My Hero Academia will soon be returning with a brand new epilogue expanding on the events from the final chapter of the series, but fans hoping to see a confirmed relationship between Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo might want to rein it in as it’s likely that it won’t be happening any time soon. My Hero Academia ended its run with Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine earlier this Summer, and with it sparked a ton of debate among fans as to whether or not it actually was able to have a satisfying conclusion. In fact, those debates are still happening.
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Helping in these matters is 31 brand new pages added to the final volume release of My Hero Academia. Hitting shelves in Japan beginning on December 4th, Volume 42 of the series will not only include corrections to the published chapters from series creator Kohei Horikoshi himself, but an extended epilogue chapter that takes place after the final chapter of the series. Meaning there’s still a chance for some last minute romance that didn’t make it into the original series, but it likely won’t be the Deku and Bakugo ship that fans might have been hoping to see.
My Hero Academia Doesn’t Have Romance at All, Really
For those seeking romance in general, unfortunately My Hero Academia has never been the place to find it. It’s not because it’s an action series within Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine (as Shueisha has a ton of experience publishing many romantic comedy and other romance stories even alongside My Hero Academia), but it’s because the series has squarely been focused on its single goal of growing Izuku Midoriya and the world of heroes around him before it could all come to an end. The story began with Deku touting that he would become the world’s greatest hero, and it pretty much stuck to that.
Even when there was time to expand the story outside of Deku, it was to further flesh out how the previous world of heroes had impacted the next generation of young fighters growing up within it. Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki served as secondary protagonists that got their own fleshed out arcs across multiple chapters an eras of My Hero Academia, but their stories all tied back into how the future was going to change through their new styles of heroism. And when there was any semblance of romance to be found, it was quickly snuffed out within the hero goals.
Ochaco Uraraka was the one character who openly had a romantic crush on Izuku Midoriya, and she many times pushed that feeling aside because of everything else going on. It was immediately clear that their school lives would be far from the norm, and thus things like romance had to go on the back burner while the literal fate of Japan was at stake. When there finally was time to potentially explore a romance of any kind, My Hero Academia series creator Kohei Horikoshi opted not to do so as the series ended without a single couple or relationship being confirmed. If they weren’t already shown as a couple in the series, there wasn’t any romantic developments for the core or extended casts.
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Deku and Bakugo’s Relationship Is More Like Siblings
This is likely a much tougher point to get across, but Deku and Bakugo’s relationship dynamic never had a sense of romance in the traditional sense. Instead, it was something deeper. It’s a connection forged between two people who spent the majority of their lives and time together, and only wanted to impress one another. That’s not a romantic bond, that’s a classic rivalry. It was fairly heated between the two as Deku and Bakugo grew to really only care about how the other saw them, and that’s more of a sibling relationship than something that would be sought out in a romantic partner.
Deku and Bakugo were truly emotionally vulnerable when in front of one another, and that showcased a trust that was rarely seen with anyone else. These two have been going to school together long before U.A. Academy, and carried their sibling rivalry through to their hero careers. It’s a rivalry in which they don’t actually hate one another, it was just Bakugo who hated Deku because he saw something lacking in himself. And Deku, respected Bakugo’s opinion more than anyone because he wanted to impress his greatest rival.
Their time together and shared secret with All Might forged a deeper relationship with the two, and it brought them together as brothers. It’s a sibling bond where they slightly hate one another, but they hold such a deep love and respect for one another that they’ll do anything for each other. Bakugo was literally fought to death on Deku’s behalf, and Deku has done the same. They’ve bonded through war, and eventually found versions of themselves within each other that they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
While there might be fans who wish this to be a romantic connection, unfortunately it seems like that’s never going to happen within the official canon. It’s even tougher within a series like My Hero Academia where romance barely can exist at all, and even more so when there’s a hope for outward displays of that romance through physical intimacy of any kind. There’s always going to be a character that gets left on the sidelines when it comes to even having space within a manga’s final chapters, and there are just too many characters to balance with its final chapters.
There were too many questions left to answer, and too many potential relationships to juggle. It’s to the point where no one really was satisfied with My Hero Academia‘s ending, and even necessitated an extended finale to try and fix those issues. So it seems like the ultimate answer at the end of the day wasn’t not only to keep Deku and Bakugo’s relationship the way it was, but pretty much every other potential relationship too.
