My name is Jessica but call me Jace | Aquarius | Writer | Language Student: Portuguese and English | Designer | Literature / Books | Movies | TV Shows | Animes | old things | mystical books... So you will see everything here.
idk who needs to hear this, but low engagement does not mean your writing is bad.
engagement doesn’t solely depend on the quality of the work. whilst it can play a role, other things such as fandom, ship, tags, tropes and posting at the right time of the day/week play a SIGNIFICANT role.
so keep writing what you love. keep writing what makes your heart happy. your work is amazing. the fact that you’re even putting words out there is amazing.
not that i'm surprised at all but i can't stop thinking about how one of the reasons they didn't want to tell the world about their relationship was in case it ended. and now that's just not a possibility to them anymore because they collectively decided there's no one else out there who could match either of them this well, so why would they ever break up. they've just decided everything will be fine forever and i do genuinely believe they're right but also what a crazy thing to say
Omae: Complexity of Self-Expression and Intimacy with the Japanese “You”
The anime adaption of chapter 322 is rapidly approaching, so I wanna talk about something really interesting: as far as I can tell, Izuku is the only person Katsuki has ever used the pronoun omae (おまえ) towards in-canon. Furthermore, he has only used omae towards Izuku on three occasions.
The first time is after Deku vs. Kacchan 2 in chapter 120.
The second time is right after his apology in chapter 322. (Katsuki actually uses omae four times in a row in this scene.)
(We'll get to the third time later, just you wait.)
Why does Katsuki address Izuku differently in these scenes? To answer this, we’re gonna commit some language nerdery.
First, let’s be real about the fact that Japanese pronouns can be complicated. There are a ton of them. You learn the common uses—like you could say that, broadly, omae tends to be used by guys for their friends and romantic partners. But the reality is that in a high-context language like Japanese, pronouns can come across wildly differently depending on who uses it, to whom, with what tone, and in what context.
It is difficult to generalize real-life usage, so to be clear, I am talking about MHA as a piece of media. I could try to tell you that omae is rude but also friendly but also condescending but also comedic but also confrontational but also affectionate—and so on, but that wouldn’t help you understand what Katsuki’s omae to Izuku means and why it feels significant.
The thing is, Izuku and Katsuki can each say omae and mean completely different things, because their normal way of speaking tells us how to interpret their words.
When Izuku speaks, he is polite and considerate. He uses the boyish first-person pronoun boku (僕). In Japanese, avoiding second-person pronouns is the polite thing to do; you use the person’s surname and an appropriate suffix instead, and this is the tactic Izuku uses to address others. When he does say “you,” it is usually the familiar kimi (君) towards Katsuki.
We see Izuku use omae in only a few circumstances: he uses it towards himself during inner monologues when he is trying to figure out what to do or compel himself to act, and he uses it when he faces All For One.
Both of these involve what I think of as “tough talk”—Izuku talks tough to himself to push past his fears and be a hero. With AFO, he is talking to a villain, someone he has to defeat. From someone like Izuku who speaks with such politeness and humility, omae reads as aggressive and confrontational.
Katsuki, on the other hand, is always aggressive and confrontational. He uses the masculine, somewhat boastful first-person pronoun ore (俺) and the second-person pronoun temee (てめえ) towards just about everybody. Temee is an extremely rude, combative word; Japanese descriptions usually point out that it reads like fightin’ words—it’s what you’d call an opponent, someone you are confronting, challenging, or belittling. As mentioned, you’re supposed to avoid “you” words to be polite, so the fact that Katsuki whips out temee constantly and makes up insulting nicknames instead of using anybody’s real name is just like, damn, dude!
Unlike Izuku, Katsuki sounds like he is challenging everyone all the time. This means that, coming from him, omae actually seems gentler.
After Deku vs. Kacchan 2, he opens his sentence with omae, and Izuku looks startled by this.
They just had a huge, emotional fistfight, and Katsuki… isn’t addressing him as an opponent, like he always has before. For once, he is addressing Izuku not as his enemy, but his equal.
This scene is the first time Katsuki properly grapples with the truth of their mutual weaknesses and comes to an understanding about it. It leaves him frustrated and unsure, but he walks away seeing himself and Izuku as being on the same side.
Because he takes All Might's words to heart: they are two halves of what makes a hero. They need to learn from each other and push each other to truly reach their best—as rivals, not enemies.
In chapter 322, Katsuki talks Izuku through how he felt about him all these years. He goes over all the things he's had to face to see how wrong he was, to see his own weakness and Izuku's strength. The whole time, he uses the "you" word he always has: temee.
But when it comes time to tell Izuku his true feelings, he calls Izuku by his given name, apologizes, and then right away he says this:
This is a direct call-back to the core question that Katsuki posed to Izuku during Deku vs. Kacchan 2: "Is my way of admiring All Might wrong?"
The second half to that question has always been, implicitly, "Does that mean yours is right?"
Here, Katsuki acknowledges Izuku fully as All Might's successor and affirms that Izuku's path is not wrong, using omae to tell him so. And then he uses it three more times to convince Izuku to come back with them and fight together, "because saving people is how we win."
To me, omae in this scene comes across with such softness. He's speaking with more humility than we've ever seen, both in what he's conveying and his word choice. (There is a whole other conversation to be had about Katsuki's word choice for "I'm sorry," but that is for a different time.)
This omae is not just a sign that he sees Izuku as his equal, it's expressing care for him. Katsuki sacrificed his life for Izuku, telling him, "Stop trying to win this on your own." He is trying so hard to make Izuku understand: Come back, I was wrong. Come back, I care about you.
Which brings us to the third time Katsuki uses omae: chapter 362.
That's right, the infamous "Can I still catch up to you?" / "Can I still reach you?" line uses omae.
Here's the thing that's unique about this omae: it's in Katsuki's head. This is internal monologue; he isn't talking out loud to Izuku, he isn't trying to convey something to him face-to-face, he is just thinking about Izuku.
The word choice isn't for anyone else's benefit or any external purpose: this is just how Katsuki sees him.
I can't overstate how soft, vulnerable, and sincere this moment is for Katsuki. And what gets me about him thinking of Izuku as omae is, it makes me wonder, "How long has he thought of Izuku this way?"
When did Izuku stop being temee in his head?
Changing how you address someone is a big deal in Japanese. Whether it's a name or suffix change (Deku -> Izuku) or a pronoun change (temee -> omae), it represents a significant shift in the emotional dynamics of a relationship.
It crops up a lot in media as a dramatic moment of intimacy, sometimes even being a part of love confessions. This heightened drama is exactly what we see with Katsuki's apology when he calls him Izuku.
Katsuki addresses only Izuku with his given name and omae, and in the whole run of the series, he only uses omae in a few select instances. I would argue that this is really important, subtle character writing.
Looking at the scenes, at least to me, each omae reads as progressively more honest and intimate. Each time Katsuki uses it, he is reaching for Izuku. Each time, it means more.
When Shigaraki stabbed me, do you remember what I said? I said, “Don’t try to win by yourself.” There was more too that. My body moved on its own, and then I got stabbed. I thought I should tell you. I looked down on you our whole lives because you were Quirkless. You were obviously way behind me, but I felt like you were way ahead of me, too. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to see you. I didn’t want to accept you. That's why I bullied you to get away from you. I tried to feel superior by rejecting you. I was always losing to you. After getting into U.A, not a single thing went the way I wanted. Everyday, I was made to feel how strong you were and how weak I was. It’s not something that’ll work itself out just by saying it out loud, but it’s how I really feel, Izuku. I’m sorry for everything.
To Izuku Midoriya, Bakugo isn’t just another ‘regular person’ by which I mean he doesn’t see Bakugo as a friend or someone he can easily talk to. Bakugo is much more than that. I mean everyone should know by now that they have been in each other’s life’s ever since they were kids.
And the first and most clearest way of seeing this is when he ends up fighting against Monoma in (S5) when Deku unlocks black whip for the first time.
He clearly states that without Jiro, Sero and Sato Bakugo wouldn’t have passed. With this said, Izuku could have easily say something back but he didn’t because he knew Monoma was egging him on.
But as their battle continued Monoma asked Izuku, “How can Bakugo smile so unconcerneldy? He was caught by a villain. And he was responsible for ending the symbol of peace.” Sure Bakugo was caught by the LOV however he was not responsible of ending the symbol of peace, aka All Might.
Bakugo, himself, thought the same thing which he was beating himself up for which is made clear in ‘Deku vs. Kacchan pt.2’
That right there the “…he was responsible for ending the symbol of peace.” Was what triggered black whip. (that’s what I, personally, think)
We seen through the show, especially when Izuku and Katsuki were kids, in every memory we are shown Bakugo is always smiling. However after Bakugo fell into the stream and Izuku went down to help him to lend him a hand and saying, “Are you okay Kacchan?” That was the first moment were Bakugo isn’t showing a smile.
However after Bakugo fell into the stream and Izuku went down to help him to lend him a hand and saying, “It would’ve been bad if you hit your head?” That was the first moment were Bakugo isn’t shown smiling.
If it were in real life a friend helping out another friend would end up being happy knowing that their friend is giving them a helping hand responding with a simple, “yeah I’m okay, I just scraped my knee.” or “yeah I’m fine I just got some dirt on me.” BUT remember this is an anime, not real life.
This was the moment were their relationship switched as we are clearly shown. That was the moment were he started bullying Izuku. But as the show/manga continued, and still is, Izuku is seen to be ‘attach’ to Katsuki. Izuku gets super emotional when it comes to Katsuki. And you can clearly see it when Bakugo gets captured by the LOV we saw how he dropped to his knees head down on the ground as tears spilled and he yelled to the top of his lungs. Everyone that was surrounded by Izuku (Todoroki, Uraraka, Asui, Tokoyami, Shoji) they all had their hands reached out to Izuku but neither one of them dared to touch him.
So when one of the previous users of OFA came he said, “Earlier you thought, ‘I’ll capture that guy, right?” We are never shown when Izuku thought this. It could have been when Monoma was egging him on or (the one I think is the most resonable choice) is the second part where Monoma is speaking about Bakugo getting caught and how he ended All Might
Izuku was clearly angry to hear those words. The previous user basically said it, “If you use your power in anger, the power will react to that.” Izuku was truly angry pissed at Monoma by speaking about Bakugo in that way.
And here, everyone reading this who got this far, is when we get to see that Katsuki isn’t just another person to Izuku. That Katsuki truly holds Izuku’s heart. By the previous user saying, “What’s important is controlling your heart.”
Overall, Izuku loves Katsuki. (wether it be romantic or not) Izuku loves his Kacchan.
AHHHH! It was so good! It was ALMOST everything I wanted. There were a couple moments I felt like Bones was trying to minimize the gravity of this apology. Specifically, the lack of transition of Izuku's eyes.
When Katsuki first confronts Izuku, and starts at the beginning of their story (them being shown as young children) Izuku's eyes are completely void.
As Izuku begins to realize what's happening (when they reach their middle school timeline) we see his eyes coming back.
By their high school timeline he looks stunned and his eyes are lightening and becoming wider.
As he hears his name, his eyes have come back entirely.
By the end, his eyes are clear, present, his pupils are blown wide and light has finally returned them.
In the manga Horikoshi very intentionally shows Izuku's eyes becoming lighter and more present with every line that Katsuki says. Almost as if, Katsuki is slowly bringing Izuku back to life. Bones opted to leave those details out and that super sucks. This scene is so beautiful and powerful because even though it is BAKUGO'S moment, it's HIS apology that he's been agonizing over for months, it's still equally about both of them. It's still their give and take. It's so /them/ meeting each other where they're at, no matter what, and filling a role for each other that no one else could possibly fill. And by removing Izuku's part in that, you miss the full impact.
BUT it would be wrong of me not to acknowledge all the wonderful things Bones DID do in the episode. The rest of the animation was genuinely stunning. And Okamoto did an amazing job of bringing Katsuki's words to life. He made him so soft and I will forever be grateful for his portrayal. At first I was a bit upset he didn't do the pause indicated in the manga before saying Izuku's name but honestly...I like the change. I like that Katsuki says "Izuku" so confidently and without reserve. Because he knows he can. And he knows Izuku will accept it despite the fact that he probably shouldn't. It was a very nice change.
I loved that we got more shojo glow throughout, I also loved how they handled Katsuki's catch scene and Izuku finally feeling safe enough to sleep. That wasn't in the manga people! The catch was, yes, but NOT the panning in on Izuku's face as he relaxes into Katsuki's arms and falling asleep! That was a nice bonus touch that [not completely] helps balance out the loss of the eyes animation.
Overall, the handling of chapter 322 was done with a care I can appreciate. I can't wait to see how they handle our boys next big scene. 💚🧡
long story short, I was listening to a space on twitter of people going absolutely batshit about the vol 37 cover (whom just dropped), and someone said something like "Izuku could kiss his forehead" and it has kind of inspired me for this one.
Also the "lineart version" because it was supposed to be the OG version but per usual I got carried away aha
i sorta answered this already (here if u're curious) but i suppose i can answer again, this time more in depth and specific to bkdk :')
this turned out WAY longer than i thought so erm. more under the cut LOL
personally i don't think bkdk will be canon. before bkdks throw tomatoes at me, it's not because i dislike them as a ship — rather, canonizing them would be canonizing a main boy x boy relationship in an extremely popular shounen series. i've expressed my pessimism way more times than i should LOL but i truly don't think shounen jump would be willing to take this risk. let it be known that shounen jump has allowed canon lgbt ships and characters in their IPs — blue flag is perhaps the most well-known example of a main relationship being between two guys — but blue flag is not nearly as internationally famous as mha. the more eyes on an IP, the more cautious its choices have to be. it's why the most popular shounens tend to be "stereotypical", "cliche" and "cheesy"; this is what works with its main demographic (teenage/young adult males, to be exact), and if a series gets as big as the likes of mha, it's only smart to keep following that trend.
now, horikoshi does have a tendency to subvert expectations, even within his incredibly cliche hero school story.
bakugou is a subversion of the morally dangerous, edgy rival character by being one of the most heroic, straight-laced teens in the series (as well as genuinely apologizing for his faults that he recognizes are his own). even though he looks and acts like that, his motivations and aspirations are always admirable, even pure and childlike at times. unsurprisingly, people hate him for not being either fully evil or fully good, despite how horikoshi specifically wrote him to be a healthy balance between both his failures and his accomplishments.
deku is a subversion of the stereotypically boyish, emotionally stunted, shounen main character by being unashamedly emotional, awkward and sensitive regarding feelings other than anger or happiness. aka he cries a lot, so much so that average shounen dudebros genuinely hated him for being "soft" and "a baby", but praised him during his vigilante arc where he was ... well, for lack of better phrasing, far more similar to existing shounen protags for being less openly empathetic and more badass. you could honestly argue that deku's entire character isn't meant to be typically badass, flashy, or otherwise appealing to the standard shounen audience. his character arc literally deals with being the hero no one thanks or acknowledges, but he continues to selflessly help others despite the lack of appreciation.
ochako is a subversion of the one-note, intentionally-less-interesting-than-the-mc love interest character — it may not look like it at first glance, but ochako has her own arc that is both connected to deku, yet simultaneously not dependent on him that's been festering in the background since she developed her childish crush on him. the more i read this series, the more i'm convinced that she was never meant to end up with deku. she was only meant to play that role before she comes into her own skin and uses her attraction to deku as a way to be her own kind of hero. or horikoshi is going to shove them together last minute, in which, well, fuck me i guess.
all might is a subversion of the gary-stu archetype, because instead of being the perfect human specimen the way he always presents himself to the public, he's constantly physically deteriorating. not to mention he's a subversion of the know-all mentor character, because he honestly kind of sucks as a mentor. this comes from his own faults as a selfless hero, unable to properly learn from his own mistakes until it was too late. also because he's never taught anyone before so like duh. love him though. i am a toshinori supporter first, everything else second
there's other characters that have been subverted too but you get the idea. horikoshi is very good at writing characters, and to an extent, character relationships. that might be his biggest strength outside of, obviously, his art. and clearly he likes subverting our expectations, otherwise he wouldn't write his main characters like this. he knows what's the norm, uses those tropes as a baseline, only to go out of his way to overthrow those norms the further he develops each given character.
however! i don't think horikoshi will go so far as to subvert the stereotypical main ship (izuocha) and instead pick the relationship between the main two characters (bakudeku). rival relationships in shounen are pretty popular anyway, and mha is not the first shounen to have a deeply meaningful relationship between the male main character and the male main rival/deuteragonist. naruto and haikyuu both have oddly homoerotic friendships between the main two rivals and neither of these relationships are romantically canon.
the reasons why they aren't isn't ever explained why, but i sincerely think at least a sliver of the reason is because both characters are of the same gender. case in point: haikyuu only has a handful of canon boy x girl relationships by the time the series ended. so little that you could literally count the number on one hand, despite the amount of characters in the full cast. and yeah a vast majority of those characters were guys, but those guys were left presumably single, or at least their relationship statuses weren't disclosed. haikyuu did what naruto didn't, which was consciously understand that the most impactful relationships within the entire series were always between two men. for example, hinata and yachi are canonically close friends, and furudate could just pair them up without much thought. but they didn't, instead opting to keep hinata single and keeping his most important relationship with kageyama. likely somewhere there, no matter how faint, furudate didn't canonize kagehina due to fear of backlash, even though it'd make sense chemistry-wise.
bakudeku is in the same boat, where deku could be paired up with ochako if horikoshi just stopped giving fucks — they have a good friendship, with ochako having a crush, or at least a strong admiration, on deku — but he is decidedly not. at least not yet, but it'd be weird to canonize them after taking deku's long platonic feelings for her into account. deku has been entirely single this whole time with nothing aggressively romantic happening between him and ochako (except for the blackwhip situaiton, which ochako's VA herself mentioned as not inherently romantic, but as a chance for ochako to showcase her heroism). i'm inclined to believe this is part of horikoshi's subversions: specifically keeping deku and ochako away from heartfelt, desperate moments where their connection can be brought to the forefront. this makes it even stranger that horikoshi gives bakugou a lot of the standard damsel-in-distress roles, such as being taken hostage by the sludge villain, being kidnapped by the league of villains, and even being carried by deku during their fight with all might. granted he was carried over the shoulder, but he was specifically carried, lol. compared to ochako, bakugou is put in much more danger, consequently "depending" on deku to save him, as much as he hates that.
narratively, this makes bakudeku the most purposeful relationship, from their connection since childhood and having it develop slowly but surely during their adolescence.
their relationship is significantly meant to represent change and equality, as their relationship arc is parallel with many of mha's core themes. canonically they are the two students that inspire the rest of their class to be better heroes. the character deku interacts with most is arguably bakugou, if we put their history into account. even though bakugou was his bully for most of their lives, deku still unconditionally cares about him, even without bakugou asking him to. most times, it's actually against what bakugou wants, which is for deku to leave him alone. he also has the most emotional investment in bakugou, since he canonically sees bakugou as his image of victory, as well as someone who instantly triggers his emotional response as opposed to his logical response. literally like 80% of deku's "outbursts" where he acts utterly irrationally (and not always in a heroic way) are related to bakugou. see: sludge villian,
bakugou's kidnapping (in the original japanese version, i believe he says "give him back" in a distinctly possessive way, as if bakugou is genuinely his. but i could be wrong, idk how to read japanese),
deku vs kacchan 2 (instead of trying to talk down bakugou, he ends up fighting him even though it's against the rules, just because he can't exactly say no to bakugou's unconventional way of dealing with his feelings),
blackwhip's awakening (there is murder in his eyes. monoma insulted bakugou and deku was ready to kill him),
danger sense's awakening (same as blackwhip's awakening, but amplified to 100 given how bakugou was straight up stabbed in front of his eyes),
and bakugou's apology. (this one isn't deku being impulsive, more that bakugou appealed to his emotions and it worked way better than any of their classmates' attempts lol)
through a few of these given pieces of evidence, it's also evident that bakugou cares a hefty amount for deku, just in a more lowkey, less obvious way. this feeling gets distinctly more desperate when deku runs away, so much so that bakugou bluntly tells everyone that he knows deku best (something he probably would have never verbalized earlier in the series), mobilizes his class to chase him down, and eventually talks deku into coming back. so it's also canon that bakugou cannot stand the thought of deku not being near him — "it makes me wanna keep him at arm's length" and whatever.
in literally every story-related way imaginable, it makes sense for bakudeku to be canon. in terms of relationships, they have the most developed, dynamic, and interesting one. they get the most screen time. the proof is quite literally in the story. everything bkdks look at for bkdk proof is canon, a somewhat rare situation shipping-wise, where two characters that aren't together in canon already feel like they are together in canon. at this point, all they'd have to say to make it canon is "i like you". so why the hell am i such a fucking cynic about them?
i've already mentioned up there that it's already pretty damn hard for a shounen jump to canonize a gay ship. it doesn't matter how popular the ship is in the fandom; if the mangaka and/or the manga distributor doesn't want them to be canon, then they won't be canon. it's made even worse that deku and bakugou are the main characters; if they were background characters, they honestly might've had a better chance in my eyes.
because here's the thing: canonizing bakudeku means that mha (and to an extent, shounen jump) is now officially supporting the lgbt community. which it already techncially is with its side characters like toga (either bi or pan), magne (trans) and tiger (trans), but they're side characters. purposefully not as important as deku and bakugou, who are the poster characters for merch, advertising, and spin-off material such as movies and games. regarding the lgbt community, japan is more conservative than the US — they haven't legalized gay marriage, and the overall understanding and acceptance of it is lower than the western world. all of this combined makes it very hard for any canon lgbt content to be big, mainstream and serialized. this isn't to say that japan doesn't allow any shows involving gay characters, but those shows are considerably more niche, many of them falling under bl/gl instead of any other broad genre. even yuri on ice, which was a big hit for what it was worth, only got one season and a movie that is seemingly never coming out.
mha is, in every sense of the word, not a niche series. horikoshi would be risking a lot making his male main characters romantically involved with each other, because mha is not a series that can fly under the radar and be solely picked up by smaller groups that are more accepting of queer people and relationships. it'd be like making luffy from one piece canonically gay. and i have never read one piece but i'm pretty sure all the dudebros in both the west and in asia would flip their fucking shits. it doesn't matter how close deku and bakugou are. as long as both of them are guys, their canonization will be inherently "political". at best, people would complain about why romance should be in a story like this in the first place (a common homophobic argument against lgbt relationships, since they have nothing against the male mc dating the main girl). at worst, people would be outright homophobic, aggressive towards the direction the manga is moving, and horikoshi could face serious repercussions regarding funding and advertising.
shows in the west get screwed over constantly for including lgbt relationships. steven universe had to fight tooth and nail to include ruby and sapphire's romance, and even harder for their wedding. the owl house's lumity faced something much similar, and the show even got "cancelled" — i know it's a glass half-empty idea, but i think they got cut short partly because of lumity. kids cartoons always try sneaking in lgbt content, but either they get cut, hidden, or relegated to background characters where you'll blink and you'll miss it. we're getting better i guess, but the undeniable truth is that if even the US is this finicky about lgbt representation, then there's no way japan will fold so easily.
if bakugou were a girl, then bakudeku would be canon by now. if deku were a girl, then bakudeku would be canon by now. it's the same shit every time; shounen series write the most groundbreaking, mindblowing relationships between two dudes, only to never make them official due to their genders. instead, they're stuck with having the most important dynamic within the entire narrative, but it's strictly platonic. i don't think it's because shounen mangakas are inherently homophobic. i don't think horikoshi is homophobic at all. i simply think that they'd rather play it safe, knowing their main audience. shounen is not written for any fandom demographics. we're big, but ultimately we hold no power over the story.
when i say i don't think horikoshi is homophobic at all, i truly mean that, because — i think if he had it his way, he would've made bakudeku canon by now.
there's already so much shit. a baffling amount of shit to prove their loyalty to each other, how they affect each other and their arcs, how they're save to win, win to save. how bakugou is a key component of deku's character, and how deku is probably the most important character to bakugou's entire development. horikoshi is deliberate in how he writes them. he's deliberate in how he framed bakugou as "the girl" that "the hero" needs to save. he's deliberate in their complimentary personalities and values. he's very fucking deliberate in how he specifically makes their relationship the most changing, beneficial, and understanding. if horikoshi didn't care about these two and their connection, he wouldn't have done all this. he would've latched deku and bakugou onto other characters, or had them be standalone individuals. but no; their entire existence is about dependence. about finding that middle ground and growing together, intertwined.
he's also not afraid of adding lgbt characters into his series, as long as those characters don't get a large amount of screen time. like previously mentioned, toga is canonically not straight, having interest in both deku and ochako. and she's written pretty damn well too, with her attraction to deku and ochako playing a huge role in her characterization. like i said before, horikoshi is good at writing characters and relationships. i don't doubt that he's capable of writing lgbt relationships too, if given the opportunity. i'd actually shit bricks if horikoshi made togachako canon. somehow i find that more likely than bakudeku. sick and twisted.
he also made magne and tiger, who are both wholly unimportant characters and one of them fucking dies. but the point is, i believe that horikoshi would want to make more characters lgbt, he just very possibly cannot right now. there's too much at stake; he's a popular mangaka writing a hugely successful series, with an insanely wide outreach. there will obviously be a sized portion of his reader base that just absolutely hates the gays. i'm pretty sure he's aware of this.
all this said, i find it hard to believe that horikoshi doesn't like bakudeku as a canon duo. not a romantic relationship exactly, but at least as an official partner duo. they're constantly paired up promotionally anyway. it would take horikoshi zero effort to make them future pro hero partners. it would probably take him more effort to justify why they aren't. what i'm trying to say here is this: horikoshi is possibly trying, in the most subtle ways possible, to allude to their relationship deepening in the coming years. just, well, not strictly romantically. in the same way his fellow shounen mangakas either stuck to heterosexual romances or no romances at all, he will likely settle for a simple platonic relationship between bakudeku. but he won't confirm nor deny that bakudeku are more, the same way furudate didn't say shit about kagehina. it's up to your interpretation. they could be just friends or dating or married; just know that the mangaka himself likes the idea that his main two guy characters are this close with each other.
ANYWAY. THE POINT IS. i do not think bakudeku will be canon. i refuse to get my hopes up, and i will continue to be a pessimistic little bitch until i'm proven wrong. i hope i am proven wrong. i hope horikoshi decides to make them canon, i really hope he does. but i'm just not sure if he'll be allowed that chance, or if he'll want to do it in the first place. in the meantime, i am fully prepared to see bakudeku as yet another failed mlm relationship in mainstream shounen, one that could have been genuinely revolutionary. oh well. at least we still have fan content.
Jace's journal @jacearthereal - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
snowghoul
stormborns
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
vaporwave
