushing everyone away with his rude behavior and harsh words, just like a little porcupine.
But there was a single change big enough to disturb him so much that he became even more desperate to win.
Deku was there in the entrance exam, and more so, with his own quirk!!
The little twirp without any quirk, who he thought was beneath him was competing with him.
And when Deku was granted admission, it was a huge blow to his pride.
Bakugo faced Deku in battle in one class, which he lost.
That class was being taught by both of their person of admiration, All-Might.
After experiencing the defeat, his thoughts about Deku trying to get before him were affirmed.
He was always weary of Deku’s strong mental strength which we will discuss a little bit later.
Now his mental strength was backed up by a newly awakened quirk, which made Bakugo restless and more insecure.
At this point, Bakugo started to view Deku as an individual competitor, not a little snot running behind him.
This is a major change in his perspective regarding Deku, which is a major step in his character evolution.
Since Bakugo couldn’t bully him one-sidedly like before, he changed his tactics.
He started to hurt him in the pretense of training.
Things went on this way for some time, Bakugo trying to establish his authority over Deku again.
But the attack of the Villain Alliance on USJ happened and Bakugo along with other classmates had to fend off against them with the help of teachers.
It was here, that he realized his weakness and understood the importance of teamwork, even though he didn’t admit that to maintain his ego.
From here on out, he started to communicate with other classmates especially Kirishima albeit in his clumsy and rude way.
This was another step towards his character evolution, from being a rude loner to a rude person trying to accept teamwork.
Bakugo In School Sports Festival and Exam
After losing in a battle to Deku and understanding his powerlessness in the attack of villains at USJ, his belief of him being the strongest started to crumble down bit by bit.
When he learned that Deku was All-Might’s favorite student, it was the nail in the coffin for his confidence.
It was then, that the School Sports Festival came like a godsend to him, as it was supposed to be broadcast to the whole nation and was the only way to affirm his superiority.
Bakugo was selected as a student representative for the speech as he was the most accomplished student of 1-A.
For those who only focus on his bad side, this came off as a great shock to them!!
He did something even more shocking, as Bakugo announced, he would be the number one and other “mobs” should be the stepping stone for him.
This time, it wasn’t his ego talking but he was pushing himself to the highest point to maintain his conviction to be the strongest and eventually surpassing All-Might.
This time he started to focus on other things than his enormous ego, that’s a huge change in the process of his character evolution.
After losing in the first event of the Sports Festival to Deku And the second one to Todoroki Shoto he bet and put his all in the final segment.
There he learned that those he thought were insignificant could put up a good fight if they have enough determination, which Bakugo learned in his fight with Uraraka Ochoko.
He won first place by defeating Shoto when Shoto was at half of his own strength, which wasn’t enough to satisfy him as he aimed to win fair and square, in a full-powered battle.
Even when All-Might was presenting him the first-place winner’s medal, he outright rejected him, saying, that even if society accepts this as a win, he doesn’t accept that.
Yet another effort to prove him being the strongest was in vain.
Don’t worry, ’cause he had another chance waiting for him, that was the School Exam.
In the practical section of this exam, one had a partner assigned to them and had to escape from a teacher or defeat and capture them.
As Bakugo’s toxic behavior towards Deku was growing beyond control, their homeroom teacher Aizawa Shota(Eraser Head) paired them together against All-Might.
We will not go into the details of this incident as to how Deku & Bakugo navigated through the whole ordeal.
We will cover that topic in a different article.
In the gist of this event, Bakugo learns to accept help from the person he hates the most as he matures.
This in fact was one of the trigger events, that made Bakugo accept Deku’s existence in his life, thus helping his character evolve even more to an accepting person from an intolerable prick.
Worst Things That Happened To Bakugo
You may think that this much stimulus isn’t enough to see any major evolution in the character of an obstinant bully like Bakugo Katsuki.
So let me remind you of some of the other events that had an everlasting effect on Bakugo.
Bakugo Gets Kidnapped By Villains At Summer Camp
This event happened right after the exam ended.
A Summer Reinforcement Program was organized in camp format and all twenty students were supposed to join that.
Bakugo was among them and this time he was somewhat cooperative towards others as he already learned his lesson at the USJ Villain Alliance attack.
Bakugo gets kidnapped by the same Villain Alliance this time.
Watching his demeanor and attitude in the live broadcast of UA High’s School Sports Festival, Villain Alliance leader Shigaraki Tomura had a misunderstanding.
He made the mistake of thinking of Bakugo as simple antisocial material, not understanding his conviction.
So, this time it was a test of his Conviction and he had another chance to affirm his belief of becoming the strongest hero.
Though all his efforts ended in vain as All-for-One intervened, this scuffle with eminent danger without any help, forced him to grow and evolve as a hero.
Bakugo Had To Watch His Hero, All Might, Fall
Although All-for-One came to intervene, All-Might also came and tried to rescue Bakugo while protecting ordinary civilians.
Since All-Might was not all that mighty anymore after being wounded in his previous confrontation with All-for-One, he was struggling.
Deku who was hiding nearby, found the chance to rescue him.
He did so with the help of Kirishima And Todoroki, but they were too late as All-Might was already wounded beyond recovery.
With his remaining strength, he may have managed to defeat All-for-One but had to pay the huge price of losing One-for-All entirely.
He also had to reveal his sickly appearance to the world which he tried to hide desperately.
So, the symbol of peace All-Might ended and left an everlasting wound in Bakugo’s heart and he blamed himself for that.
At a later time after having a major fight with Deku, Bakugo mentions that to Deku with much grief.
It was the time when he learned to come to terms with his weakness and accept it thus evolving further as a character.
Bakugo Changes For The Better
With all those experiences in the belt, Bakugo changes for the better.
Bakugo learned how to work in teams from his experience in the USJ Villain Alliance attack, the exam, and the Summer Reinforcement Program Camp, where he had to team up with his classmates including Deku.
He also learned to be more frank with his classmates like Kirishima.
He even became casual with Iida and Shoto as shown in episode 143.
He learned to respect a worthy opponent in the fight with Uraraka Ochoko where he had to use his then-strongest attack to defeat her.
He began to tone down his arrogance a little bit since All-Might lost his quirk trying to save him and even was supportive of Deku after learning the secrets of All-Might in his own way.
In episode 136, Bakugo went as far as to apologize to Deku for all of his past wrongdoings while bowing his head.
He further disclosed the reason as to why he bullied him.
The reason wasn’t so simple, Deku wasn’t simply being bullied for being born quirkless.
Bakugo was afraid that Deku’s conviction to become a hero was stronger than his even though he didn’t had any quirk.
He felt insecure as his confidence was entirely built upon the power of his quirk, while Deku had something more, the spirit of a hero.
So all the time he felt as if Deku will surpass him, which made him bully him out of insecurity and fear.
His single apology maybe wasn’t enough for forgiveness, as what he did wasn’t small of damage.
But still, Deku needed to hear those words, as he was in a desperate situation with insecurities.
In this case, Bakugo didn’t shy away from expressing his emotions in which he was always very bad at.
After this event his point of view toward his goal to become the strongest hero became different.
Prior to this, he only thought of others as the obstacles in his path to becoming a hero, but now Bakugo started to see them as rivals, especially Izuku(Deku) and Bakugo supported Deku also.
This change evolved him as a new Bakugo, albeit many will say his attitude still sucks, but the fact is we all know his actions speak louder than his attitude.
So you love to hate him or just love him, whatever may be the case, it doesn’t change the fact that the creator of this story(Manga) and the director of the anime have portrayed a very interesting character rivaling even the protagonist.
