The last episode’s series of strength-measuring trials did a good job to illustrate how Izuku conquers his fears and gets Aizawa’s attention at the same time. Izuku proves that he’s not completely useless and that maybe he does belong here at U.A. High after all. It’s enough to knock out his opening jitters and give him a level head for what’s to come, but what’s even more interesting here is just how much Izuku’s quirk knocks Bakugo off his mark.

Bakugo’s blind rage towards Izuku on the topic of his quirk initially comes across as a little thin, but the character is definitely driven by his ego and vanity during these moments. Bakugo is convinced that Izuku was either lying to him about being quirk-less for all of these years or that his quirk is somehow less important than his own because Izuku didn’t develop it when he was a child. You’d think that the topic of “late bloomers” would come up a little more often in this universe, but perhaps it is as rare as Bakugo makes it out to be.

It just feels like most of Bakugo’s rage towards Izuku is misplaced here, especially when he hasn’t done anything wrong. Maybe Bakugo’s just worried that his personal punching bag is finally going to surpass him. The episode also fans the flames a little more towards the idea that perhaps Bakugo is actually headed on the path towards becoming a villain. It plays into this angle just enough and it’s a nice way to generate suspense in each installment.

If Bakugo ever does turn to the dark side, it’s still something that’s quite a ways away from happening. It’s also rather telling that both Bakugo and Izuku spend a lot of their pre-battle time talking to their partners about their rivals. If the situation weren’t so very, very different it’d look like these two were in love with each other.

My Hero Academia is always quite happy to hand out rankings to let both the audience and the U.A. High students know how everyone stacks up. As it currently stands, Izuku is at the bottom of the class at number 20, however Bakugo is ranked third and the yet-to-be-seen Momo Yaoyorozu is at the top. Other familiar faces like Iida and Uraraka are in fourth and tenth place respectively.