My Hero Academia

Episode 61

It's finally time for Deku vs. King Explosion Murder round two! I've been waiting on this one for a while, since their initial fight was a major highlight for me in season one. It's hard not to love Katsuki Bakugo, the abhorrently violent child who inadvertently feels like the heart of My Hero Academia in his own twisted kind of way. At best he might be capable of growing up and becoming a kinder, more centered person, hammering home the sincere optimism this show is known for, but at worst he's the most emphatic character study about the intersection of talent and self-esteem I've ever witnessed. He and All Might keep trading places for my favorite character in this series.

The joy of Bakugo is that he's so shamelessly emotional, for better and worse. He's at a low point, having failed to get his hero's license and being tangentially related to All Might's retirement, and he has no idea what to do with all of his anger and insecurity other then to express every last inch of it. His relationship with Midoriya is fraught to say the least. In the same way that Midoriya uses Bakugo as a benchmark for growth, Bakugo was doing something similar in the opposite direction. That's where a lot of his drive and ego-centrism comes from. He tells himself: "As long as I'm better than Deku, everything will be okay."

But it's not okay. It's like Bakugo min-maxed all his stats in favor of 'winning' and at the expense of literally everything else. He's a bully and a fragile one at that. Midoriya's getting stronger and Bakugo finds that threatening, like this temple of ass-kicking he's built inside his own head could crumble easier than he anticipated, and when it does all he'll have left is his own mean-spirited turd of a self. Interestingly, Midoriya getting stronger looks like it could actually be the safety net he needs, because as of this fight a much more healthy rivalry is born, and a renewed potential for friendship along with it. Bakugo has a ton to atone for, but their dynamic no longer feels one-sided.

Speaking of Midoriya, he's shown a lot of maturation himself. This fight is our clearest example yet of his new kick-themed "shoot style", and we get to see him articulate his opinion of Bakugo in new ways. His admiration of Bakugo's strength isn't the same blind loyalty that he demonstrated as a kid, but a willingness to confront the good and the bad in his opponent. I love how Midoriya notices little habits that he's picked up from Bakugo, and how part of him hates that about himself, but even that melts away in the face of how inspiring it is nonetheless. Midoriya wants what Bakugo has, even if it's a byproduct of reckless, myopic passion.

The animation and fight choreography this week is astoundingly explosive. (Pun intended, of course.) It would risk looking over-animated if the emotional core wasn't already at sensory overload. Self-respect is really the only thing at stake here, so the episode's job is to simply translate the characters' bombastic feelings, which means crazy kicks and flips threatening to nearly wipe out the school's mock cityscape. More specific to the choreography, there's a very impressive balance where the action feels incredibly dance-like, as if we're watching a ballet. Pristine and delicate execution somehow delivers a fight that's bone-shattering and adrenaline inducing. The only downside is that Japanese broadcast standards require the flashier sequences to be dimmed, so a lot of detail gets lost in the mayhem.

In the end, Bakugo still comes out of this the superior fighter. You get that bad taste in your mouth when you realize that Midoriya, despite his strides, still can't overcome raw power. But it's not a sweet victory for Bakugo, either. Really this fight was just a cheap band-aid to cover the scar on his heart in the wake of his kidnapping and All Might's retirement. Bakugo's already in a strange position with the audience, where he can be so awful and yet magnetic and likable, but his guilt over All Might adds a new layer of pathos. Nobuhiko Okamoto's performance was especially noteworthy this week. I think this is the first time I've heard Bakugo forgo the usual angry rasp in his voice, and it was very alarming.

In the end, the feeling I'm left with throughout this episode is "These children are amazing." And I want to emphasize what "amazing" means to me in this context: When this show flashes back to when these two were younger, eyes sparkling and talking about how incredible All Might is, that's how I feel about Midoriya and Bakugo. They're amazing. Midoriya for how far he's come, having started weak and gradually becoming stronger, and Bakugo for being a one-in-a-million person who wears his heart on his sleeve in a way nobody else can.

Amazing.

Rating: A+

My Hero Academia is currently streaming on Funimation and Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw