Bakugo saving All Might so easily highlights the greatest flaw in My Hero Academia's final arc

Earlier this week, the alleged spoilers and raw scans for the upcoming issue of Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia manga were released. While the chapter will officially arrive on October 23, 2023, the series’ leakers are typically reliable in the information they provide.

Fans are excitedly discussing the latest events in the My Hero Academia manga, which will reportedly see Katsuki Bakugo return to the battlefield in a flashy way. Per the spoilers, he will be flung at All Might and All For One by Izuku “Deku” Midoriya. He will then quickly disarm All For One while rescuing the former Symbol of Peace.

Although it is an incredibly exciting development that many My Hero Academia fans praised instantly, some have changed their opinion on it slightly. They have even gone as far as to say that Bakugo effortlessly rescuing All Might is representative of the final arc’s biggest flaw (so far).

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My Hero Academia’s final arc continues to show flagrant disregard for any stakes or consequences

As seen in the latest raw scans and spoilers for the My Hero Academia manga series, Bakugo saved All Might from All For One with essentially little to no resistance. While one could argue that this is due to All For One being taken by surprise, it’s highly unlikely that he was completely unaware of Bakugo racing towards him.

This highlights the biggest flaw in the series’ final arc thus far, which is that there have essentially been no stakes or consequences during this major war arc. Even villains who fans heavily predicted would die, such as Toya Todoroki, also known as Dabi, have seemingly survived despite heavy injuries.

Essentially, the only death that has been even close to officially confirmed in the final arc thus far is that of Himiko Toga. Even then, fans have gotten nothing truly confirming her death since the last time she appeared in My Hero Academia.

Then, of course, there’s Bakugo, who did die but has obviously been successfully revived to the point of being immediately ready to enter the battlefield again.

In a way, this heavily undermines the “major war” that is being set up as the series’ final saga. While death isn’t needed to write a good story or create tension, it’s hard to truly have a legitimate war arc without some sort of major death or consequence as a result.

While All For One will likely be killed off by the arc’s end, this is too much of an expectation to truly be given credit as a consequence.

Although some fans will likely argue that My Hero Academia simply isn’t that kind of story, there are prior examples in the series that dispute this.

One key example is the death of Sir Nighteye following the Shie Hassaikai arc. With how relatively small scale that conflict was compared to the final arc’s ultimate war, it’s hard to argue that the latter lacking any death or consequences shouldn’t be viewed as a major flaw.

At the end of the day, however, it is Horikoshi’s story, and he’ll surely write it in the manner that is most appealing and makes the most sense to him. Likewise, diehard fans of the series will likely be pleased regardless of almost anything that happens by the story’s end. Nevertheless, the final arc isn’t exempt from criticism, especially in this specific regard.

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