Bakugou's epilogue
My Hero Acedemia’s definitive ending, the epilogue, recently published has given so much to talk about that it was impossible to remain spoilers-free, even when I am very careful with them because I am just following the anime, that means I still don’t know how the story is going to be resolved. I know All For One is going to be defeated of course (dugh!) but I don’t know the finer details of how.
Now, nonetheless, I also know how Deku, our protagonist, is going to end at the end of the series and how that gets fixed as well (Can you see how I am trying not to spoil anything myself, although, chances are, you already know how everything goes down -probably know more than me, but hey! I like being careful just in case!). The other big thing that I know, though, is how deeply Bakugou’s ending is emotionally affecting a big portion of the fans.
And because I’m such a Bakugou fan myself and I really didn’t like what I was reading and so I went ahead and read the epilogue (skipping the parts that were obviously liked to the resolution of the main story: every time that a villain was there, my eyes didn’t read a thing!). I couldn’t stand not knowing if what people were saying was exactly what happened.
Especially because one of those things I kept reading was how the ending implied that Bakugou and Deku were going to drift apart, no longer influencing each other, and no longer supporting each other because their chosen paths were way too different.
My heart couldn’t stand that. I love My Hero Academia because of the way that it's written, there’s no denying that there is no Deku without Bakugou and vice-versa. Their story is so intertwined that neither of them would have been a hero (or a good hero) without the other. They reflect each other’s growth in a satisfactory way, they make my nerdy, story-obsessive, characters-based brain happy in a way that I haven’t found in a really long time. To say that I was experiencing second-hand heartbreak over what looked like the most unhappy ending possible for one of my favorite anime is putting it gently.
Here comes the unavoidable spoiler, dear reader. So look the other way if you would rather wait to know about Bakugou’s last appearance in the manga because I don’t think I can find a way to talk about it without being direct. You have been ware!
I read the manga… And I like it. I honestly enjoy it. The ending is fitting, is an adult approach to life, which I genuinely appreciate in a shounen manga. I think the character development is easy to see and guess in the subtle changes they all have and yet, all of Class A are still the heroes that I adore and support.
I couldn’t see how Deku and Bakugou’s lives were no longer going to be intertwined when Bakugou himself is the reason why Deku finally talks with Uraraka about spending more time together. Bakugou, once again, is the reason why Deku grows out of his comfort zone and takes action toward something he wants.
On the other hand, if you read Bakugou’s ending as being a sad one because Deku rejected his offer to work together as heroes… Me too. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean this is the end of Bakugou’s career or even his story as a whole. The most attractive trait of Bakugou as a character, in my opinion, is how he’s never truly beaten. “I break myself until I win the way I want,” right? Hell yeah.
I like knowing that Bakugou’s story is far from done. He isn’t done growing, adapting, changing. My imagination got excited thinking of all the ways he can reinvent himself (without changing his core!) to be an even greater hero; raking be damned.
But they do say goodbye to each other in their last appearance together in the manga. Finally, the panel that generated so much anguish… Well. The anguish is gone because, in my reading of the chapter, I think is pretty clear the two of them have been really good friends while in the time-skip (what with Deku inviting Bakugou to his class again) and Bakugou telling Deku his plans for the next day -I don’t think is out of character for Deku to tell his Kacchan about his new resolution to be closer to Ochako.
The two of them are friends. Friends that don’t need to share the same profession to keep up with each other, to be important, and included (and even then, Deku is still a hero. They might not be working under the same agency but look at Kirishima and Bakugou! They are proof that no one needs to work under the same agency to be close friends in and outside of the field!).
But then I thought… Hey, I’m not reading this right because is translated. Maybe when Bakugou says goodbye to Deku, maybe, he doesn’t say “See you later,” as the translation shows… Maybe he says “Sayounara,” which is a more serious goodbye. That, I believe, does imply a separation, an “I will not see you for a while.”
And so I spent more than a couple of minutes in a frantic, pre-anguish search for the original scanner of the manga. And lo and behold: Both Deku and Bakugou use “Mata ne,” to say bye to each other. That, my friends, is a “See you later.”
image by Horikoshi Kouhei - My Hero Academia
Because they will. Because they are friends. As someone who gets too attached to characters for my own good, that’s all I need to feel satisfied: that the core of the story is unchanged. These two started the manga together; they are still together at the end.
If I’m honest, nevertheless, when I read Bakugou’s goodbye… I took it for myself. I felt like he was saying “See you later,” to the readers themselves; to me, at that moment. Their story is really over as a whole and he was saying that the next time we encounter each other, I’m gonna be a different person, even if Bakugou himself was only going to continue changing and growing in my imagination. An adult that my adult self is creating from the information that I have, without another way to keep getting support from my favorite character.
And that, yeah… That makes me sad. A bittersweet ending because is the ending, not because it doesn’t feel fitting.
I’ve understood so many things about myself thanks to Bakugou’s character development and, more importantly, the fact that his core self never changes, that knowing that I’m approaching the anime’s ending myself gets me a little sad. But hey, I know me, I’ll be rewatching all of My Hero soon enough.
(And also writing more about Bakugou and the rest of my favorite characters because My Hero Academi is really one of the best shounens I have encounter.)
If you are one of the people who read the ending as a really unhappy one, where Deku and Bakugou are no longer friends, I urge you to take a deep breath and try to look at it from a different point of view; one where Horikoshi, the author, still knows what he’s doing and cares about his readers and characters a great deal.
Furthermore, you don’t have to completely accept that is over if you really don’t want to. That’s the magic of the fandom! Fanfictions, fanarts, events. All of those are healing balms for our hearts. (Even if you don’t like IzuOcha as the final pairing and you were hoping for another, that’s okay! The ending is loose enough to create whatever feels more correct and true to you. Isn’t beautiful how powerful the writing word/an image is?)
I love My Hero Academia and now I know that I’m going to like the ending, even if I’m still missing more than a few important details. Now I feel even more excited for next season.
And even if I didn’t like the ending, I would always be grateful to Horikoshi for giving me such an amazing story, with characters that I absolutely adore, and a catching phrase that has inspired me more than I could predict. So I’ll keep using it to remind myself that endings are just there so we have a chronological way to tell a story. But the after? That, I’ll decide by myself. Go beyond. Plus ultra!