Horikoshi deliberately made him really nasty and unlikable at the beginning because he thought it would be more interesting than an upstanding rival.

What I see as The Bakugo Problem, at least in some circles, is people wanting to hold a deliberately tropey fictional character accountable like a real person rather than understanding 'asshole shonen rival character' concept as a way to explore ideas relating to bullying, camaraderie, competition, etc. This is Midoriya struggling with the weight Toshinori has put on his shoulders and it's Bakugo and the rest of their class that is showing Midoriya that they can share his burden. In the end, though, Midoriya's current mindset - where he's at the lowest he has ever been - doesn't really have anything to do with Bakugo at all. Maybe people have just forgotten what it's like to be a child, where they can say horrible things to each other one day and be best of friends the next like nothing happened, and so they exaggerate how much of a negative impact Bakugo had on Midoriya. If anything Midoriya seemed to think the world of Bakugo because he seemed so intelligent and confident with such a cool quirk.

When a kid has their dreams crushed like that, of course they're going to have issues.īakugo obviously didn't help but I'm not sure I'd say he was the central reason Midoriya ended up the way he did. Midoriya was born without a quirk and that's the main reason he had issues with his self-worth, because he grew up wanting to be a hero in a society that worships them and found out it would never happen because he didn't have a quirk.

My hero academy 322