My Hero Academia's darkest Deku & Bakugo moment is one most fans won't notice
My Hero Academia is a series that is aimed at younger audiences, but that doesn't stop it from having some rather dark moments. This manga features human experiments and graphic violence at times. But perhaps one of the most disturbing moments featuring Izuku "Deku" Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo was something that didn't get a lot of attention.
When they were kids, one of their friends, Tsubasa, had a Quirk with wings. He was shown in the first chapter of the My Hero Academia manga. What many people didn't notice was how he was the Winged Nomu who attacked Deku during the Stain arc. He also happened to be Dr. Garaki's grandson, making the entire situation even more disturbing.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series and reflects the author's opinions.
A childhood friend of Deku and Bakugo was turned into a Nomu in My Hero Academia
The first chapter of the series featured Izuku "Deku" Midoriya being bullied by Katsuki Bakugo and his friends, one of them being Tsubasa, a boy with wings. While this young man was mostly used as a background character, author Kohei Horikoshi later revealed in the extra material of the manga's volume 7 that Tsubasa was turned into a Nomu.
He was not an ordinary Nomu, but he was the winged one who picked up Deku after his battle with Stain, with the latter taking him down out of respect for Izuku's heroics. Horikoshi never mentioned this in the manga despite mentioning in volume 7 that he had planned a backstory for Tsubasa and how he was turned into a Nomu. So, it seems Horikoshi had to scrap it in the following storylines.
Notably, Tsubasa was the grandson of Dr. Garaki, the creator of the Nomu beings and an underling of All For One. All these facts make this twist even more disturbing when considering that Garaki did this to his grandson, which is one of the darkest moments in the entire franchise.
How this could have played out in the series
This is probably a missed opportunity by the My Hero Academia author since Deku and Bakugo's backstory at school defined their relationship for a long time. It would have been interesting to see them deal with something from this era that wasn't centered around them, especially realizing that a former childhood acquaintance was turned into a human experiment.
This event could have shocked Deku to his core and disturbed Bakugo greatly, perhaps being one of the first steps toward his redemption. There is also the fact that this would make them realize that Garaki probably knew of their existence and could have picked them, adding an element of severity to the situation.
Final thoughts
My Hero Academia is a story that tries to avoid some of the most graphic elements, but it has some notoriously dark moments. The realization Deku and Bakugo could have had when concluding that Tsubasa was experimented on by his grandfather could have been a very dark and memorable scene.
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