My Hero Academia: Viz Media’s Shocking Treatment of Katsuki Bakugo’s Character

Despite being the subject of controversy, Viz Media’s official translations of the My Hero Academia manga have faced criticism. Many eagle-eyed fans have noticed significant differences between the translated versions and the original Japanese manga, resulting in changes to important elements of the story.

A fan recently brought to attention a similar incident on X where they noticed that Viz Media had made changes to a crucial aspect of Katsuki Bakugo’s official character profile. This alteration sparked outrage among online fans, who accused Viz Media of having ‘ruined’ Bakugo’s character with their latest error.

My Hero Academia: Viz Media’s Latest Mishap Ruins Katsuki Bakugo’s Character

Throughout the years, Katsuki Bakugo has risen to become one of the most beloved characters in the My Hero Academia franchise. With his significant influence on the series and on Izuku Midoriya, also known as Deku, it is difficult to envision where the franchise would be without him.

Despite Bakugo’s initial portrayal as a bully with a superiority complex, his character was later developed and revealed to have more depth as the series continued. However, Viz Media’s recent translation error heavily undermined all of Bakugo’s growth and development throughout the years.

A user called @crovokacchan on X recently brought to attention a mistake made by Viz Media in the translation of Bakugo’s official character profile, where they omitted a crucial line by Kohei Horikoshi.

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

The user shared an official translation of the character profile by Viz Media and compared it to a fan translation, which appeared to be more faithful to the original Japanese version. Although the two translations were largely consistent, there was a statement from Horikoshi towards the end where he expressed his intentions to handle Bakugo’s character with caution.

The user verified that this specific line was indeed included in the character profile as depicted in the original version, and was accurately translated in the fan translation.

Despite this, Viz Media decided to replace the original line with one that described Bakugo as a “rotten thief”. This change sparked widespread disappointment among fans, who believed it was not only unnecessary but also did a disservice to Bakugo’s character.

How Fans Responded to Viz Media’s Changes to Bakugo’s Character Profile

Fans were rightfully disappointed when Viz Media omitted Bakugo’s original character profile line and replaced it with one that portrayed him in a negative light. This decision, which went against Kohei Horikoshi’s description of Bakugo as a detestable yet carefully handled character, sparked anger among many fans who saw it as an unnecessary alteration.

A fan was truly perplexed about the origin of the line from the original Japanese sentence where Bakugo’s face is shown screaming and declaring himself a “rotten thief”, as used by Viz Media.

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

One fan also shared their anger towards Viz Media for ruining Bakugo’s character with an unnecessary alteration. The fan added that this could possibly be the cause of why some individuals fail to comprehend 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) — Katsuki Bakugo is one of the most popular characters of ‘My Hero Academia’ (Image via Bones)

A photo of Bakugo’s character profile translated by JBC, the official Brazilian publisher, was shared by a fan who pointed out that Viz Media was responsible for the mistake, as even JBC kept the original line in their translation.

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

Additionally, there have been questions raised about Viz’s statement of Bakugo being a “rotten thief”, as he is widely regarded as the most popular character in both 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.

Viz Media has faced criticism in the past for making translation mistakes, as seen with the official translations of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga. The recent uproar over Katsuki Bakugo being referred to as a “rotten thief”is just another example of the translation errors that have been made by Viz Media.