My Hero Academia's School Festival Arc Offered a Much-Needed Breather

Summary The School Festival arc in My Hero Academia offers a much-needed breather after intense storylines, focusing on character development and lighter moments.

Gentle Criminal adds complexity as a villain, with parallels to Deku and a unique approach to crime that challenges traditional villain tropes.

While the arc has highlights like Eri's happiness and Deku's new technique, it suffers from an overreliance on coincidences, making it one of the weaker arcs.

My Hero Academia's School Festival arc isn't the most exciting arc in the series; it won't have viewers on the edge of their seats, nor is the fate of the world at stake. However, following up the highly intense Shie Hassaikai arc, this lower-stakes storyline is exactly what the doctor ordered.

The School Festival arc sees the students who were out on Work-Study as part of the raid back at school, just in time to help prepare for UA's yearly school festival. With tensions high at UA, the school festival is on a tight leash, and even the slightest thing going wrong could lead to the whole event being canceled. The students of Class 1-A feel some responsibility for the situation, since their class has been repeatedly targeted, and hope to put on a show that will help the other UA students relax and enjoy themselves at the festival.

Meanwhile, a small-time villain by the name of Gentle Criminal is plotting to infiltrate the school as, essentially, a stunt.

The School Festival arc covers chapters 169-183 of the manga, and episodes 81-86 of the anime.

A Much-Needed Opportunity to Let the Story Breathe

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In serialized fiction, there's a concept known as the "breather" episode, basically an opportunity for the audience to relax and settle back down to a baseline level after a particularly intense or exciting moment occurs. My Hero Academia often balances plot arcs and breather arcs by alternating between the two, with most of the content related to the ordinary, day-to-day schooling acting as the breather episodes. As the longest and most intense arc in the series so far, the Shie Hassaikai arc really needed some room for things to calm down afterward.

Series creator Kohei Horikoshi takes advantage of that need for a breather moment to help get to know some of the recently introduced characters a little better, particularly young Eri. Eri's rescue was the goal of the Shie Hassaikai arc, but very little was known about her other than the fact that she was an innocent young girl. The School Festival arc lets fans get to know Eri as a character--one who still has the specter of her past lingering over her. Like Deku, the audience wants to see this little girl be happy, and that becomes the driving force of this arc.

The arc also spends time with a lot of students who've been out of focus, like Jiro, as well as offering opportunities to get to know Mirio better, especially in the wake of him losing his Quirk, and with it, his identity as a hero. The School Festival arc is just as much about the aftermath of the Shie Hassaikai as it is about the festival itself, exploring the consequences of the major events that occurred.

Gentle Criminal is a Complicated Character

Of course, one can't discuss this arc without also discussing its villain, Gentle Criminal. Gentle is a man who once wanted to be a hero, but after his own attempt at saving someone interfered with a pro hero's rescue, he wound up with a criminal record which led him down a dark path. Gentle sees himself as, well, a gentleman, and thus attempts to avoid violence and put on a classy sort of show with each of his crimes, which are recorded and shared online with help from his assistant/lover, LaBrava.

Gentle's past gives him some parallels to Deku, who also attempted to save someone (Bakugo) well before he was a hero, but wasn't punished for his interference the way Gentle was, since everything worked out. Because of their similarities, Deku finds it extremely difficult to do battle with Gentle, recognizing that he's not an inherently bad person the way previous villains like Chisaki were. It's an important lesson for Deku, as not every villain is a cackling madman like Shigaraki has been so far.

On the other hand, Gentle can be a controversial character in the My Hero Academia fandom. While Gentle's official age is 32 and LaBrava's is 22, his appearance makes him look much older, while hers makes her look much younger, creating something of an unpleasant dynamic between the two. This isn't helped by the fact that LaBrava's Quirk is based around love, forcing the issue of their relationship to be a major factor in the plot. It's enough to completely ruin the arc for some people, although that can obviously vary.

The School Festival Arc, Despite Some Highlights, May Be The Series' Weakest

The arc has some fantastic moments; it's great to see Eri finally get a moment of happiness, and Class 1-A's show is an excellent performance that's fun to watch. Deku also develops his Air Force technique in this arc, giving him a ranged attack option for the first time. However, these highlights can't really compensate for some of the arc's weaker aspects.

Deku's awareness of Gentle Criminal is complete luck. He accidentally clicks on and watches a video by Gentle, warning of his upcoming scheme, and Gentle just happens to be drinking the same tea that Momo made. Deku then just happens to go into town to the exact hardware store that was next to the tea shop Gentle was at, and just happens to be there at the exact same time as Gentle. That's a lot of coincidences for one storyline, which brings the whole arc down a notch in quality.

Related Shigaraki's Perfect Counterpart in My Hero Academia isn't Deku, it's Another Hero There's one character in My Hero Academia whose journey is almost a perfect parallel for Shigaraki, but it's not Deku or anyone else you might expect.

Given the overall very consistently high quality of the series so far, it's a bit disappointing to see a story arc this late in the game that relies so heavily on random chance. There's nothing wrong with a single random event kicking off the plot, like Deku and Lemillion's chance encounter with Eri, but having so many back-to-back is a sign of weak writing.

Perhaps it's understandable, since Horikoshi himself was also recovering from the darkness and intensity of the Shie Hassaikai, but it's still weak all the same. Still, even if the School Festival arc is the worst that My Hero Academia has to offer, that leaves it a lot better off than the overwhelming majority of anime and manga.

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