BakuMina

BakuMina is the het ship between Katsuki Bakugou and Mina Ashido from the My Hero Academia fandom.

Canon
Like their other classmates, Mina is visibly impressed by Katsuki’s impressive throw of 705 meters (in the quirk apprehension tests), and voices this in the full class reaction. She adds separately that viewing Katsuki’s attempt made the test look fun, and made her want to take her turn next. She blushes as she says this.

At the start of the Battle Trials, Mina stands front-view to watch Katsuki and Tenya’s trial against opposes Izuku and Ochako. To begin the fight, Katsuki starts with an aggressive sneak attack, which is quickly dubbed ‘unmanly’ by Eijiro. Mina defies this, smiling as she says that they’re a valid strategy, especially since it is a practical experience. Towards the finality of the fight, Mina stares worriedly at the absolute rage that Katsuki portrayed. Katsuki stands close to Mina upon regrouping with his classmates.

After the day completes, Katsuki and Izuku have another spat, albeit verbal. Mina, alongside Ochako and Tsuyu are seen pressing their faces against a window to watch. Mina briefly comments on how upset Katsuki looked, and that she wonders what exactly the fight was about. (the window moment is anime-exclusive, meaning that it is not composed of original manga content.)

At the start of the Sports Festival, Katsuki is called to the stands to give a brief speech. He uses this opportunity to simply say that he was undoubtedly going to win, to the disdain of literally everyone. Mina, alongside their other classmates, thinks to herself, “I knew he’d say something like that.”

Prior to the Cavalry Battle, Katsuki is crowded by people who beg to be on his team, thanks to his powerful quirk and the 200 points he’s worth as a teammate, thanks to winning 3rd place in the obstacle course prior to that event. Mina is one of his askers, and she makes her way to the front of the crowd, telling Katsuki that he “definitely want(s) me (her) by your (his) side”. Katsuki is quick to say that he doesn’t know who to pick, as he doesn’t know/remember anyone’s quirk. Mina makes her minor offense at this known by gasping, and question how self-absorbed must he be. Later, Katsuki allows Mina to give him a quick demo of her Acid, and to her delight, picks her to join his team, alongside Eijiro and Hanta.

During the start of the Cavalry Battle, the team makes it their top goal to attain the 10 million point headband. Katsuki first tries to snatch it from Izuku’s head by launching off of the ‘horse’ structure his classmates complied. To prevent him from falling, and becoming disqualified (the team’s rider is disqualified if they touch the ground), Hanta pulls him safely back down with the usages of his Tape. As he lands, Mina gives him a weirded-out look. Soon after, Neito grabs ahold of every last one of Katsuki’s headbands, angering him. Not too long after, the team is stuck where they stand by Kojiro’s adhesive. It’s then that Katsuki calls upon Mina to use her Acid to melt through the adhesive (He shouts ‘Raccoon Eyes’, rather than her name, however, so she corrects him with ‘Mina’). The team quickly manage to take back their points thanks to the overwhelming tenacity Katsuki portrayed, and Mina grins at this. Unfortunately, the team ends up in 2nd come match’s end, and Katsuki ends up face down on the ground, yelling in disagral that second place wasn’t good enough, like Mina said.

After gathering with the rest of the class, Tsuyu congratulates Mina on the team’s high ranking. Mina pouts at this though, saying that Katsuki only wanted her for her quirk, as she could melt through obstacles such as Kojiro’s adhesive or Shoto’s ice, and that she didn’t feel that she did too much in the end, although this is quite wrong.

To prepare for their Final Exams, the students make guesses on what the exam will be, as it seems to change yearly. After coming to the conclusion of ‘Robot Fights’, Mina expresses excitement, as she believes that sort of test would be easy. Katsuki (rudely) asks why she’s excited, yelling that she (and Denki) need to learn how to control their quirks. After Katsuki exits the classroom, it becomes apparent that he was previously provoked, and Ochako guesses that it was due to Izuku copying his strategies. Mina agrees, saying “Yeah, totally.”, albeit concernedly.

Upon arriving at the Training Camp, Eraserhead has the students reassess their quirk apprehension tests. He has Katsuki go up to perform the ball throw first, but before he does, Mina and Hanta comment to each other that Katsuki could likely throw it ridiculously far after everything the class went through over the course of the (school) year. Mina expresses great surprise that it didn’t surpass his original score by much at all.

As night falls, the LoV attack the camp, with the goal to kidnap Katsuki as it’s soon found out. Mandalay uses her telepath to spread this message, and upon hearing it from her spot at the recreational lessons (for students who failed the Final Exams), Mina expresses concern for Katsuki. After Katsuki is recovered from Kamino, Mina, as well as their other classmates finds herself glad to hear of his safety.

After interning with select pros, the students all return with stories for one another. Ochako and Tsuyu’s time with Ryukyu makes headlines. An excited Mina loudly speaks about this, to Katsuki’s jealousy.

The class decides upon performing a concert as their performance for the school festival, and begin to work out a band. Denki mentions that Katsuki had (accidentally) admitted taking drum lessons in the past, and thus could act as a drummer. Mina grins excitedly at this and asks “Really?!” However, ever-headstrong, Katsuki refuses, that is until Hanta coaxes him into giving a demo of his drumming skill with a bit of teasing. Katsuki turns out to be exceptional, and after this mini-showing, Mina throws her hands up and yells, “The talented Mr. Bakugou strikes again!!”

Fanon
While not amongst the high popular ships of MHA/BNHA, BakuMina is a very well-liked pairing, especially in the case of OT3’s (polyships) with Eijiro, thanks to both Katsuki and Mina’s relations with him. Either way, it far surpasses the title of ‘rare-pair’.

Katsuki is tricky to become close to, as portrayed through the series. Only a select few have managed to break through his exterior, one of these people being Mina. Fans are eager to see near anyone becoming close to Katsuki, and Mina is no exception to this. Fans have picked up that Katsuki seems to be at least the smallest bit fond of Mina as she isn’t scared/intimidated by him, and is ready to say or do whatever she feels like around him, something that he rarely has within a person.

Fandom
FAN FICTION 
 * Katsuki/Mina tag on FanFiction.Net
 * Katsuki/Mina tag on FanFiction.Net

FAN ART
 * #爆芦 tag on Pixiv

TUMBLR

Trivia

 * Katsuki’s ‘nickname’ for Mina is ‘Raccoon Eyes’, in reference to her black sclera, which somewhat resemble the dark ‘mask’ of a raccoon’s.
 * The ship name ‘Picric’ comes from the highly detonatable acid that is used to create (some) bombs.
 * As shown in bonus artworks in the volume 2 light novel, the two sleep the same, limbs sprawled out like a starfish.
 * Both secrete their quirk (Acid [Mina], Explosive Sweat [Katsuki]) from their skin.
 * Horikoshi has answered in past interviews that Katsuki and Mina are amongst his favorite characters.
 * Both made the addition of sleeves to their hero costumes upon the arrival of cold weather.
 * Mina and Katsuki are both seated in the second row of the class.
 * Both Katsuki and Mina’s original choices in hero name (Mina’s ‘Alien Queen’ and Katsuki’s ‘King/Lord Explosion Murder’) were vetoed by Midnight.
 * The two are often chided by Eraserhead for their speaking habits, Mina for being too peppy and Katsuki for being too childish.