#all while the manga barrels towards the endgame

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Before we dive into the rest of the Stain fight, let’s start out with the opening volume seven material!

A grungy, shouty Katsuki serves as the focus of this cover, which makes sense when the volume subtitle is ‘Bakugou Katsuki: Origin.’ I’m pretty sure this is meant to be a snapshot from the final exam, which starts in this volume, though I suppose it could be a snapshot of the future. He’s looking away from the ‘camera’, caught up in the heat of battle, and though we can’t see his gauntlets, the smoke from his explosion is serving as a pointed backdrop of what’s happening at that moment.

It has a lot of contrast with the cover of Bakugou Katsuki: Rising, aka volume 29, in terms of energy and framing. I’ll probably get into that more whenever I finally manage to get to that volume, which at my current rate will probably be another year or two…

As a total aside, this art has finally helped me understand how the fuck Katsuki’s headpieces are oriented on him, like. The art we’ve seen of it so far just hasn’t quite clicked in terms of how it all works, so it’s kind of nice to finally see how the small and large explosion accessories are placed. Can’t believe he has the most deadly and spiky pigtails. /lh

Aizawa is the character on the spine, which I suppose is as alright a choice as any. He doesn’t have a large part to play in this volume as far as I’m aware, but all the characters who are involved have already been used (or are Stain, who is irrelevant for the purposes of volume covers). Then again, I suppose it’s a little relevant since Aizawa is one of Katsuki’s most staunch defenders, and the final exam is another big character point for Katsuki. 

Some additional insight from Alli:

🎆 hanabi 🎆 | alli 🤝 — Today at 9:46 AM

just to add with you cover analysis, allow me to hyperanalyze: you're absolutely on the right track here. Up until this point (and even coming after it) it's hard to really see any of katsuki's behaviors or beliefs as truly heroic. even his tenacity, a trait that all might attributes to heroism, comes across more as self interest than something truly noble. And in the exams, we see a lot of Katsuki's issues come to a boiling point with hm attacking izuku and making unwise battle

strategies to feed his own ego rather than the smart ones he's known for (which would be running to get help in that scenario).

However, we also get to the heart of Katsuki's view on heroics and learn that yes, while in it's current form it's not the best, it started with true and noble intentions, just like izuku's did. and who's the person who has seen not only katsuki's skill but also that his core values line up with true heroism?

Aizawa

he was also the one to pair bkdk together to see if they could resolve these issues together, so he's kind of the main instigator of the conflict for this volume as well

Anywho, onto Horikoshi’s opening thoughts of the volume.

Honestly, I have to agree with him here - the process of becoming a hero is a lot more interesting than the end of the world, good versus evil battles. Because you get to see the growth, the changes and evolution as the character steps closer to becoming the hero you know and love - and we don’t actually know any of the kids’ endgames yet, which adds more anticipation to it all. 

Maybe saying we ‘don’t know’ is a bit mistaken, since we definitely can see where the road is going for all the main players at this point. We just have yet to see the full payoff of these paths, and Hori could still surprise us with one or two of them before the series wraps up. 

Next is the inside cover page for the volume, which is…

I have to admit, I had to take a moment here to pull myself back and remind myself to not be too picky here. It’s very obvious here that the art is clean, the girls are pretty, and their poses are fun. The two are clearly enjoying posing for the camera here, and Hori likely had a lot of fun sketching this out. Hori even did a neat little touch in giving them different glasses from each other (and from Tenya). 

…actually, I do have to wonder why the classroom is in such a messy state. Overturned desks and chairs? And they seem to all be shoved into the center of the room (at least as far as I can tell from the limited viewpoint of the camera). 

Once again, gotta love Izuku mimicking All Might’s poses. And everyone’s in their hero costumes! Which makes sense since this is the start of the final exam arc, as well as wrapping up the Stain arc. In addition, I would take a firm guess that Tenya being on the first character page with his own box is specifically because his character arc is being focused on for most of this volume. 

…oh my god, even the translators/editors/Hori??? Can fall prey to the dreaded ‘a certain x’ epithet rampant in fanfiction. Truly, revelry in the dark is happening here. 

Lastly, we have the table of contents.

Gotta love Dark Shadow doing his thing here, even if I’m not sure how much Tokoyami even does in this volume. Also, I completely forgot the two were here when I was making my revelry in the dark joke up above. I swear I did not intend that. 

This volume looks to be nine chapter long - six chapters to wrap up the Stain arc, and three to dive into the Final Exams arc. For people who have only seen the anime and not read the manga, fair warning in advance that the pacing and order of events for said exam arc is… different. 

Anywho, with that, all the opening volume seven material is done. See you next time for chapter 54.