Hey U.A.! Bakugo Katsuki Is Not a Monster

Submission 141

Part of a series on My Hero Academia. [View Related Entries]

About

Hey U.A.! Bakugo Katsuki Is Not a Monster refers to a series of animations, including Gacha animations, altering a scene from My Hero Academia in which the character Bakugou, angry, is muzzled and restrained to a pole on the winner's pedestal after winning the U.A. School Festival to stop him from harming Todoroki, with the edit featuring a woman announcing, "Hey U.A.! Bakugou Katsuki is not a monster, so stop chaining him like he is one!" The original animation was posted to YouTube in 2020 and became notably popularized over the following years as a cringe video, inspiring further memes and reanimations of the scene.

Origin

On November 19th, 2020, YouTuber^[1] _EMO_MUFFIN_ posted a Gacha video referencing My Hero Academia (MHA) in which a character yells, "Hey U.A.! Bakugou Katsuki is not a monster!" The video garnered over 2,700 views in four years. It references a scene in the series after Bakugou wins the U.A. festival, which involves fighting other students. After he wins the tournament, he is angry because he believes his opponent, Todoroki, did not give it his all during the fight. This forces the festival heads to restrain Bakugou to the winner's pedestal and muzzle his mouth.

Spread

The video inspired numerous recreations in late 2020 and became notably viral over the following years, often being touted as cringeworthy when reposted.

On November 19th, 2020, YouTuber^[2] Gay With Grey posted a Gacha animation based on the original, garnering over 120,000 views in four years. On November 20th, YouTuber^[3] 몽키티비매직 posted a compilation of recreations of the video also made in Gacha, garnering over 130,000 views in four years.

Sometime in 2023, TikToker^[4] @ophatheawesome posted a recreation of the video using more stylistic drawings of the characters, garnering an unknown number of interactions before it was deleted (reupload shown below). The video has been reuploaded to TikTok numerous times throughout 2023 and 2024.

For example, on April 25th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @_.random._.junk._ reposted the video, captioned, "Daily reminder that this exists," garnering over 850,000 views in a year.

On July 23rd, 2024, TikToker^[6] @kazi_silly posted a reanimation of the video, garnering over 530,000 views in a month. On July 28th, TikToker^[7] @arrowhazard posted a recreation of the video using 3D animation that gained over 1.7 million views in a month (shown below).