IzuOcha

IzuOcha is the het ship between Izuku Midoriya and Ochako Uraraka from the My Hero Academia fandom.

Entrance Exam Arc
Izuku and Ochako first met before the actual exam took place. Izuku, caught up in his head hadn't wasn't looking where he stepped and tripped. Before he could fall, Ochako floated him upright, wishing him good luck before making her way to their destination. After she leaves, Izuku blushes madly and (internally) yells, "I TALKED TO A GIRL!!" although his pre-exam jitters didn't exactly allow him to speak!

As their instructors give the rules of the exam, Izuku notices Ochako standing and recognizes her as the "nice girl who saved him earlier" and walks to thank her. However, Tenya stops him before he can, as she's too busy preparing to talk. Later, as the exam reaches its end, Izuku, having not managed to earn one point, notices Ochako stuck under a pile of rubble and realizes that she's stuck. He sees a robot heading towards them and rushes to push her out of harm's way rather than attack the robot for points. He ends up launched into the sky, but Ochako quirks him to safety before he can fall. After these events, Izuku receives his acceptance letter from U.A. Amongst it is a clip recorded of Ochako, who'd stayed after to request some of her points be given to him for saving her. As his rescue had granted him entrance, this wasn't necessary but brought tears to Izuku's eyes.

Quirk Apprehension Test Arc
Upon entering the classroom, Ochako recognizes Izuku and waves to him. He zones out as she rants about her excitement to be attending U.A and thinks to himself that she looks good in their school uniforms.

During the quirk apprehension tests, Ochako throws the ball with a recorded distance of infinity. Izuku becomes awed and begins to mutter to himself. At the end of the day, Ochako walks home with Izuku alongside Tenya as well. She questions if “Deku” is his name, but after learning it’s an insult by Katsuki, she apologizes for addressing him as such. However, she states that it “sounds like the Japanese word for “You can do it!” and that it sounds cute. Izuku turns pink and flustered before telling her, “DEKU IT IS!”

Battle Trial Arc
When everyone’s costumes are revealed, Ochako walks up to Izuku and fawns over the “bunny ears” on his hood, squealing that they’re cute. When Izuku turns to look at her, he flushes and begins to stutter, as her costume is skin-tight, and emphasizes her figure. Later, the two are paired up for the battle exercise against the team of Tenya and Katsuki. They become excited, because “what are the odds!”, and Ochako vows that they’ll win. Izuku smiles at her determination.

During their encounter with Katsuki, who’d ditched Tenya for the sole purpose of fighting Izuku, Izuku yells that he’s not the “same old Deku”. He says that his “Deku” means “You can do it!”, and it’s now the name of a hero. Ochako recognizes these words as what she’d previously told him on their first walk home together. They win the fight in the end thanks to Izuku’s newfound motivation. Unfortunately, Izuku came out seriously injured from this fight, and needed to be healed by Recovery Girl. After he enters the classroom the next day, Ochako runs to check on him with a flurry of questions, visibly relieved to see he’s okay.

The two have become close best friends and classmates and have developed deep admiration and respect for each other. They also appear to have feelings for one another, with Ochako being very apparent about her feelings while Deku is a little more subtle.

They are both very similar in nature. They are both kind, polite, strong willed, warm hearted, and can be easily overwhelmed. As such, the two get along very well and have developed a high amount of respect for each other. Ochako admires Deku’s determination to help others and sees it as a true quality to be a hero. She has taken great inspiration from Deku and wishes to become more like him, such as during her match with Bakugo, and uses him as a key drive for her to become a hero. This resulted in her trying to play a key role in getting him admitted into the school by giving up some of her own points she scored in the exam to Deku so he would pass. Such is her admiration, she even voted for him to be class president. Later, during the Hero Licence Exam, she is awestruck by Deku’s performance in saving a mock civilian. Deku admires how much hard work she puts in herself to become stronger and overcome the difficult challenges she faces. After she had been defeated by Bakugo in the tournament, he stood up for her to his long time bully and explained that Ochako giving him a difficult time in their match was of her own ability and not because he had helped her. He also praised her for her clever idea in the Cavalry Battle, but only to himself.



They are often concerned for one another and will try to protect each other. Shortly after they first met, Deku, with zero experience using his new found powers, chose to save her when she was stuck to the ground and about to be trampled by a giant robot during the entrance exam. Ochako then saved a falling and severely injured Deku using her powers. Deku also wished to aid her in her upcoming fight against Bakugo, as he fully understands his strength and weaknesses, and wants to repay her back for helping him through his struggles, but Ochako politely declines his help as she wishes to win on her own merit, something Deku admires. Following her defeat to Bakugo, he goes to check on her to see how she is doing and is pleasantly surprised that she is taking the loss well. However, he soon after overhears her breaking down in tears on the phone to her parents because she lost and Deku, himself, tears up at the anguish she is feeling. After her encounter with Toga, Deku finds her and the two exchange concerns for each other’s well-being before he asks her to join him as they escort Bakugo. Ochako was notably horrified when Sir Nighteye told her that Overhaul would try to kill Deku and was frustrated she could not help him. When he loses control of his Black Whip quirk, Ochako leaps towards Deku and hugs him to try and calm him down. She then tells Hitoshi Shinso to brainwash him so he can regain control. After she wakes him up they share a brief close moment before they are forced to continue with their joint training session.



It becomes hinted early on that Deku possibly has a crush on Ochako. He sometimes can become flustered in her presence, especially when she talks to him. Just talking to her on the phone causes him to become overwhelmed and heartened at the experience. Furthermore, seeing her in a skin tight outfit caused him to blush excitedly. On numerous occasions, if she stands too close to him he will blush while becoming nervous and flustered. Deku was also willing to let her call him “Deku”, even though it is not his real name, and was immensely touched when she changed the meaning of this nickname, which was originally a derogatory name given to him by Bakugo, to something positive. Explaining that, to her, it means he will never give up (in the English Dub, she said it could make a great hero name, and she thinks it sounds kind of cute). That motivation Ochaco gave to Deku about his nickname, inspired him to choose it as his hero name. Deku’s closeness to Ochako allowed him to have deep mutual respect and full confidence in her. Like at the Sports Fest after Ochako's fight against Bakugo, he confidently defended Ochako from Bakugo when he wrongfully thought she fought him hard because she had help from Deku. And when Toga was impersonating Uraraka, he sees right through Toga’s attempt to impersonate her with her quirk, and deduced she was not the real Ochako. And how he completely trusts her a lot that he knows he can count on her for any situation they dealt with. And after Deku showed off his improvement of Blackwhip at the Ground Alpha, he and Ochako thank each other for making one another stronger, and shared a touching moment while blushing at each other, showcasing that their relationship might possibly develop on another level, Eventually.

It seems that one of Deku and Ochako's classmates, Minoru Mineta, a pervert, has picked up on how very close they are to each other as he can be seen being devastated when the two shared a close touching moment, while some others, especially Ashido, felt overjoyed for them.

Ochako, herself, is very fond of Deku and has developed sincere feelings for him. More so than anyone else, she tends to ask where he is if he isn’t around and thinks about him frequently. She can become flustered in his presence and even jealous when other girls take an interest in him, especially with Mei Hatsume, who has had close physical interactions with Deku that has left her irritated. When he praises Mei, instead of her, during the Cavalry Battle she becomes jealous, not aware that Deku actually was impressed with her performance. She also becomes upset when she overhears that Deku had apparently seen Camie naked as well, and finds her feelings difficult to understand, not knowing why she feels so bad about it. Ochako also found herself feeling jealous of how much time Deku had spent with Melissa Shield. Later, she becomes embarrassed, but blushingly happy, when he complimented her in her dress. After Aoyama had questioned her about her feelings regarding Deku, she starts to become more self-aware of them. Although, this realization caused her to run away from Deku when she was alone with him at the mall. Even so, she tried to find him again whilst struggling to accept that she wanted to spend all day shopping with him. Her feelings for Deku almost got the better of her during the Hero Licence Exam, as she struggled to deal with them, and has to snap herself back into focus to keep them under control, but fully accepts to herself that she does have feelings for him.



Numerous people have picked up on Ochako’s feelings for Izuku, an example being Gunhead’s schoolgirl-like teasing forwards Ochako after catching her on the phone with Izuku. Another is from early in the series, when Yuuga gave the first mention- and confirmation of Ochako’s feelings. Toga, a villain Ochako pinned down, quickly could tell that she was crushing on someone and she desires to be like that person. When they encountered each other again she tells Ochako that Deku trusts her a lot. Mina, one of their classmates, is a big supporter of Ochako’s feelings for Deku and teases her whenever the opportunity arises. She blurts out to the other girls that Ochaco is in love which causes her to become embarrassed and accidentally makes herself float upside down. As she blushes over the reality that she is in love, she looks out the window, saw Deku training and blushes while watching him. Mina also teased Ochako later on about how tightly she hugged Deku when he lost control of his Black Whip quirk and caused her to blush. Once more, Mina teased Ochaco over her All Might keychain that was gifted to her by Deku at Christmas. This time, however, after becoming slightly nervous, Ochako happily blushes at her comments, while she puts the keychain away. And when Deku and Ochako shared a touching moment thanking each other for making one another stronger, after the Joint Training Program, Mina becomes overjoyed for them.

Two Heroes
Ochako was extremely jealous of Melissa Shield spending time with him, until she got to know Melissa and got over her jealousy. At the Expo Preview, Ochako showed up in a formal dress, and Deku was crushing on her. She felt flustered and ecstatic when Deku flattered her in her dress. She believed that Deku would beat Bakugo at the Villain Attack attraction and was one of the few that agreed with Deku's plan to save everyone. She is shown along with Class 1-A cheering for Deku during the final battle against Wolfram.

Heroes Rising
During the final battle with Nine. Ochako tried to make him float, but Nine used one of the stolen quirks, "Hydra," on her to brutally injure her and send her into the air. While she was sent into the air, Deku jumped into the air and saved her. When she was in Deku's arms, Deku called her name in a worrying matter, and then she said to him, "I'm ok, Deku," then passed out unconscious in his arms. Afterward, Deku landed and gently placed her on the ground, then had an enraged look on his face. And yelled to Nine, "You'll Pay For That!". And blasts his Delaware Smash Air Force at him for hurting Ochako, showcasing how much he really cares about her.

Fanon
The BNHA fandom is notorious for its ships, with many pairings for each and every character. As a result, IzuOcha frequently clashes with other popular pairings involving either Izuku or Ochako. However, bisexual headcanons are popular for both characters, which helps to even this out a little.

BNHA has never had a particularly strong emphasis on romance; therefore, it is noteworthy that the supposed crush that both Deku and Ochako share for each other is technically the first confirmation of romantic feelings between any of the characters within the franchise. At the moment, this ship remains the only pairing within the show of this kind, which is especially emphasized against the background of another het (and a few slash/femslash) ships that has a large number of ship teases, such as TodoMomo and perhaps, KiriBaku and KamiJirou.

On AO3, IzuOcha is the third most written ship for Izuku (after BakuDeku and TodoDeku) and the most written ship for Ochako. It is the eighth most written ship within the My Hero Academia tag.

Fandom
FAN FICTION


 * Izuku/Ochako tag on FanFiction.net
 * Izuku/Ochako tag on FanFiction.net

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Trivia

 * In an interview, Izuku’s voice actor, Daiki Yamashita stated that his favorite female character in the show was Ochaco.
 * Ochaco's crush was the first confirmation of romance in the series.
 * Ochaco shares her birthday with Hinata of the shonen Naruto, who, like Ochaco towards Izuku, carried feelings for Naruto and used him as her motivation to become strong. An important detail to note: Horikoshi has stated himself to take inspiration from Naruto (the series).
 * At a panel, Ochaco’s English VA recited a sweet, thought-out confession to Izuku (as Ochaco).
 * Horikoshi has stated that he designed Izuku and Ochaco with each other in mind.
 * The official Crunchyroll YouTube channel posted the clip of Ochaco’s crush reveal, titled “Love?!” The clip has gained over 10 million views since its release in 2018.
 * In one official game, certain characters provide power boosts to others ranging from 1-3 (1 being the lowest, three being the highest). The strength of the boost appears to depend on the strength of the canon bonds between characters. Ochaco provides the max boost for Izuku and vice versa. It’s interesting to note that this occurs with several other popular pairings, such as TodoMomo, KiriBaku, and KamiJirou, to name a few.
 * While not outright stated, Izuku’s potential attraction to Ochaco is hinted by his flustered behavior around her, such as the way he stutters and blushes, sometimes turning a full-bodied pink!
 * Ochaco carries around the All Might keychain Izuku gave her as a gift, seemingly as a good luck charm, as she even has it with her on missions. She is highly protective of it, as shown in her fight with Himiko in chapter 288.
 * The two have discernible facial features; Ochaco’s ever-pink cheeks and Izuku’s symmetrical freckles.
 * The ship name “Green Tea” comes from the kanji in their names, Midori, or “緑”, meaning green, and Ocha, or  “お茶”, meaning tea. Midori-Ocha, Green Tea!
 * The headpiece from Ochaco’s costume upgrade resembles the rabbit-like appearance of Izuku’s hood.
 * Both Izuku and Ochaco are crushed on by Himiko.
 * A color illustration by Horikoshi (for an exhibit) was unveiled early by Twitter user Atsushi on 2/16/21. The blatant romantic themes of the piece caused a mass stir upon BNHA shippers and the #IzuOcha tag to trend widely.
 * There is a compilation on YouTube of all of the official DRAMA CD's with Ochako and Izuku.
 * There is an animation on YouTube of a canonical DRAMA CD of Ochako asking Izuku to come walk home together with her, upon hearing that Izuku got excited as he imagined walking back home with Ochako. Only to be dissapointed when Ochako invited Tsu as well. Fans found this endearing since this was the first time a romantic hint came from Izuku, instead of Ochako.
 * Ochako's English voice actor Luci Christian once acted out a "scene" during a panel where Ochako confesses her feelings for Izuku.
 * In one of the BNHA blooper reels Ochako says to Izuku after he saves her "Thanks, I really messed up there huh?" in which Justin Briner (as Izuku) responds with "Yeah, you did. Fortunately there was a man around to save ya'"
 * In one of the official arts for Izuku and Ochako, they are dressed in the same traditional Japanese dresses that a husband and wife would wear on their wedding day.

Variations

 * BakuDekuChako refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Katsuki Bakugou
 * DekTsuChako refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Tsuyu Asui
 * Dekusquad refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, Tenya Iida, Shoto Todoroki, and Tsuyu Asui
 * OchaHimiDeku refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Himiko Toga
 * OchaIiDeku refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Tenya Iida
 * ShigaOchaDeku refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Tomura Shigaraki
 * TodoIiDekuOcha refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, Shoto Todoroki, and Tenya Iida
 * TodoIzuOcha refers to the ship between Izuku Midoriya, Ochako Uraraka, and Shoto Todoroki