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“I was tagged by @slowkingcole​ so by the rules of blood oath I have to…”

Why do you ship Bakugou and Urakara? I just want to know your view on this

So, usually I hate the “Girl fights the main characters rival in shonen in order to lose gracefully and 1) prove that the girl isn’t so soft after all and can put up a good fight and 2) establish how much of a threat the main rival is. 

My main qualm isn’t the story device itself but rather one it’s prevalence and two the fact that women are for the most part universally used for male character development anyway so it’s not like this is anything new or special just because a girl gets to temporarily look cool in one fight before inevitably losing. But tropes, are tropes, are tropes, technically they’re neutral and depending on the execution so this time around in MHA it’s not as bad as other mangas where I’ve seen it be executed much worse. 

What really helps is the emphasis on how other people think Urakara is some fragile little girl, and Bakugou fighting her seriously is an exercise of how evil and ruthless he is as a character. Like, that is what it would be if they were playing the trope 100% straight. The fact that the story in the context of its own universe though acknowledges this standard of sexism is kind of interesting. If My Hero Academia had like… themes… I could even go on about that, but yeah that small acknowledgement is enough to turn this from a potential groaner to me into a really interesting fight. 

So if you haven’t noticed by now most of my ships are based upon conflict, resolution and understanding rather than “I think those two would be cute together.” What I like are characters who are complementary in some way, and incendiary in some other way, in other words when they interact they are definitely going to provoke a reaction. 

In other words:

This fight did a lot to get me shipping them, because it establishes two things. !) That Bakugou respects Urakara enough enough to see her as a threat (This is important because the first part of Bakugou’s character arc is that he doesn’t even want to comprehend Deku as somebody he’s competing with because his entire self image is built around the fact that Deku should never be on his level. An inferiority superiority complex). So, right from the start that hurdle is already cleared. 

It’s also hinted in the chapter after the fight that Urakara is a mental equal. She understood Bakugou in a way enough to anticipate his strategy. 

Not only that, but after we see more of Bakugou’s respect for her flare up. Bakugou at this point remember has no problem at all looking down on other people still and calling them weak.

Considering how much Bakugou values others perceptions of him (he gets angry at Todoroki for not coming at him with his full might because Bakugou saw that as Todoroki perceiving him as weak and therefore not worth fighting in full unlike Deku), I’m pretty sure the sight of Urakara taking him seriously and fighting in full, the fact that she understood and respected him caused Bakugou to return the sentiment in full.

I’m pretty sure considering his reactions to the fight itself, that this is meant to be a change invoked right away. Praise from Bakugou is pretty rare at this point. When he gets angry about Todoroki as well, the screen lingers on Urakara for a moment because she went all out against him, she respected him the way he wanted to. 

I think we’re supposed to carry on from this moment that Bakugou and Urakara developed a mutual respect and understanding for each other. At least on Urakara’s end she shows several instances of understanding him better than even Kirishima or his own Childhood Friend/Rival Deku. 

Even that small conversation… would you look at that provokes a change. Though it’s an omake, so the change is played off more as a punchline than anything else.

Then there’s the moment right before the Bakugou rescue arc, and the All for One vs All Might fight. As my friend @bloodycarnations has said several times over, basically everyone who went to rescue Bakugou did so as a vigilante activity with their own selfish motives, rather than for entirely selfless reasons. 

The only character who doesn’t decide to go out of what is basically the main cast of 1A is Urakara, and in a strange way her decision not to save him ends up being more selfless than the rest of the main cast’s decision to save him. She made her decision based upon what Bakugou would want, rather than what she personally thought was best. 

She just seems to understand him implicitly like there’s some kind of connection there, and she wants to understand him the same way he started to respect her. Not only that but in those short moments of understanding there’s always a definite change produced in Bakugou. 

That’s the reason why I ship them, conflict, resolution, and a pattern of relationship between the two of them. Basically I like their arcs. I’m not necessarily going to go and think Bakuraka is canon, considering shonen is shonen it’s very likely the mains will end up together and I think that’s fine they’re cute enough together. But I can still explain why I appreciate the dynamic and therefore why I think it has so much potential.