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It exists because Horikoshi is a failure and idek why everyone in eng fandom wants to blame Izuku for that.

fyi this post is made up of two parts—the first is for roasting Mr. Horikoshit, and the second is a play by play of how everybody has always been wrong about who Izuku even is, because damn, you know, in hindsight my blog was basically dedicated to debunking eng fandom’s stupid ideas about Izuku. consider this second bit an annotated bibliography.

First, the main thing I wanna say is that I ain’t watching the OVA, because it is a meaningless adaption of some shit Horikoshi churned out simply because he is incapable of matching the production level of his peers.

For the last 3 years of MHA’s serialization, Horikoshi managed on average a scant 15 pages per week, which is 20% less than all of his peers. Whether they were drawn by longtime veterans or debuting newbies who got axed after a year or two, basically every other series consistently released 19 pages of material or more on a weekly basis. Only one series I looked into had fallen to similarly low page counts week-to-week. Horikoshi has admitted that his editor had to negotiate with WSJ to allow him to produce such a low page count every week, because whenever he attempted more, he failed to complete the chapter and made life hard for everyone downstream of him in publishing. He openly stated that his editor asking him to add just 2 pages to one of Toga’s final chapters was a dire fucking request that, if Horikoshi failed to deliver yet again, could have serious consequences for the editor professionally.

And yet the whole eng fandom threw regular parasocial pity parties for Horikoshi, going wehhh it’s such a hard and stressful life. Yeah, and he chose it. He’s a goddamn adult. He could have pitched to a monthly shounen magazine, but no, he chose to publish with WSJ because like every other male mangaka filled with hubris from a young age, he wants to be bigger than One Piece. I ain’t gonna pity a guy who successfully got work with the publisher of his dreams and then proceeded to trip over his own dick week after week for years. To be honest, 431 dropped the scales from my eyes and I realized my own admiration of this dude was deeply flawed and naive.

The final arcs of MHA were not drawn to their full potential nor do they function to meet the needs of the story, they were materially constrained by Horikoshi’s inability to produce the minimum amount of work expected of an artist in his position.

If the final 8 chapters of MHA had just 4 more pages each—comparable to every other regular release in WSJ—431 would not even exist. He would not have had a 38 page deficit in the final tankōbon he needed to fill. Hell, if the last 20 chapters had just 2 pages more each, this wouldn’t have happened. Izuku's final battle chapters might not have felt like a weird fever dream with cheap cliffhangers. The epilogue chapters would have better pacing and, who knows! Maybe they would have lightly touched on some important moments we all expected to happen! You know, like they did in the anime, because Horikoshi knew he fucked up and had to add shit! Just some bare minimum expansion on literally any emotional conclusion!

Anyway, onto Izuku.

I'm writing this bit because, for a long time, I tried to write Izuku character meta that expressed my perspective on him, and over and over again I found myself having to address what felt like willfully mean interpretations of him. It was exhausting and left me unsatisfied.

After being immersed in jp fandom for several years and seeing fanworks by people who adore Izuku, I realized that much of English speaking fandom just straight up hates him. Even if they don't, they seem to like him for traits that don't materially exist in canon and themes they have misread into the series through blatant misinformation posts spread all over twitter by people who don't speak Japanese and don't understand Japanese culture pretending to be experts.

It took me a long time to realize just how badly misunderstood Izuku is, and that a huge swath of the questions sent to me in my askbox over the years were strangers trying to make me validate their bizarre misreading of his character. I spent my blog being as even-handed and intellectually generous with these misreadings as possible, and in some ways I regret that, because the end result seems to have primarily been people I completely disagree with using my posts as "proof" their extremely wrong opinions are correct, actually. So I'm just gonna be super explicit here.

1. Izuku tried to resolve the conflict with Katsuki many times without success; ergo, the narrative onus is not on him to mend their bond, it is on Katsuki. Blaming Izuku for not “appreciating” Katsuki’s growth “enough,” whatever that means, is unhinged and not rooted in respect for either character’s emotional journey.

Source: Bullying in Japan and how Izuku sees Katsuki’s behavior

2. Izuku cares deeply about Katsuki and is not meaningfully dismissive or inconsiderate towards him. These are wildly uncharitable misinterpretations of one of Izuku’s core traits—being kind-hearted but oblivious to how other people feel about him personally. This trait is not framed as malicious or harmful, but rather as a charming albeit exasperating quirk of the person shitty little nerd Izuku is. If you hate that, then you just don’t like Izuku.

Source: “Deku is fine, Kacchan”: Izuku is sincere and Katsuki is hilarious, 424: Katsuki’s confession and Izuku’s tenderness, that bkdk car conversation is really fucking gay

3. Izuku does not repress his feelings for Katsuki; he resolved his own misgivings about emulating Katsuki during DvK2. From then on, he sincerely receives each of Katsuki’s gestures of reconciliation out of respect for the fact that Katsuki is the one who pushed him away to begin with. Katsuki’s redemption is meaningful BECAUSE he is the active agent of it, making Izuku the passive recipient of Katsuki’s active pursuit. If you don’t like that and you want Izuku to be the one pursuing Katsuki somehow, you just don’t like their canon relationship or Katsuki’s character arc.

Source: Does Izuku Think His Feelings For Katsuki Are Gross? (or, DvK2’s Endless Emporium of Nuance)

4. Izuku isn’t some weird possessive psycho about Katsuki, and him learning self-control over his righteous anger is framed as positive character development. If you think self-control is bad, you misunderstood everything about “control your heart.”

Source: Did Izuku say, “Give him back TO ME”?, “Control your heart”: A Misunderstood Narrative

5. Most of what eng fandom seems to clamor for regarding Katsuki and Izuku’s relationship is rooted in fundamental misunderstandings about what the characters want and need from each other. There is plenty to be said about the glaring lack of emotional closure afforded to the end of the series and, specifically, Katsuki and Izuku’s relationship, but this ain’t it.

Source: Stories are driven by what the characters need (“why didn’t Izuku and Katsuki talk about [blank]?”)

6. Implied romance that lacks explicit confirmation is not new, nor is it an inferior approach to storytelling. A manga from conservative-ass WSJ is not going to give you your canon queer representation, but that doesn’t diminish the beauty of Katsuki and Izuku’s bond or the story. You don’t need Horikoshi’s approval to think gay thoughts about them.

Source: Implied romance in shounen manga, “Queer-coding” is only useful for a narrow range of media and it’d be great if we could stop using it for literally everything

431 exists to justify Horikoshi’s half-assed attempts to center ideas he introduced vaguely, late in the series, and did not develop at all. It flies in the face of everything that came before, and its primary goal is to make Ochako seem super duper important and heroic and deep while simultaneously gutting any trace of character development for her.

No one wants to admit it, but 429's whole "You're my hero" shit takes a scenario that could have been used to develop Izuku and bring real meaning to the question of how he can continue being a hero without OFA, and instead it stops the whole plot to glorify Ochako for *checks notes* saving Izuku from tripping and stuff.

We could have had a Deku vs. Kacchan 3-type scene where Katsuki challenges Izuku to see how his own heroic heart has always existed regardless of whether he had OFA or not, which would have been effective because one, Katsuki is always right, and two, Katsuki was the very first person to recognize Izuku for the hero he is back when they were kids. We could have had real, concrete exploration of what Izuku learned about being a hero and saving people, instead of, you know, what we got, which was a single solitary panel of Izuku staring blankly at Aizawa and his student with zero introspection available to the audience.

On her side of things, Ochako could have demonstrated real character growth by learning a single fucking thing from Toga and not repressing her feelings. Instead of regressing into a blubbering lying mess, she could have affirmed her own goals to live honestly in honor of Toga's memory and spend the rest of her life meaningfully reaching out to outcasts like her.

BUT GOD FORBID WE DEVELOP ANYTHING TO AN EMOTIONALLY SATISFYING CONCLUSION!!! NO, WE MUST JUSTIFY THE BAD WRITINGGGGGG.

Ochako and Izuku are both objectified for the sake of Horikoshi stroking his own ego. Izuku is turned into an "untouchable symbol of heroism" who isn't allowed to meaningfully reciprocate the feelings of anyone around him except Ochako, and that's the most "romance" Horikoshi could wring out of that shit. If you don't blame Ochako for how bad her writing is, you can't blame Izuku for his.

That's all I've got to say about it.

I want everyone to know that you don't have to think about 431 or the OVA, you don't have to care, and you can in fact ignore the drama and bellyaching about it. Stay off twitter, ignore people who've never recovered from it and want to let it make them miserable, do your own thing.

431 is so irrelevant, me having even said this much is far more than it deserves. The OVA got made to make money, which is exactly why they are animating the fanbook extra separately, too. The studio executives are just trying to milk the series for all it is worth because they made an investment. Corporations chasing advertising and merch money into infinity doesn't validate the material in any special way.

I'm not really sure how to answer this. First, I'll direct you to this ask I answered previously about bkdk in the Japanese fandom.

And if you're talking about the same tweets from jpn fans I saw getting shared around, the majority of the comments clearly used emojis, euphemisms, and algorithm-disrupting nicknames for Katsuki and Izuku, which kind of immediately suggests the user is already a bkdk fan. So, I mean... do you go into shipping fan spaces, see people shipping, and decide that means everybody thinks those characters are dating? Probably not, right?

But now that we've got an ending, lemme say outright that bkdk is implied by the base structure of the story. By the characters' thematic arcs. By their words, values, goals, and actions. Regardless of what language they speak, no reader can walk away from MHA without understanding that Izuku and Katsuki are profoundly important to each other.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Izuku loves Katsuki. And by the end of his character arc, there is no way to read Katsuki's actions towards Izuku and not see love, either. The exact nature of that love is up to individual interpretation; this is common for stories outside the romance genre that have complex character relationships, and I encourage you to feel secure in your own reading without external validation.

But if you want to talk about validity, the fact that we don't see either of them say the words "I love you" out loud does not diminish a romantic interpretation.

Just for fun, let's talk a bit about some important history of "implied" romance in shonen manga.

(Spoilers for Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2.)

All right, listen. It’s pretty damn funny that two weeks ago I posted all like, “oh I don’t really comment chapter-by-chapter, I’m waiting to see what happens next,” but this one broke me.

This chapter was everything I wanted for bkdk, and it’s so much more tender than I ever dreamed it could be.

I want to talk for a minute about bullying in Japan. I mentioned in this post that Japanese people are generally socialized to avoid direct confrontation. This means people may not intervene in bullying or public mistreatment; there is also an element of social shame in being singled out. A teacher or concerned adult interfering with bullying may end up making things worse for the bullied child, because now, the child is a victim, separate from everyone else in the class, and they may end up being shunned by their peers (ostracization is also a common form of bullying).

Peers may also fear retribution for objecting. You see this in English-speaking countries as well, where a bullied child being defended makes them and any peer who objects a “weakling,” a “kiss-up,” “tattle-tale,” “teacher’s pet.” In fact, often a whole group gangs up on the victim and participates in bullying. We see this in the very first chapter of MHA, Katsuki mocks Izuku for wanting to take the U.A. entrance exam, and the entire classroom laughs and sneers at him.

Additionally, sometimes the non-confrontational approach and no-singling out incentive also mean that everyone in class just kind of pretends that the bullied child is “In on the joke,” and they laugh along or do not object. Onlookers may view the mistreatment as a private issue between the bully and the bullied that they must resolve on their own.

No culture has a solution for bullying. We all use our cultural context and our personal beliefs to discern how to respond, and this often manifests in unhealthy ways. In the US, a young boy protagonist being bullied in school and “learning to fight back” is an extremely common narrative. The lesson from American culture is that we must defend ourselves, even with violence—that learning to hurt other people is necessary and part of “becoming a man.” In Japan, a collectivist culture, the lesson might be closer to “don’t stand out and don’t bother others.”

I highly recommend everyone read this article about ijime in Japan.

Note the statistic that two thirds of all Japanese children report being bullied. Simultaneously, nearly half (46.9%) report having both been bullied and also bullying others. MHA takes place in a fictional Japan, but it is worth knowing that this is how things are in the real-world society MHA is published in. Suicides related to bullying are a prominent topic and the Japanese Ministry of Education has been trying to reduce bullying rates for years. Bullying is understood as a serious problem, but it is also known to be very common, something many people both experience and perpetuate.

Now, let’s talk about how Izuku personally feels about the way Katsuki treated him.

Izuku has an extremely strong sense of self. He is a determined, stubborn person, and we know this to be true even before he gets OFA: despite the entire world telling him he cannot be a Hero because he is Quirkless, he still plans to enroll in the Hero Course at U.A., even before he meets All Might. Since nearly all villains are going to have Quirks, this is… a horrifyingly dangerous path to walk, but Izuku does not care and is not dissuaded. Katsuki says that Izuku has always been self-sacrificing and not taken his own safety into account—this comment and the river memory suggest to me that this trait is unique to Izuku as a person and his own convictions, so I don’t think it is the result of Katsuki bullying him.

Izuku also sees Katsuki and his actions clearly. He doesn’t hesitate to describe Katsuki as an awful guy (嫌なやつ, iyana yatsu, you could even translate this as “asshole”); he notes Katsuki’s terrible qualities and his continued path down the road to being “bad.” In Japanese, he insults Katsuki several times with バカ野郎 (baka yarou, stupid jerk). Izuku has never been in denial about what Katsuki is like.

Izuku says during Deku vs. Kacchan 2 that normally, nobody would hang around a person who insults them all the time. He acknowledges all the bad parts of Katsuki, but then insists that Katsuki’s brilliance, his amazingness, is even stronger. Izuku sees all these incredible things about Katsuki more than he sees his terribleness.

Izuku has known Katsuki since they were little, since before Katsuki’s Quirk manifested. Katsuki was a cocky kid who liked to show-off, but he was not a bully until he manifested his Quirk and was suddenly exalted for his “incredible power,” while also developing his whole inferiority complex about Izuku being “better” than him. Izuku knows Katsuki has good inside him and that being an arrogant bully is not all there is to Katsuki, because he has seen it firsthand.

In my opinion, if Katsuki’s behavior is viewed by outsiders as a private issue between the two of them, then Izuku himself views it as Katsuki’s issue, not his own. “This is just how Kacchan acts.” Izuku is definitely hurt by Katsuki’s cruelty, but I do not believe that he internalizes this as a reflection on himself necessarily. I think Izuku has felt hurt and angered by Katsuki’s behavior because he hates that this special person he admires and cares about so much could stoop that low. We see this in chapter 62 when Izuku punches Katsuki for saying he’d rather lose than accept Izuku’s help—Izuku isn’t offended by the put-down, he is furious that his image of victory could be so petty that he would accept defeat.

Izuku had already forgiven Katsuki before chapter 322. I think Izuku never expected an apology, and in his own head, he didn’t really need one, because all he wants is to be able to stand next to Katsuki. Izuku wants to be the number one hero, so he does want to surpass his image of victory, but… he also just really wants to be with Katsuki. He wants to talk with him and spend time with him, he wants to fight by his side and see him be amazing up-close and personal. Because Izuku loves Katsuki. He just does. Whether you view it as platonic or romantic, it is pretty hard to say that the depth of emotion Izuku feels for Katsuki isn’t love.

For better or worse, as human beings we tend to forgive the people we love for things we would never accept from anyone else. We give the people we love second chances, and we see the best in them even when it is hard to, when no one else can. Izuku knows Katsuki has done unacceptable things, but he still sees Kacchan in there, and that matters more to him.

Both Horikoshi and Katsuki’s voice actor, Okamoto Nobuhiko, have repeatedly said that Katsuki was terrible and unlikable early in the series because of how he treated others, particularly Izuku, and that he is only became likable because of his humanity. Because he changes, matures, and tries to redeem himself. Horikoshi directly said that despite Katsuki’s character having improved, he still needs to apologize to Izuku, and in chapter 322, this is what we get.

That Izuku does not hold a grudge against Katsuki is precisely what makes Katsuki’s redemption so meaningful. The impetus behind Katsuki’s atonement is his own conscience. Sometimes, people forgive us even when they probably shouldn’t. They give us a second chance, even when we probably didn’t deserve one. Katsuki knows Izuku doesn’t resent him, but he wants to do right by Izuku, and that means being a better person, being there when Izuku needs him, protecting Izuku when no one else will. It means admitting what he has done and truly apologizing for it.

I wanted to talk about the severity and frequency of bullying in Japan not to downplay Katsuki’s actions, but to emphasize that this is both a societal issue and a personal one. If people believe that Katsuki can never atone for the cruel things he did as a little kid and a middle schooler, if you think he will never be anything but a bully, then… half of the population of Japan is also irredeemable. How are young people in Japan supposed to feel if the moral of Katsuki’s story is “once a bully, always a bully”?

If we can’t see value in the redemption of a fictional character from a story about prejudice and social inequality, how can we forgive real people for their mistakes? Nobody has to like Bakugou Katsuki as a character, but I do find the way his story is talked about pretty troubling.

MHA is fundamentally about discrimination and social strife: Who is a villain? Who is a hero? When the world treats us a certain way, are we to blame for how we react? Do you turn a blind eye to people who are inconvenient to you, who you think don’t belong in society, who seem irredeemable? How can we even begin to change a world like this?

🌃 Jumping Rooftops

Clip Studio Paint | may 2025-march 2026

Dynamight and Deku are on night patrol together, but there seems to have been a certain incident...

post smooch

STALKER STALKER STALKER.

Omfg HES SUCH A STALKER.

Needs to know every damn thing going on with his Deku. Be SOOOO ffr.

“Damn stalker!”

Happy New year 2026!🎆🐴

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