The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Chapter 359, “Place of Learning," by Kohei Horikoshi available in English fromViz Media.
Bakugou is very clearly the favorite character in theMy Hero Academiaamongst the fandom. He has been number one in every single popularity poll in Japan and has had some of themost touching scenes of growth and developmentwithin the series. The only thing he has lacked so far is a fight where he’s given the opportunity to go all out against an opponent who does the same, but that has ended as his battle against Shigiraki has dialed up to max.
In this battle, Bakugou has been on full display both combat-wise and as a character. His angry yelling with Miruko is comical, his high mobility and power leaves people in awe considering his young age, and most importantly his development as a person and the way he challenges the ideals and beliefs of both All For One and Shigiraki are inspiring. As he goes in to attack Shigiraki with a new move, will he be able to hold off Shigiraki until Deku arrives?
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All In This Together
The chapter ofMy Hero Academiaopens with a scene of the support students continuing to make repairs on the floating facility from underground. They comment that the base is falling because itcannot support the weight of Shigiraki’s growing body. As that happens a business student is shown recording the battle and offering commentary.
When questioned why he was even there by another support student, they say it’s because keeping record of the heroes' victory is vital and how the world needs to know how they all achieved victory today. After which Horikoshi draws some fantastic art of an immense explosion by Bakugo, and we once again see him do another incredible double-page panel.
Eraserhead reminds Monoma to not blink for a second and Yaoyorozu can even feel the explosion from under the stadium. Immediately she realizes that its Bakugo too. Similar to the time Bakugou fought Deku the first time, it shows everyone reacting to Bakugou’s explosions.
Those who do not know him simply assume this is him being reckless but Kaminari tells them that he always puts thought and care into his actions. When he fought Deku the first time, even though it looked like he was aiming to kill him, he was always aiming his attacks to simply knock him out and holding back. This is confirmed moments later by Shigiraki/All For One as he compliments Bakugo oncondensing his blast to curtail widespread damageand increase the destructive force. However, this compliment comes from a position of him being condescending as it was ultimately ineffective on the villain.
As Shigiraki compliments Bakugo he had actually used his right arm to swipe at his face, ripping the right side of Dynamight’s mask off, grip Bakugo’s right forearm and crush it with incredible strength and little effort. The gauntlets that Bakugo carries on his wrist was destroyed and seeing the danger the young UA student was in, Best Jeanist and Miruko rush to his aid. It did little to help however as Shigiraki swatted them away like flies, claiming the strength he had was the strength of All Might. Bakugo is then lying on the ground coughing and unable to move as Shigiraki walks towards him menacingly. He is completely lost as to how his strongest attack barely scratched him, but man does Shigiraki know how to had insult to injury. Quite literally too. As he steps forward Shigiraki/All For One talk down to Bakugo saying its not his ambitions or feelings that catch his interest butonly the relationship he has built with Dekuover the years that he cares about.
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Eraserhead is forced to sit back and watch as the student he helped train and wished to see fight to become number one is about to be killed by Shigiraki. He cries to Mandalay asking where is Deku, but she has no means of getting in touch with him. Then he cries out to the pro heroes to see if any of them would rise to protect his student. Suneater is the first to rise saying how he really wanted to have a graduation. An unknown voice cheers him up by saying when this is all done, they will ask Nezu to give them one. Nejire says yeah but Suneater still can’t see how they stand a chance, but Lemillion rises from the rubble and says that when it’s all said and done, even if they can’t beat Shigiraki, they will be sure to hold him off until Deku arrives to save the day. Then we get an amazing shot ofLemillion, Suneater, and Hado bravely standing togethersaying they will face Shigiraki together with their triple threat power.
Conclusion
This chapter is quite a refreshing follow-up to the most recent one. Horikoshi still succeeds in delivering exciting action while also making the chapter much easier to follow and keep track of. The number of hands and fingers on the panels has gone down a significant margin and the battle has slowed a bit. Outside that, this chapter also offered a lot more world building and gave more screentime for side characters. Seeing the impact the business and support course students are having on the battle was really nice.
Fans will be sure to appreciate the business course recording the footage themselves as the Dabi recording the killing of Twice was used against them not too long ago. Getting into the politics of the hero society is always appreciated. The power of friendship aspects were good too, as Kaminari and Yaoyorozu believed heavily in Bakugo despite others only seeing him for his brutality. The vile nature of Shigiraki was on display, the love of Eraserhead for his students and of course, the last panel stating we will finally get to see the UA Big three fight together is all things fans have been waiting for. This chapter definitely delivers where it needed to.
