Fighting is Foreplay, a lil #Kacchako thread.

Disclaimer: Not claiming that this was Hori’s authorial intent, I’m just providing my analysis and insight as a literary scholar. To begin analyzing why Bakugo and Uraraka’s fight had sexual undertones, we have to start with after it ended...

Out of all the other fights in the Sports Festival, Bakugo and Uraraka’s fight is one of the most intimate (the other most intimate being Miroriya vs. Todoroki). When we watch the fight, it feels intimate. Why is that? Because it’s a courting of sorts.

There is something underneath the surface going on rather than just two adversaries facing off for first place in the Sport’s Festival. So like I said, let’s start at the end, a mating dance between the two characters.

There are many different fights in the Sport’s Festival, but the only fight that gets a direct comparison to Bakugo vs. Uraraka is Kaminari vs. Shiozaki.

Right after Bakugo joins the rest of his classmates, Kaminari makes a direct comparison between his fight with Shiozaki to Bakugo’s fight with Uraraka, saying that he could never direct a blast at a girl like that.

When watching Kaminari’s battle against Shiozaki, the viewer sees that he attempts to flirt with her and turn it into a romantic encounter rather than a battle, in which Tsuyu points out that she completely overpowered him.

By making a direct comparison between the two fights, it forces the viewer to put the fight between Bakugo and Uraraka into a different context. So, let’s get some of the physical and most obvious aspects out of the way here. This battle is intimate and passionate.

Uraraka literally removes a piece of her clothing, and for the first time we are seeing her as a young woman rather than an infantalized girl-child. In all of our previous interactions as a viewer with Uraraka, we see an innocent, sweet, silly, and naive girl.

In this fight with Bakugo, she sheds that innocence and the viewer is introduced to a fierce competitor and strong woman who is facing her equal. She and Bakugo are both giving their all in this battle.

There is sweat, there is exertion, and there is a sense of physicality that anybody with some experience can make a direct correlation with the bedroom. The passion between these two during this fight is an allusion to a passionate sexual encounter between two lovers.

They are wearing one another out, and it’s a battle of wills. It is a cat-and-mouse game with a good serving of grunts, blasts, and culminates with a giant extra climactic meteor shower, preceded by Uraraka thanking Bakugo for keeping his eyes on her.

It’s all an allusion to a passionate encounter. The pros comment that the fight is too rough, but Bakugo and Uraraka are both unbothered because they are too focused on one another to care that they are literally tearing up the floor and giving folks an uncomfortable show.

Let’s focus on Bakugo, now. His fight with Uraraka is the only battle that he genuinely enjoys during the entirety of the Sports Festival. During the rest of them he is stressed, angry, feral, and malicious.

Once he understands that Uraraka is a competitor, he joins in her passion and is genuinely excited about the prospect of possibly having a round 2 with her after her initial plan fails. He is not the immature animal-like, pugnacious boy who doesn’t even know his classmate’s names

He is a young man who is engaging in an intimate experience with a partner who is on the exact same page as him. When Uraraka catches him by surprise, he is thrown off, but he is also excited that somebody brought their all when fighting him with no ulterior motives

(which is what he sees with Deku and Todoroki). This is fun to him, this is foreplay, and this is what makes him ultimately decide to refer to Uraraka by her name rather than just a cute nickname. And he’s disappointed and confused when it’s over.

But let’s also talk about the relationship between Bakugo and Uraraka as a whole. When beginning the match, he calls her by a fond nickname (he enjoys her roundness, it’s canon) and acknowledges her Quirk.

A few episodes earlier, we see that he cannot remember the Quirks of the classmates who want to work with him during the cavalry battle. He’s flirting with Uraraka, whether he realizes it or not.

The dynamic between the two after their fight is one that is one usually ribbing at the other in some form or another, without offense.

Uraraka comments on being surprised by Bakugo’s cooking, Bakugo calls her out for wanting food when they are supposed to be working as heroes, Uraraka gives him shit for playing Catch a Kacchan.

They are teasing, a common trope throughout literature and media when two characters want to express their attraction, but struggle to do so, so instead they tease. (Ron/Hermione, Leia and Han Solo etc.)

This teasing is also indicative of the respect between these two characters This is especially true on Bakugo’s part, and it stems all the way from the Sport’s Festival.

The Sport’s Festival fight between Bakugo and Uraraka is an entire chapter, and it’s introducing both of these characters in a way that we have seen neither before. Uraraka is fierce, strong, passionate, and focused.

Bakugo is assertive without being callous, competitive without being overzealous, and just as passionate. These two bring out the best in one another, and it started with their fight at the Sport’s Festival.
And yeah, it was a mating dance. Take it or leave it.