Appearance stuff TBD.

(CW for: Bullying, kidnapping)

Explosively hot-headed, Katsuki Bakugou acts with the arrogance of being fortunate enough to have the qualities his society sees as valuable, while also giving everything his all and always aiming to win, even to the point of exhaustion. Katsuki’s journey and growth as a person is one that teaches him how to work with others and recognize his own weakness, while never settling for nothing other than victory.

Katsuki starts out as too full of himself to even remember the names of his classmates, going so far as to give his childhood classmate and current rival a nickname that means useless. Katsuki is put into situations that shake his sense of reality and self-image, forcing him to learn and change from the cruel teenager who bullied and threatened Izuku to an abrasive, but humbled and less unapproachable version of himself.

While Katsuki is privileged to be gifted with an impressive quirk, he's very driven and a hard-worker. His admiration for All Might may have something to do with that, as he holds the same degree of hero worship for the (now former) Number One Hero and Symbol of Peace as the protagonist, Izuku. As if taking his name meaning too literally, Katsuki has always been obsessed with winning and being the absolute best. To him, All Might represents that victory, because he never backs down no matter what the odds.

Katsuki is a canonical genius, and despite his loud and abrasive personality he is tactically gifted and can be cautious. He isn’t just competent in most subjects, he excels, except with handling the emotions of himself and others and working with people. Like a gifted teenager who has been showered with praise their entire life, Katsuki is excessively confident, thanks to the constant praise and admiration he received throughout his life from both peers and teachers alike. While the praise may have gone to Katsuki's head, he is also alienated due to it, and doesn't form meaningful friendships and rivalries until he reaches UA High School, a prestigious and top-ranking school that trains aspiring heroes. He acts this way until he learns what many teenagers tend to learn when they reach a new high school or college: There are others just as talented, or even moreso, than him. This, along with being made infamous for when he's held hostage by a villain with a sludge quirk, are blows to his pride that he struggles to comprehend. He's fragile because his confidence has never been challenged before, and he becomes both withdrawn and starts lashing out when he feels inadequate. This sense of self-doubt and anger is driven in further by All Might's retirement. After being kidnapped and held hostage by the League of Villains, Katsuki witnesses his lifelong hero and idol, All Might, lose his quirk when he's forced to save Katsuki and defeat All for One. His pride and naturally aloof behavior stops him from reaching out for support during the aftermath, and he internalizes most of it, but his guilt and self-blame continues to haunt him until he eventually explodes and finds a way to face it head-on the only way he knows how: confrontation, specifically with Izuku.

Katsuki doesn't make friends easily, and when he does, he categorizes them more as equals he tolerates than what people may think of when they think of friendship. Such is the case with Eijirou Kirishima, the one person who is able to stand on even ground with him and was the one to offer his hand and help Katsuki escape the League of Villains. Had it been anyone else, such as Izuku or Todoroki, Katsuki would have viewed it as a slight and probably had refused. As the story progresses, and he struggles and fails, such as during the provisional license exam, and becomes more accustomed to working with and being challenged by his classmates, he begins to realize that he is missing something that aspiring heroes such as Izuku and Shouto have, and while he may be difficult to work with, he begins to put in an effort to work as a team. This self-awareness even motivates him to accept a work-study with Endeavor, the new Number One hero, who All Might even says shares many similarities with Katsuki. At this point, he could be considered friends with Shouto and Izuku as well, albeit begrudgingly.

Katsuki may be lacking in compassion in the beginning, as he is so stubborn that he will literally refuse to do something if he doesn't want to. Sometimes this can be a positive trait, such as when he didn't pretend to agree with the League of Villains when he was held hostage because it went against everything he believed. As the series progresses though, he is learning to listen and work with others and relate his experiences to them, such as when he, Shouto and two students from the rival hero school Shiketsu High are taking remedial lessons and tasked with trying to convince a particularly unruly group of primary school students to behave. Katsuki recognizes the leader of the group to hold himself with an arrogance similar to that of his past self, and he offers him some advice:

If all you ever do is look down on people, you won't be able to recognize your own weaknesses.

Once Katsuki finally confronts Izuku, and they are able to reconcile, he ends up as more of a grumpy rival to the protagonist rather than a bully. He even gives constructive criticism when Izuku asks him for advice on his new fighting style, something he never would have bothered to do in the past and definitely not something he would do if he didn't think it was worth his time.

Katsuki has made many mistakes, and his personality may still be too abrasive for many people. But he is learning, and he's a teenager, and he's already made a great deal of progress in a very short amount of time from the person he was to the person he is now. If anything, his tenaciousness to always win drives other characters to follow competitively, or as Izuku described it, Katsuki is the image of Victory.

Explosion (Canon) — In Katsuki's universe, humans have evolved to have "quirks", which are essentially superpowers, some mundane and others impressive. Katsuki's quirk, explosion, allows him to secrete a nitroglycerin-like substance through the sweat glands in his palms at will, and then activate it to explode. Katsuki is shown to have a great degree of control over the power of his explosions, and can even use them in a way that is similar to a stun grenade, or use them along with the elements in his environment such as oxygen to create an explosion with the same power as a missile. He can also use his quirk to go airborne, and has been shown to store his sweat in grenades that he can use later, or give to a teammate so that they can use them. The downside of his quirk is that the power of the explosions causes a recoil on his arms that can lead to injury if overused. In order to minimize the stress done to his body, Katsuki has customizable grenadier bracers that allow him to also store his sweat and unleash powerful explosions with minimal injury.

Countdown Reserve (MoM Non-Canon) — In dire situations, a character has the option to 'lend' one of their powers to Katsuki who will act as a reserve. For five seconds, he will be able to use their power in conjunction with his to its fullest potential, regardless of personal injuries, as one final attempt for victory. The consequence of this is that it will take a strain on his body, and worsen any pre-existing injuries.

TBD