Katsuki Bakugo

A childhood acquaintance of the protagonist and the volatile star of their middle school, gifted with an explosive Quirk and a matching temper. He has spent years humiliating the boy he considers beneath him, so seeing that same classmate admitted to U.A. destabilises his self-image. Ferociously talented and genuinely tactical in a fight, he spends the season confronting a rivalry he never expected to lose.

Lean and athletic with spiky ash-blond hair that sticks out in every direction and narrow red eyes usually fixed in a scowl. He wears the U.A. gakuran sloppily, tie loosened and collar open, and often keeps his hands in his pockets. His hero costume is aggressively military: a sleeveless black top with a broad orange X across the chest, a mask-like eye guard with jagged green edges, knee-high metal boots and oversized grenade-shaped gauntlets on both forearms that store his sweat for larger detonations. Scorch marks and singed edges accumulate across it whenever he fights.

Explosively aggressive and openly contemptuous, Bakugo treats other people as obstacles or inferiors and reacts to any perceived slight with shouting. His arrogance is not hollow: he is genuinely gifted, works relentlessly, and expects to become the top hero because he believes nothing else is acceptable. What he cannot tolerate is being surpassed, and the discovery that the boy he spent years belittling suddenly has power drives him into something close to panic dressed as rage. Beneath the abuse lies a fiercely competitive dread of weakness, plus an analytical streak he hides; his plans in combat are sharp even when his temper is not. He refuses help and refuses to lose gracefully.

Bakugo grew up in the same neighbourhood as Izuku Midoriya and manifested an unusually powerful explosion Quirk young, which earned him constant praise from adults and classmates. That adulation hardened into an assumption of superiority, and the friend who once followed him around became a target for mockery and casual cruelty once it became clear he had no Quirk at all. Academically strong as well as physically capable, he coasted through middle school as the obvious candidate for U.A.'s hero course and announced his intention to be the only student from their school to get in. He entered the entrance exam confident and placed at the very top of the practical scores.

1. Entrance Exam Arc

   He humiliates his old classmate over applying to U.A., then becomes a hostage when a sludge villain seizes him in the street. Trapped and choking, he is saved first by a Quirkless boy's suicidal charge and then by All Might, and the rescue leaves him furious rather than grateful.

2. Quirk Apprehension Test Arc

   During Aizawa's assessment he posts strong marks across the board and detonates the softball throw with an explosion-boosted pitch. His temper flares when his former punching bag matches him in one event, setting the tone for their rivalry inside Class 1-A.

3. Battle Trial Arc

   Assigned as a villain in the indoor exercise, he ignores his teammate and hunts Midoriya through the building purely to settle a grudge. He uses his gauntlets to fire a blast powerful enough to gut the structure, and still loses the exercise on points, storming out in tears of frustration.

4. U.S.J. Arc

   Dropped into the mountain zone with Kirishima, he fights his way clear and rejoins the others. He pins the warp-gate villain by attacking the metal collar around his neck, reasoning out the weakness on the spot, and holds him down long enough to stop any further teleportation.

Izuku Midoriya

Childhood acquaintance and rival

He spent years belittling the Quirkless boy who idolised him, and cannot accept either being rescued by him or watching him develop power, which turns training exercises into personal vendettas.

All Might

Teacher and idol

He shares Midoriya's admiration for the Symbol of Peace but expresses it as ambition to surpass him. All Might praises his instincts while bluntly telling him his pride nearly lost him the battle trial.

Eijiro Kirishima

Classmate

A hardening-Quirk student who is unbothered by his rudeness and fights alongside him during the villain attack, beginning one of the few relationships Bakugo tolerates.

Tenya Iida

Classmate and foil

The rule-obsessed class representative repeatedly objects to his behaviour, and is assigned as his partner in the battle trial, where Bakugo abandons him entirely to chase a personal grudge.

• He tells his former friend to give up on U.A. and throws his hero notebook out a classroom window.
• He is taken hostage by a sludge villain and freed when the boy he tormented runs in without a plan.
• He takes first place in the practical entrance exam on villain points.
• He unleashes a gauntlet-stored blast inside a training building during the battle trial and still loses the exercise.
• He immobilises the warp villain at the U.S.J. by grabbing the metal collar at his throat.

• The nickname the other students hear him called by dates back to childhood and infuriates him.
• His hero costume was designed to his own specifications, with the grenade gauntlets requested from U.A.'s support department.
• He ranks among the highest scorers in Class 1-A academically as well as physically, contradicting his brash image.

• IIzuku Midoriya
• All Might
• OOchaco Uraraka
• TTenya Iida
• Shota Aizawa
• SShoto Todoroki

Back to the My Hero Academia (Season 1) guide