Not to beat a dead horse, but I’m really seeing the School Festival arc in a different light than I did when I was reading it in the manga.  I don’t know why but the last couple of arcs have felt even heavier and more oppressive in the anime.  As a result this one is such a breath of fresh air.  Even the serious parts aren’t that serious (and they’re mostly foreshadowing anyway).  There are villains but they don’t actually want to hurt anybody, and the kids get to act like kids for the longest stretch of time since before the sports festival, probably.

Of course you have to actually be good at writing this sort of material for that change of tonal change to work.  Fortunately Horikoshi is – he’s proved that to my satisfaction and then some.  My favorite example of that is probably “Moving Into Dorms”, and this arc is almost an extended version of that – the vibe is eerily reminiscent.  Is it conducive to in-depth analysis?  No – but that makes a nice change, too.

As Gentle and La Brava plot their next big splash (not counting the hot coffee) and La Brava bemoans their lack of hits, the kids back at Yuuei continue with some planning of their own.  Jiro (if reluctantly) slips into her natural role as the project leader.  Naturally everyone has an idea but couldn’t scratch together a clue between them, so Jiro has to make some executive decisions.  One of them is asking Kacchan to play the drums after learning he took music lessons as a kid.  He’s a tool about the whole thing, obviously, but is easily enough goaded into doing it as long as everyone is in it to “kill”.  And he’s actually pretty good.

Some of these roles (Aoyama as a disco ball) seem like natural fits, and others are more outside the box.  Poor Mineta wants to be a guitar hero but bemoans that his character design (fourth wall, we hardly knew ye) means his arms are too short.  Tokoyami can actually play the guitar, as it turns out, despite the fact that he almost quit at the F-chord.  As for Deku?  He wants up in the dance pack – along with Mineta and most of the girls (though not Yaoyarozu, who’s going to be on synth duty).

To the extent that there’s anything of real consequence going on here, it’s the training session All Might gives Izuku.  Even here we’re seeing something that’s been sorely missing from the narrative (as Toshinari points out), these two with some bonding time.  There’s a real sense of pathos to this, because of course this is all Toshinari can do to protect Izuku now, teach him – and that hasn’t always been something he’s excelled at.  But Deku is a quick study, and he’s improved enough to take the next step – long-range attacks, whose absence he was sorely aware of in the Overhaul fight.