Viz Media: My Hero Academia: Viz Media massacred Katsuki Bakugo's character in a way nobody imagined

My Hero Academia: Viz Media massacred Katsuki Bakugo's character in a way nobody imagined

Modified Apr 17, 2024 05:21 GMT

Katsuki Bakugo as seen in the anime (image via Bones) — Katsuki Bakugo as seen in the anime (Image via Bones)

Viz Media has often been the subject of controversy when it came to official translations of the My Hero Academia manga. As pointed out by some eagle-eyed fans, the official translations were sometimes vastly different from the original Japanese version of the manga, which ended up changing some of the most crucial parts of the story.

A similar incident was pointed out by a fan on X recently, where they brought to attention the fact that Viz Media had altered a crucial part of Katsuki Bakugo's official character profile. This alteration ended up causing outrage among fans online, who claimed that Viz Media had unnecessarily 'massacred' Bakugo's character with their latest mistake.

My Hero Academia: Viz Media's latest mishap ruins Katsuki Bakugo's character

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Over the years, Katsuki Bakugo became one of the most popular characters in the My Hero Academia franchise. Given the impact he had on the series, as well as on Izuku Midoriya, aka Deku, it's hard to imagine where the series would be today without him.

While Bakugo was initially depicted as a bully who had the notion that he was better than others, the complexity of his character was eventually explored as the series progressed. That said, all of Bakugo's character development over the years was heavily downplayed by Viz Media's latest translation error.

A user named @crovokacchan on X recently pointed out a mistake made by Viz Media while translating Bakugo's official character profile, where they removed a crucial line by Kohei Horikoshi.

Bakugo as seen in My Hero Academia (Image via Bones)

The user posted an official translation of the character profile by Viz Media and compared it to a fan translation, that seemed to be more accurate to the original Japanese version. While the two translations were similar for the most part, there was a line towards the end by Horikoshi where he stated that he would handle Bakugo's character with care.

The user confirmed that this particular line was an actual part of the character profile in the original version, which was accurately depicted in the fan translation.

For some reason, however, Viz Media replaced this line with one where it said that Bakugo's face screams that he is a "rotten thief". As such, fans were extremely unhappy with this change, which they declared was not only unnecessary, but it also deeply undermined Bakugo's character.

How fans reacted to Viz Media altering Bakugo's character profile

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Fans were understandably upset with Viz Media leaving out the original line from Bakugo's character profile, and replacing it with one that further degraded his character. Given how the original version saw Kohei Horikoshi describing Bakugo as a detestable character, yet promising that he would handle the character with the utmost care, a lot of fans were furious with Viz Media for making such an unnecessary change.

One fan was genuinely confused as to where Viz Media got the line of Bakugo's face screaming that he is a "rotten thief", from the original sentence in Japanese.

"Genuinely where did viz get “his face just screams ‘i’m a rotten thief’” from that sentence in japanese", one fan commented.

Another fan expressed that they were furious with Viz Media for butchering Bakugo's character with their unnecessary change. The fan further said that this might just be the reason why some people do not understand Bakugo's character.

"Oh this just made me so mad.. they butchered him so bad it’s no wonder some people don’t understand him", another fan commented.

Katsuki Bakugo is one of the most popular characters of 'My Hero Academia' (Image via Bones)

One particular fan shared a picture of the official Brazilian translation of Bakugo's character profile by JBC, saying that Viz Media was to blame for this mishap since even JBC kept the original line.

"Its a VIZ thing really because the brazilian version by JBC kept the original line", one fan wrote.

Lastly, another questioned Viz's claim of Bakugo being a "rotten thief", claiming that he is the most liked character in the entirety of the manga and the anime.

"In what world is Katsuki a rotten thief? Also he’s legit the most liked character in the whole manga/anime", said another.

This certainly isn't the first time that Viz Media has come under fire for making errors in their translations, as similar fan outrage has been seen in the case of the official translations of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga as well. As such, Katsuki Bakugo being labeled as a "rotten thief" joins the long list of translation errors by Viz Media.