All things considered, the School Festival arc has been a revelation – far more impactful in anime form than it was in the manga.  And a definite improvement on the Shie Hassaikai arc, it must be said.  Still, it kind of peaks a couple episodes too soon for me.  Deku’s battle with Gentle Criminal is clearly the climax, even though what happened in this episode is probably supposed to be.  The fact is that Horikoshi-sensei gave Gentle and La Brava a much more emotionally-engaging backstory than he did Eri, so the festival itself being a bit of an anti-climax was pretty much unavoidable.

There are many ways in which the Gentle story was not only unique in BnHA, but relatively unicorn in battle shounen generally, some of which I’ve already talked about.  Horikoshi almost made Deku the villain in this fight.  That’s a tall order given that not only is he the protagonist but an exceptionally likeable and kind one.  That’s why what happened here in the aftermath of the fight was important.  Deku had the maturity and self-awareness to recognize why Gentle was a tragic rather than a truly villainous figure.  Indeed, to see that if it hadn’t been for his lucky meeting with All Might, he might easily have gone down the same path himself.  It’s not as though he needed redeeming because he didn’t really do anything wrong, but Izuku certainly re-established his hero cred there.

As Gentle and La Brava are hauled off to the police station, Deku races back to Yuuei in order to make the performance (and manages a quick visit with Recovery Girl beforehand).  Unbeknownst to him (why do they also run off without their cell phone?) he has a bushel of messages from a worried All Might.  Some of the audience is skeptical, as Eraser warned 1-A – they’re blamed by some for the troubles which have befallen Yuuei.  But Eri, for her part, just wants to see Izuku dance.

These sorts of performances are always a challenge for any manga adaptation – no matter how much detail the source material goes into, with something like this the anime is pretty much on their own.  And Bones, as ever, does a fine job here.  Better than fine, in fact – truly excellent. A nice teen rocker of a song, good choreography with lots of crowd shots, a real sense of the joy of the moment.  This is Kyouka’s show to be sure, but everyone has a chance to shine (in Aoyama’s case, literally).

The aftermath stuff with Eri is very nice, though this is where a little more legwork in Shie Hassaikai would really have paid big dividends.  I’d venture so far as to say that if they were his kids, Mirio and Deku each seemed to get half of All Might’s personality – which makes their relative roles in the story all the more interesting.  As for Gentle, he’s still trying to take the fall for La Brava, but she’s having none of it and it’s obvious enough to the cops that she hasn’t been brainwashed in the slightest.  I love these two so much, truly – it may be the most powerful relationship in the series after Deku and All Might, despite their relatively brief time in the spotlight.

Now, though, it’s time to look ahead – because, of course, as long as the manga still has unadapted material the final episode of Boku no Hero Academia is never the final episode.  We’ll get there when we get there, but the finale is (as usual) going to tease what’s coming – not least by introducing at last a character who’s going to be a significant part of it.  There’s some interesting stuff to come as Horikoshi starts to really explore the post-All Might era – and some problematic stuff too in my opinion, thought not for a little while.  But that’s a discussion best shelved until a more appropriate time…