Katsuki Bakugo (爆ばく豪ごう勝かつ己き Bakugō Katsuki), also known as Kacchan (かっちゃん) by his childhood friends, is a student in Class 1-A at U.A. High School, training to become a Pro Hero. He is the deuteragonist of the series.’
Appearance
Katsuki is a young man of average height, with a slim but muscular build and fair skin. He has short, spiky ash-blond hair that choppy bangs that come to his eyebrows. His eyes are sharp and thin and are bright red in color.
At school, he wears the standard U.A. uniform without the customary red tie. Underneath his blazer, he wears a white collared shirt with the top few buttons undone. His pants are worn loosely, causing them to sag at his ankles, despite him wearing a belt in them.
His hero costume is composed of a tight, black, sleeveless tank top, with an orange “X” across the middle, forming a v-neck. There are two dots along the left line of his collar, indicating the support company that designed his costume. His costume also has a metallic neck brace worn with rectangular ends that have three holes on each side. His sleeves reach from within his large grenade-like gauntlets to his biceps. His belt, which also carries grenades, holds up his baggy pants with knee guards, below which he sports black, knee-high combat boots with orange soles and eyelets. His mask is jagged and black, and as it goes around his eyes, a large, orange-rimmed flare shape protrudes from each side.
In the winter months, he wears a large jacket with a high collar, rather than the usual tank top, although it does have the same orange “X” design, so he can still sweat a sufficient amount, which is how his Quirk works.
While interning under Best Jeanist, he wore a pair of blue jeans along with his hero costume rather than his usual baggy pants. His hair was also combed during this tenure and parted to one side.
Personality
Katsuki is a crude, arrogant, short-tempered, and aggressive person, especially at the beginning of the series. Katsuki tends to come off as an anti-hero, if not downright villainous for those not familiar with him. This problematic behavior goes all the way back to his early childhood days when he was known to bully a young, Quirkless Izuku Midoriya. However, after being accepted into U.A. High School and experiencing several personal defeats, one of them even coming from Izuku, Katsuki has gradually changed into a less antagonistic person, albeit still retaining a lot of his unpleasant traits.
Determined and thirsty for victory, Katsuki smiles eerily when in the middle of a battle. He is incredibly focused on achieving his own authentic victories and has learned to never underestimate his opponents. Katsuki is not only very talented at fighting, but also very intelligent and extremely perceptive, capable of strategic planning and holding some of the highest grades in his class, to the point that some even consider him a natural genius.
While a rather volatile hero-in-training, with his volatile nature being seen as villainous by many outsides of his class, Katsuki is smart enough to discern who his enemies and allies are. He is not known to be particularly warm and open with the people on his side but will act less unfriendly and sometimes even kind to those that manage to earn his respect. Because of his attitude and vulgar language, Katsuki’s U.A. classmates often react negatively to him, although they have come to appreciate his skills and warm up to his personality. Katsuki matures slowly through his time at U.A., coming to befriend some of his classmates and willingly engaging in social interaction with his fellow classmates, though remaining aloof and solitary for the most part.
Katsuki tends to disregard the notion that Quirks shouldn’t be used in public, and will activate his Quirk for a number of reasons, such as to intimidate someone, to punctuate a point, out of frustration, or even if he just feels like showing off. Katsuki values honesty highly and never lies, to the point his brash candor is seen by some as rude and unsympathetic. He is never afraid of speaking what’s on his mind and will notice when people are not being truthful to him. This shows that, despite his anti-social habits, Katsuki actually has a good judge of character.
Due to the constant praise of his abilities and his powerful Quirk, Katsuki developed a superiority complex, and because of that, he desires to be the first and best at everything. As pointed out by many people, Katsuki loves to win above all else and cannot stand it when he doesn’t, leading him to lose his already short temper or, less often, sulk. As such, he is fiercely competitive and will never settle for less than the number one spot. However, Katsuki also values hard work and fair play and will refuse to acknowledge a winning result if he feels that his victory was not earned fairly. He detests being looked down by others, which normally angers him, and will hold contempt towards those that don’t take him seriously while recognizing the effort of those that manage to put up a challenge against him, like, for example, Ochaco Uraraka and Eijiro Kirishima.
Katsuki is immensely prideful and prefers to act alone, as he hates the idea of having to rely on others to assist him unless he is recognized as the absolute leading figure within a team. At the beginning of the series, Katsuki’s cooperativeness was nothing short of atrocious, often ignoring his partners’ ideas and suggestions for his own very direct approaches. After a while, his teamwork skills gradually improve, but Katsuki still comes off as condescending to his teammates due to his usual tone, but he now acknowledges their importance, protecting them from harm while expecting them to do the same for him in return.
Katsuki often has difficulty accepting his mistakes and shortcomings, and will fiercely deny them whenever they are pointed out by others, regardless of who they are. That doesn’t mean, however, that Katsuki doesn’t listen to advice, having come to realize his faults and how to somewhat improve on them thanks to the words and actions of other people like All Might and Best Jeanist, but because of his pride, Katsuki never outright admits it. He prefers to self-reflect alone and in silence, becoming a bit more brooding during those periods.
Katsuki’s pride has cost him victories on numerous occasions, like the Battle Trial and the Provisional Hero License Exam. His pride is so intense that, when pitted together with Izuku against All Might, he outright refused his partner’s help, even saying that he’d rather lose than work with Izuku to pass the exam by using Izuku’s abilities and power. However, after realizing the true difficulty of the exam and being lectured by Izuku, Katsuki was able to put his pride aside temporarily in order to cooperate with Izuku effectively.
Katsuki has a more vulnerable side, having been led to tears due to damaged pride a few times. Katsuki has also shown moments of fear and guilt, the latter due to viewing himself and his own weakness as the cause of All Might losing his remaining power and retiring as a hero. Still, due to years of misunderstandings, tension, and pride, Katsuki has difficulty doing the same thing towards Izuku.
While his inspiration for becoming a hero was the same as Izuku’s, the Symbol of Peace, All Might, their beliefs differ: Katsuki feels a hero should never stop fighting or give up, regardless of the threat they face, and that always winning is the mark of a true hero. Furthermore, due to his arrogant and conceited behavior, various heroes, civilians, and even villains have commented on it. However, Katsuki is unwavering in his aspirations of heroism, having outright refused Tomura Shigaraki’s proposal for him to join the League of Villains, even after being offered the power and ability to ‘win’.
Abilities
Overall Abilities: Katsuki has proven to be one of the strongest students in Class 1-A, earning 3rd place in the Quirk Apprehension Test, while placing first place in both the U.A. Entrance Exam, having the most villain points, and U.A. Sports Festival, although his last opponent, Shoto Todoroki, basically surrendered at the last moment. Katsuki’s fighting style is an all-out offense, using his Quirk’s propulsive abilities to close the distance between him and his opponents, followed by a bombardment of close-range attacks that often start with a powerful right hook.
Enhanced Strength: Katsuki possesses above-average physical strength, as he is can use his Grenade Bracers without any recoil, whereas Izuku nearly dislocated his arm just from using one. Katsuki was also able to use his physical strength to go toe-to-toe with Izuku when the latter is using his Quirk at 5-8%.
Keen Intellect: Despite looking like he’d just be a punk with no brains, Katsuki has proven to be extremely intelligent and strategic. While he occasionally doesn’t have preemptive strategies like most people, he does analyze his opponent’s weaknesses in the midst of battle. However, despite his analytical skills, Katsuki sometimes overlooks minor and crucial details. After he and Eijiro Kirishima intentionally lunged themselves at Kurogiri, Katsuki was able to figure out that part of Kurogiri’s physical body has to be present when using his Warp Gate, so Katsuki targeted that said portion and successfully immobilized the villain. Even when fighting the weaker villains at the U.S.J., Katsuki quickly assessed which of the attacking villains were the most dangerous threat in the long term.
Leadership Skills: During round four of the Joint Training, Setsuna Tokage admitted that even if her team had attacked him all at once, they stood no chance of victory. In the end, despite Class 1-B’s exceptional teamwork and Tokage’s strategic planning, they failed to capture a single member of Katsuki’s team, mostly thanks to Katsuki’s efforts, adaptability, and skills.
Musical Talent: As shown during the U.A. School Festival Arc, Katsuki is highly skilled at playing the drum kit, having gone through classes in the past.
