Boku no Hero Academia 43 Review: Anticlimatic Final Battle?

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 43: Todoroki vs. Bakugou

Well, that was unexpected! And sort of anticlimatic, but in a good way. The chapter starts off pretty cool, just like any awesome manga battle. We've got Bakugou doing explosive stuff and Todoroki doing a lot of cool ice tricks, and the art really helps in making the movements feel fluid and dynamic. Todoroki's ice wall thing, Bakugou spinning around with his explosions, that kind of stuff. We've got Bakugou screaming about how he's going to beat everyone, how he's going to stand above Midoriya, how he's not going to lose to some half-assed fight if Todoroki doesn't have his full heart in it.

And I do like what they did with Todoroki here, and how much more... realistic it is. Yes, he's got that little mind-opener from Midoriya's speech earlier about accepting who he is and fighting fully with both sides of his powers, but unlike most shonen characters, Todoroki doesn't do a complete 180... at least not immediately. He's still uncomfortable with his fire side especially with Endeavor being such a dickwad and the whole 'traumatized as a child' thing. And he's still kind of unsure in general.

And while he did ignite his fire side near the end of the fight, he extinguishes it before Bakugou's big super attack, and gets knocked out of bounds which is really sudden -- traditionally these shonen tournament battles generally last more than one chapter, and this does feel like your everyday epic shonen battle where the two badass characters are just shouting their motivations and doing cool but small things with their power. Bakugou's howitzer attack would seem to be the first in a series of awesome named attacks, but no -- Todoroki is just taken out immediately.

And it's anticlimatic, but also great from a character standpoint. Bakugou in particular is fucking furious because he's denied the chance to prove his strength and worth above a full-power Todoroki (plus Midoriya managed to elicit the response of Torodoki's fire side)... though whether he wants to prove it to the world or to himself that he's not useless, well... or if it's just a simple matter of pride. I do like Bakugou, he's a lot more complex than your generic bully character. And Todoroki's certainly still confused and whatnot about his powers and whether to use his fire side.

These main characters are starting to get really interesting, and while the tournament is over with Bakugou as the winner, I'm still curious where we're going to go from here. Will Stain the Hero Slayer attack the stadium? Something along those lines? Though I'm certainly more curious about how Bakugou, Todoroki and Midoriya will deal with their respective situations.

Not really much to say about it, but it's a great battle, and even though not much really happened here, it's still a great chapter to read through.