My Hero Academia Bio Describes Bakugo’s Gentle Soul

Viz Media recently added a new My Hero Academia spin-off to their Shonen Jump digital library, and it features many fun adventures within a fun new chibi look at the world. My Hero Academia: SMASH also is a fun exploration for fans as it shows humorous new sides of each of the characters that series creator Kohei Horikoshi does not always have time to fully explore. This naturally includes the prickly Katsuki Bakugo, who fans have mainly seen hurl tons of brash insults toward Deku over the course of the series. But he’s a bit more sensitive than that.

Bakugo’s official character bio in SMASH notes that he’s a “sensitive soul” that might be using his brash and raging personality as a defense mechanism to keep others at bay. So he’s definitely got a heart of gold underneath all of that stoicness.

As Bakugo’s bio reads, “An eternal pain in the butt who cops a bad attitude with everyone. He’s no dummy though, so he’s more than aware of how he makes others feel. By intentionally making enemies, he isolates himself on the path to greatness. How…stoic of him? Looking at it another way, it’s probably a defense mechanism, since he’s actually a sensitive soul…”

Seeing this biography makes the surprisingly less jagged first draft of his character a lot more sensible as many of these smaller elements have made it into his official personality. But fans have started to see this smarter and more sensitive side to the burgeoning hero lately too. Ever since he was kidnapped by the League of Villains in the third season, he’s been a lot more introspective. He even started to treat Midoriya better following their fight after the Hero License Exam.

The fourth season has shown more of this as well as it’s become increasingly clear seeing just how much Midoriya and the others are progressing are having an impact on him. His pride has been hurt, and is currently dealing with a lot of trauma, and now he’s just trying to make the best of things as the series continues.

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 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 licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this December.