Well, that was pretty good.

I don’t know why you’d ever want anybody but Bones adapting your battle shounen, if you had a choice. You – authors or fans – don’t always have one, of course. But a kaijuu like Boku no Hero Academia’s production committee could have their pick, pretty much. Once upon a time you might have said Gainax, but that time has long passed. And Bones, offshoot of Sunrise though it is, has absorbed something of the Gainax spirit (and some of their talent) and melded it with its own unique aesthetic, as HeroAca ably proves.

Not that I’m denying Horikoshi-sensei any well-deserved credit. If a battle shounen has to be able to do anything to be considered great, it’s be epic. And boy, can he do epic. The last two episodes have been off the charts in that respect. They don’t require a whole lot from me to be honest, as there’s only so many ways you can say “God damn, that was cool.” But as I said last week this was a pretty treacherous point for BnHA. Bakugo and All Might needed something huge, but it also had to be transitional. The stage is being cleared for somebody else. And while poetically you could make an argument that All Might should have been the last man standing on the dark side, it’s been clear for a while that wasn’t going to be the case.

I found the depiction of All For One origin story especially chilling. Not least because Ohtsuka Akio is such an absolute kaijuu himself, truly a seiyuu like no other. As I think about how All For One seems to lose so much stature when he’s handed off to a seiyuu of a lower caliber (no disrespect, just being honest) I realize that – intentional or not – maybe it’s for the best. All For One is losing stature as this last arc has unfolded. He doesn’t realize it, it’s sneaking up on him. But his detach and cold analytic genius have been slipping with every rewind. He’s not the man he was, in every sense of the word.

Yoichi reading comics (it’s important to note that the word “comics” is used even in the original Japanese) is not new information but it is a reminder of where this all came from. The way Horikoshi justifies pairing off All For One and Kacchan in the penultimate showdown is by connecting Kacchan to Kudou, One For All user #2. The man who “stole” Yoichi from him. Whether there is in fact any connection between Kudou and Bakugo isn’t made clear here – it’s entirely possible it’s a product of the fevered AFO’s increasing paranoia.

But the practical result is the same either way. All For One lets his passion override his logic, and makes a fatal error. Bakugo sums up his own character pretty well here – “they say I can think on my feet”. This is the essence of Katsuki Bakugo, the reason I find him a substantial character in spite of being an annoying hothead. He’s a smart guy who can’t help acting dumb. When he shuts his gob and observes, he’s very perceptive and can figure difficult stuff out (he was the first to realize the connection between Deku and All Might). The problem is that not talking (shouting) and being an observer is diametrically opposed to his default personality settings.

At least we can say this for All For One, he went out with both a bang and a whimper – though Kacchan had to provide the bang. It was a fitting end for him, both climax and anti-climax. For Bakugo, it was all about style points right up to the end – trying to stay on his feet like All Might would, and failing. He seems to have made peace with clearing the stage for Izuku, leaving the final act to the one he always acted like was beneath him. And grown to the point where he can credit his victory to everyone who sacrificed on his behalf to make it possible (including Izuku). He may not be my favorite in this loaded cast, but Katsuki Bakugo has grown tremendously – and that makes him a standout in the world of battle shounen kaijuu.