'My Hero Academia' Reveals Bakugo's Weakness

My Hero Academia's latest episode set Bakugo on the long road to rehabilitation and redemption as he fought Midoriya in order to figuratively and literally get over his personal issues.

In the fight, fans also learned of Bakugo's big weakness: his own mind. He had been punishing himself for what he felt like was inadequacy, and that all came to a head against Midoriya.

the voice crack at the end. the pain in it. clinging his shirt because he cant handle it. all this on loop because im cruel and i cant be suffering alone pic.twitter.com/WayOYHw4Yx

— gogo (@quirkzero) September 15, 2018

Bakugo had been through quite a lot in the third season of the series. Not only was he kidnapped by the League of Villains during the Forest Training Camp arc, the fight to rescue him during the following Hideout Raid arc led to All Might losing the remainder of his One For All power and retiring as a result. Not only that, the following attempt to acquire his Provisional Hero License ended in failure.

All of this stacked together and created a heavy weight on Bakugo's mind. He felt responsible for All Might's retirement, the hero he worshipped, and saw that Midoriya was actually recognized by All Might as a worthy successor. The poor boy had been working alone to gain more strength all this time, and his volatile front made it tough for anyone to get through to him.

But rather than accept this weaker part of himself, he unhealthily channeled it into rage toward Midoriya. Midoriya became a physical representation of Bakugo's emotional weakness, a wall he had to tear down. Thankfully, through the fight, the two of them finally had their feelings reach one another and Bakugo's weakness can finally stop being a toxin rotting away his spirit. Now he can direct all his attention toward becoming a true hero rather than beating up himself.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has super powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he's eventually scouted by the world's best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been collected into 19 volumes so far, and has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015.