Eijirou's POV On The Dynamic Between Bakugou And Midoriya

Eijirou's POV on the dynamic between Bakugou and Midoriya

Kirishima and Deku share quite a few significant characteristics: Both of them are among the sweetest kids in 1-A. Humble about themselves, but very open about their admiration for others. There is little doubt, that they also hold strong admiration for each other. Along with Uraraka and Asui, the two boys had to keep their involvement in the Shie Hassaikai raid a secret from the rest of their class for weeks. They prepared for the operation together, and went into the raid together.

However, I’m not sure where to place Midoriya from Kirishima's POV regarding their biggest commonality: Each of them has a significant personal tie to Bakugou, but very different ones.

Bakugou haters and apologists alike, have argued about class 1-A’s hypothetical reactions towards the true extent of Bakugou’s bullying of Deku (as well as whether those hypothetical reactions would be warranted or not) to death. I have no desire to get into that.

Nevertheless, I have wondered about Kirishima’s thoughts behind his canonical reaction towards Midoriya and Bakugou's interactions. Or more precisely, his lack of reaction throughout the series.

To contrast: There's one scene where Uraraka confronts Bakugou and point-blank asks him, why he treats Deku like dirt. I see this as a very brave act from Uraraka. Not because of who and how Bakugou is (crass at best, violent at worst, let’s not sugarcoat this), because I don’t think that he would have had physically attacked her for that, but because of the cultural context of Japan. It is very frowned upon to “meddle” in what people perceive to be others’ private business.

However, while I do share the opinion, that their relationship to each other is mainly Deku and Bakugou’s private business, I would not classify Uraraka confronting Bakugou with the negative connotations of meddling:

By being so openly hostile to Deku, Bakugou had already broken the social rule of keeping your private business, well, private, and not imposing your issues on others. His degree of unrestrained hostility towards Deku could have (or has it canonically?) very well disturb the entire group’s hero training overall.

In the present, Deku is Uraraka’s friend. And their mutual classmate is presently treating him like shit.

In my eyes, those two facts are reasons enough, for Uraraka to at least ask Bakugou a few questions.

One would think that those would be reason enough for Kirishima to confront Bakugou too. So why has neither he, nor any of the other 1-A kids done anything of significance in that direction?

Uraraka confronted Bakugou, and asked questions. To which he logically would have had to either be able to justify himself somehow, or cease his aggression towards Deku immediately. Naturally at that point, Bakugou does neither. He just leaves huffing and puffing. But people have to ask others such question, and not just as a throwaway remark (a half-hearted "Bakugou, calm down" doesn't count), to signal, that their treatment of others is not acceptable. Afterall, continuous disapproval can influence people to change their behaviour.

Even if one may interject that Kirishima is closer to Bakugou, than he is to Midoriya... that would only be more of an argument for Kirishima to intervene, as he has more emotional leverage over Bakugou than e.g. Uraraka.

And even with everything else aside, based on Kirishima’s overall characterization, one would have thought, that he would never be okay with his friend attacking another classmate repeatedly for no discernible legitimate reason.

The only tentative possible reason I could come up with, for why Kirishima never intervened here, is that to him, Midoriya had never seemed less capable than Bakugou from the very first day they all started at UA together. As in, Kirishima had never perceived any power disparity between Midoriya and Bakugou.

...

However, Kirishima and the rest of 1-A did witness, what Bakugou did to Deku during their first class assignment (All Might deserves criticsm for not interrupting that fight. He truly was a bad teacher... still isn't a good one). Even after that incident, Bakugou’s verbal aggression towards Deku still continued on for a while.

While Kirishima may not be emotionally intelligent to same degree that e.g. someone like Kaminari is implied to be, Kirishima is still sensitive to his peers’ feelings (see his reaction towards Tsu-chan's sadness after Kamino).

Furthermore, one must simply be blind and deaf to have missed Bakugou’s belligerency towards Deku - that lasted at least until they had beaten the crap out of each other and got grounded together.

As such, it can be safely inferred, that Kirishima (and the rest of 1-A) noticed that Deku and Bakugou had bad history with each other - and that the animosity came one-sidedly from Bakugou.

Either way. If I witnessed a peer being repeatedly put down by another, I would firmly and repeatedly tell the latter to knock it off, stfu, and get himself a therapist for his anger issues...

...

What did Kirishima see, when he looked at Midoriya, and everytime he witnessed how he was treated by Bakugou?

How did Kirishima justify it to himself, to not try harder to get his bestie to stop being a total dick to another friend/ a classmate?

After Bakugou apologized to Deku in front of all of 1-A, did Kirishima and the rest of the class ever wonder, what exact actions warranted such a gesture from someone as proud as Bakugou?

Iidachako friendship

Iidachako is a friendship that I like a lot. I understand why the New B3 overtook precedence over the original trio story-wise, but I would have loved to see more the original trio - and also more Iidachako.

Partly because more media portrayals of positive, platonic, and close friendships between guys and girls are always welcome, and mainly because I really liked their dynamic specifically.

In my opinion, Horikoshi could have easily included Uraraka in the Hosu incident.

... WHY DIDN'T YOU, HORIKOSHI?!!

Uraraka could've been there for Iida, just like how Deku had been. I don't think that her being there would have taken anything away from Todoroki bonding with the other two boys. In fact, he could have bonded with her too.

It would have been also interesting to see Uraraka dealing with the inner turmoil of facing a zealot who is so against heroes receiving renumeration for their work.

1-A’s most popular girl

Horikoshi may have put an underaged girl into the most inappropriate “hero costume” in BNHA and gotten her tons of... admirers in real-life. Uwabami’s commercial may have gotten Yaoyorozu legions of fans in-universe. But the most popular girl within class 1-A?

This one.

Jirou’s the female classmate who has been seen interacting with the most of 1-A guys:  According to the BNHA wiki, if you pay attention to the background events, Jirou is seen talking and chilling with each, Sero, Ojiro, Satou and Kouda, quite often.

Admittedly, all these guys easy to get along with in general. All of them are also who Bakugou would refer to as extras... but they still count!

I still stand by my previous post about how - except for MomoJirou and KaminarixEveryone - the band members aren't really friends with each other. However, to Bakugou and Tokoyami, two of 1-A’s moodiest kids, Jirou is probably still the female classmate each of them is closest to (well, Ashido might have the same degree of closeness to Bakugou that Jirou has).

Tokoyami's surprised and Bakugou has one of his many grumpy gremlin expressions on. However, both boys don't seem to be in a hurry to escape from her hold.

At the very least, Jirou is comfortable with manhandling these two.

And we all know, how Kaminari feels towards Jirou.

Or at least Tokoyami does.

And now I headcanon Tokoyami as being that person, who's usually the first one to be aware of who's crushing on who.

Who got Bakugou to wear a tie?

My money's on Iida.

I headcanon that Bakugou didn't wear it, because Iida wore him down. The latter only asked him once.

But Four-eyes looked like the embodiment of "worried sick," when he explained that their class should present themselves as responsible and united in front of the principal.

So Katsuki wore the damn tie, just to give Four-eyes a modicum of peace of mind: The feeling of being able to control, or rather to influence, things, people, outcomes... hopefully, a dear friend, who lost his way home.

Why 1-A's loving Class Rep is the best

I understand why people are disappointed that Iida took a backseat after the Stain arc. And since the story shifted from the original trio to the New B3, and with the manga nearing its climax, the chances of Iida getting more focus again, are pretty much nil.

You could check out the stage plays for more Iida, though.

But let's keep in mind, that Iida has come a long way: Remember how condescending, rigid, and selfish he was during the entrance exam?

I appreciate Iida a lot for how willingly he acknowledges his mistakes, how he always internalizes his learned lessons, and how he does his best to do better.

And I love how supportive he is. He assures Uraraka that her motivation of becoming a hero to gain financial stability for her family, is just as perfectly respectable as any motivation, that is based on idealism. He calls Asui “Tsu-chan-kun” because while he's uncomfortable with calling her “Tsu-chan”, he wants to respect and accommodate her wish as much as he can.

The hero Ingenium: Always running to help lost children.

One of the funniest and simultaneously most heartwarming Iida-scenes to me, is when he tells Aoyama to “never stop twinkling – whatever that means.”

Aoyama stands out as an oddball, among oddballs, and none of his classmates has any idea what he's talking about - including Iida. But Iida's completely sincere with his statement: "Yes, do your best to go after your calling - I'll support you the whole way!"

Look at my son. He loves his friends so much.

Let’s be proud of what character development 1-A’s Class rep has achieved until now, and just headcanon a dozen of joyful varieties of the rest of his journey.

Shouto and his adoptive sisters, part 1

I headcanon that Todoroki is especially protective of Uraraka (e.g. in Movie 1 he intentionally placed himself right in front of her) and Asui, because they remind him of his sister, who is both cheerful and caring, and to whom he couldn’t be close to in the past. Despite being the youngest Todoroki sibling, and the one who received the brunt of their father’s abuse, I think Shouto might still feel partly responsible for the distance between him and his siblings.

It seems like Todoroki joined Deku & co for lunch regularly, right after the back-alley trio returned from Hosu. I headcanon - especially since I've watched their background shenanigans in the BNHA stage plays (the plays are hilarious, go look them up on yt!) - that Uraraka started to uraraka-handle Todoroki around the place, just like she has been doing with Deku and Iida since the start.

And no, their friendship doesn’t consist of Todoroki buying her expensive shit with his father’s credit card. Todoroki was someone who rejected his father’s instructions for years, even though it would have benefitted his hero training greatly (makes 100 % sense from the emotional angle, and 0 % sense from a sheer utilitarian angle). I headcanon that he also refuses to ask his father for money for anything. Fuyumi took care of that, otherwise Todoroki might have just walked around in clothes that he's grown out of, just because he didn't want to ask the old man for anything.

I also don’t think that Uraraka would accept huge amounts of money/monetary gifts from her friends, no matter her own financial circumstances. Even - or rather especially - if she'd thought that Todoroki's spending his father's money on her to piss of the latter. I think Uraraka would have an outlook like, “Don’t do things mainly to oppose someone. Do things for yourself!” which redirects Todoroki’s actions away from his father but turns his focus towards himself.

Uraraka would grab Todoroki and their friends, and they would go to the nearest playground. Each of them teaches Todoroki how to play their favourite (and entirely free of costs) childhood games. The games he wasn’t allowed to play, when he was younger.

He will catch up on them now. Together with his friends.

...

In my mind, this was canon:

For sure, Uraraka's first impression of Todoroki is of him being an awkward oddball... which I headcanon is one of the reasons why she went out of her way to befriend him.