Who Got Bakugou To Wear A Tie?

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.

Deku kept the empty mochi bag after he finished its content

You know he did.

It's wiped clean and everything.

He thought about laminating it, but that would've changed its structural integrity. Instead, the bag has been put in a document sleeve and stuff, for safe keeping.

Deku's a collector.

He's also a damn nerd, who has received his first gift from his cru dear friend.

Uraraka finds out about this, someday.

Petition: "You Say Run" for Fumikage and Kyouka in S7

Begging the sound designer, or whoever's in charge of matching the bgm to the frames:

Please, please, please, give Jirou and Tokoyami their “You Say Run”- music moment.

They deserve it.

Class 1-A band

One last band reunion... before they're all shipped of to war.

I have wondered about this group’s dynamic:

Kaminari, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu first established a bond through surviving USJ together.

After that, Yaoyorozu and Jirou are often seen together, and the two of them might be each others closest friend in 1-A.

But Kaminari is probably the only one, who's friends with all of the band members:

I don't think I need to elaborate much on Kaminari and his electric bond with Jirou. Semi-canon shipping aside though, they're definitely friends.

Same with Bakugou. To him, Kaminari's probably the second real friend that he made in his life. (Or rather, Kaminari made himself Bakugou's second real friend.)

Tokoyami and Kaminari apparently got closer to each other through the band. Tokoyami's thoughts during Kaminari's big (that should've could've been more elaborated on) badass scene during the Gunga Mountain raid, outright stated, that he views the latter as a very good friend.

In one of my previous posts, I headcanon that Kaminari is one of Class Mom's favourite children. Canonically, Kaminari and Yaoyorozu are actually depicted as laughing with each other in the background more than a few times. I find KamiMomo to be an underrated background friendship, as I can see them being good for each other: Both are sensitive souls and often try to encourage others.

Kaminari also was the one, who immediately interupted Yaoyorozu, when she attempted to give 1-A and 1-B the "you are not obligated to fight against a lethal opponent with me" - speech. He instead assured Yaoyorozu that she would not face off against Gigantomachia alone.

But the rest of them? Aren't really close to each other.

...

Let's move from the most easy-going to the most difficult 1-A band member. In contrast to Kaminari, I feel like Jirou, Yaoyorozu, and Tokoyami would have a more “normal” reaction to the snappy Pomeranian.

As in, backing away and leaving it tf alone.

Because most people can't/ don't want to put up with unwarranted anger and disrespect repeatedly – understandable, especially if there's little to no positive feedback ever.

After the cultural festival arc, Bakugou and Jirou were put into the same team during the joint training arc. In which they were not shown to interact in any manner, that could be interpreted as significant to the relationship between them. No, I don’t count Bakugou saving Jirou by stepping on her, as a sign for a budding friendship.

I headcanon that Bakugou feels slightly uneasy around Yaoyorozu, ever since her assessment of him at the start of the school year. I don’t think that he held a grudge against her for that. But Bakugou is a very proud individual, even after his extensive character development. Having someone - especially someone who’s not a senior but a peer - rip apart that superior self-image he had of himself with such laser-sharp accuracy and soberness, seemed to have been… kinda traumatic to Bakugou and his gargantuan ego. I feel like he would subconsciously avoid being alone with Yaoyorozu. As in, if they happen to find themselves alone with each other in the common areas of their dorms, he will try to leave quickly.

Beyond each other's battle prowess, I don’t see Bakugou and Tokoyami having much respect for each other. Or to put it more mildly: Neither of them has patience for the other's antics.

Tokoyami is not amused. Funnily enough, in the gag comics, Dark Shadow - in the form of a little girl - made a ranking list of who/what she likes the most: Apparently, Bakugou ranks third, just behind Tokoyami himself, and Todoroki.

In short: Kaminari gels with everyone. Bakugou gels with no one... except those, who just blend out the majority of his verbal abuse.

No surprises here.

What about TokoJirou?

These two don't interact a whole lot, but the drama CDs gave us Tokoyami accompanying Jirou to a haunted house alone (Kaminari chickened out). It includes Jirou asking to hold onto the hem of Tokoyami's uniform and him reassuring her fears. (It's all very cute, go look it up on yt!)

Main media-wise, Tokoyami and Jirou had a moment of joint badassery during the final war. From that sole interaction, I’d say his dramatics and her snark go well with each other - be it directed towards each other, or united against the big bad.

Aside from that, we haven’t gotten much of Tokoyami and Jirou together, unfortunately. However, I believe they get along well. Based on the drama CD, it could even be inferred that they are friends, and most of their friendship just never made it on-screen.

What about TokoMomo?

We know that Yaoyorozu's self-confidence took a critical hit, after she lost against Tokoyami in the sports fest at lightening speed. She seemed to have been very shocked about how the match play out. We could assume, that she had been relatively self-confident previously. But we actually don't know, if it used to be more stable. And while Yaoyorozu's match with Todoroki against Aizawa gave her back some self-confidence; from then on, we're privy to more of her thoughts - most of them centered around self-doubt.

So either she'd never encountered a roadblock before losing against Tokoyami, and their match was to her, what her own assessment of Bakugou was to the latter. Or, Yaoyorozu has always been prone to second-guess herself a lot after encountering setbacks.

While he probably didn't pay half as much mind to his quick victory against Yaoyorozu as she did, we know that Tokoyami can be quite observant. I would have find his thoughts about their match, as well as the resulting consequences for Yaoyorozu's self-confidence, interesting.

How would these two interact, if they were to be alone with each other? How could they become closer friends?

During the festival, Tokoyami called Yaoyorozu "Yaomomo", using the affectionate nickname given to her by their classmates. Albeit not close, this might suggest a warm relationship between them.

Tangent: In contrast, Tokoyami still uses "Asui" instead of "Tsu-chan", despite Asui calling him "Tokoyami-chan". On the other hand, "Yaomomo" doesn't sound as intimate as "Tsu-chan". Thus Tokoyami might feel more comfortable using one nickname, but not the other. - Tangent end.

Katsuki and Izuku are not best friends, part 2

Evidently Bakugou and Deku got closer over the course of the story.

Spilling your thoughts and feelings to someone, getting inducted into an exclusive circle of secret keepers, and gaining the ability to LISTEN, can foster closeness.

But this closeness is not defined by feelings of like. Bakugou doesn’t like Deku. For the most part of their acquaintance, he actively disliked him.

And in contrast to Deku’s explicitly self-admitted hate for parts of Bakugou’s character, it is also not certain whether Deku actually likes Bakugou or not. There’s no doubt that he admires the hell out of the latter. In terms of who Deku looks up to, Bakugou is just right behind All Might. But I wouldn’t be able to confidently state that Deku likes Bakugou overall.

Let’s look at three types of examples that, while significant for the development of themselves and their relationship to each other, are not necessarily proof of a close, or even existing, friendship:

Type A: Risking their lives for each other

Deku had been established as someone who wanted to save other people from the very beginning. Deku would even take huge personal risks to attempt to save people, whom he's discouraged from saving. Thus, I'll mainly discuss Bakugou’s POV here:

For the most part, to Bakugou saving people had been mainly a side-effect of living out his blood knight urges of competing, fighting, and winning.

Bakugou jumping in without any thoughts (of victory) and letting himself get skewered like a kebab to save Deku, was a major divergence from that.

However, it’s more of a signifier of Bakugou’s personal character development, than a signifier for a budding friendship.

It signals Bakugou’s ability to be self-less and serves as proof for his potential to become a “true” hero. It signals Bakugou gaining empathy for Deku’s behaviour. It reiterates Deku’s importance to him. Reiterate, because Bakugou and Deku have always been important to each other.

None of those aspects mean that you are automatically friends.

Type B: Being candid about themselves with each other

Deku has let Bakugou know repeatedly that he admires him. He told him that he got his quirk from someone else, even under explicit orders from All Might not to share anything about OFA with anyone. Bakugou broke down in front of Deku twice. He publicly apologized to Deku for all the years of abuse.

None of those instances occurred out of a desire to confide to the other because they trust each other.

Both of the times Bakugou broke down in front of Deku, didn't happen voluntarily, but because he couldn't keep it in anymore. They certainly didn't happen because, he was fine with Deku seeing him like that.

Both of the times Deku told Bakugou about OFA, he didn't do it for himself. If Deku had wanted a confidante to share the emotional burden of keeping that huge secret... I'm pretty sure, he would've picked someone else. It happened, because he felt the urge to do so for Bakugou's benefit.

When Bakugou apologized to Deku, it was him basically returning that favour. He thought that Deku really needed to hear those words (which he did), so he expressed them. In part, Bakugou may have also felt that he needed to openly verbally acknowledge his mistakes, in order to move forward himself.

One of the most beautifully written scenes of the entire series.

However, neither of them would voluntarily be candid about themselves, if there aren’t higher stakes involved.

It’s not surprising.

I'm not sure even our all-loving hero Deku would ever feel entirely comfortable with sharing his worries with a guy who used to torment him for years. And even if said guy has changed much for the better, he’s still much more abrasive than the average person - not exactly your primary choice for a confidante.

On Bakugou's part, his emotional constipation was so severe that he probably couldn’t even share his feelings with his own bathroom mirror. Character development notwithstanding: Casually showing “weakness” to the kid your humongous inferiority-superiority complex has been fixated on since your pre-school days?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

My point is: There's too much mutual and individual baggage, for either of them to be fine with casually showing vulnerability around each other, if it doesn't serve a higher purpose.

Both aren’t - and might not ever be - able to provide each other with unrestricted emotional safe spaces.

And is seems like both of them have sensed and recognized this.

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?