My Hero Academia Star Reveals How Bakugo’s Final Fight Drained Him Physically and Emotionally

My Hero Academia really put Katsuki Bakugo through the wringer as he pushed beyond his limits in the final fight against All For One, and the voice star behind the explosive hero opened up about the physical and emotional toll it took on him during the moment as well. Heading into the final season, Bakugo’s fate was left uncertain as he seemed to take a fatal wound to the chest and left with his heart completely torn up. But in the final season, Bakugo was able to push through that pain and take down All For One once and for all.

Speaking to ComicBook to celebrate the final season, Katsuki Bakugo voice star Clifford Chapin opened up about this final battle and revealed it was just as intense of a moment for him as it was for the hero, “Not make it sound negative, but it is quite honestly physically exhausting because it’s all sorts of things. It’s not just in the way that they say the line, it’s in the way that they’re breathing. He’s haggard from having his chest ripped open.”

Bakugo Voice Star Talks Pain for the Final Battle

Elaborating further on performing that physical strain, Chapin explained, “He’s dealing with the internals of him struggling, so you have to kind of bring all of that in. Even though we’re voice actors, there’s a lot of physicality that we sort of have to embody into it to make it sound authentic.” Continuing further, Chapin stated, “When all of those things compound on top of each other, that’s usually where that sort of strain really starts to come in. And because we are dubbing, the animation’s already set. So we have strict time constraints of like…this has to be this long and it can’t be longer and it can’t be shorter.”

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“In that last battle, Bakugo’s going at a full ten the whole time, I can’t necessarily get enough air into my body in between every individual sentence to then do the Chapin continued when getting into the physical strain. “It’s like we have to find the ways to be able to be like, ‘We have to stop here so that we can get enough air and do it again and do this one part and then do it again because it didn’t fit.’ The emotional toll just comes from at the end of it where it’s like, ‘Did I do good?’ You’re at the end of it, like, ‘Please tell me it was good.’”

How Bakugo Has Changed

Speaking to how much Bakugo has changed over the years heading into the final battle, Chapin reflected on how satisfied he’s been about the journey, “I’ve said it many, many times, but it’s one of the most gratifying experiences I’ve gotten to have as an actor because in all acting, be it animation, anime, dubbing, live action, very typically a character on a show is very cookie cutter and there’s a role that they play and they play that role throughout the entire show.”

Elaborating further, Chapin highlighted what made Bakugo so special in this regard, “To get to play a character that has changed so drastically over the course of the show, while still remaining true to himself and who he was at the beginning of the series, it’s truly like a blessing as an actor. It’s gratifying to get to play it and get to experience it and explore it. And the audience responds to that sort of thing to see a character change. So it’s been wonderful.”

You can now watch all of My Hero Academia‘s episodes with Crunchyroll, and a special epilogue episode is coming next year. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!