All Canon Bakudeku Moments + Analysis

🧡 Idolization vs. Admiration 💚

A very popular counter-argument against theories surrounding Deku's love for Bakugou due to his trait of looking up to his childhood friend, or osananajimi, is that Deku also looks up to All Might and obviously doesn't have feelings for the former number one hero. So why would he for Bakugou?

In this segment, we will be discussing how love is tackled in My Hero Academia by analyzing the distinction between Deku's love for All Might vs. his love for Bakugou; why one is clearly platonic and why the other is more ambiguously interpreted, respectively.

One of the primary things that binded Deku and Bakugou together was their love for All Might. All Might was their idol.

The boys share this idolization, both being drawn to All Might for different reasons initially. Bakugou is drawn to All Might for his ability to win, Deku for All Might's ability to save.

Even while watching All Might, his idol, Deku's eyes stay on Kacchan. Bakugou, here, is closer to the other boy both in proximity and how well he knows Deku. Even in recent chapters of the manga, Bakugou remains the character that (arguably) knows Deku best. (Note: I claim it's arguable but the narrative practically confirms it).

Izuku views Katsuki as amazing, and through his own words, says that Bakugou was "an amazing person much closer to [him] than All Might!"

Deku looks up to Bakugou and chases after him because, in his eyes, Kacchan is his image of victory.

Now, how does this differ from his feelings for All Might? The key is Deku's ability to humanize Bakugou throughout their whole lives. In fact, Izuku viewing Katsuki as amazing whilst simultaneously acknowledging he is capable of error and slip ups is what drives Bakugou to think Deku's looking down on him in the first place.

When Katsuki falls into the river, the other playmates briefly worry about him before one reassures the others, "Oh, don't worry! Kacchan is super tough!"

None of them attempt to go down and help Katsuki, assuming his overall wellbeing is doing just fine based solely off of his "Kacchan-ness." They view him getting up himself as something to be expected. To them, he is unbreakable.

This is in contrast to Izuku's response, "Are you alright? Are you hurt?" He asks this while sticking his hand out, offering Kacchan extra support. Why does he do this? A portion of this is due to his innate heroism and desire to help others. Another portion is due to his ability to humanize Kacchan despite looking up to him.

And we see a parallel of this again in Deku vs. Kacchan 2, where upon realizing the burden Bakugou carried for being the reason for All Might's downfall, Deku tries to give his hand another time.

Compare this to the first time Deku sees All Might in his Toshinori form, his immediate reaction is to deny that the skeletal man in front of him is really his idol. He'd only ever seen the glory of the number one hero up until that point and the perfect, untouchable image he had of his idol is shattered for a moment.

To put it simply, the distinction between Deku's view of All Might and his view of Bakugou is that he idolizes All Might while admiring Bakugou on an entirely more personal level.

When Deku is less experienced at the start of the manga/anime, he tries to replicate All Might wholy. When Deku strives to be like Bakugou, it's for a very specific goal: to win. He takes on the personality of Bakugou due to Bakugou being who he pictures when he thinks of victory. When contextualized, how he views the two are different. And the narrative paints them in different ways.

Instead of comparing Izuku's feelings for Katsuki with his feelings for All Might, I believe it's more accurate to compare them with Uraraka's feelings for Deku.

Buuuut that's for another chapter. ;)

Also for a future chapter: Deku's convenient tendency to neglect his feelings for Bakugou when he doesn't want to face them head on and what that means for their future.

(Add all this fun stuff up with Izuku thinking his feelings for Katsuki are "gross" and you've got yourself some funky queer subtext, intentional or not on Horikoshi's end.

And then that leads for some cool analysis to be done for LGBT+ people like me :))

*the term "admiration" is used w more personal connotations in the title ty