These Christmas in July (well, June) anime episodes always struck me as odd.  But what’s a series to do, I suppose – they fall where they fall in the timeline.  At least we didn’t start the episode with a recap, which is pretty damn rare in HeroAca.  Instead we got a little teaser of things to come, with the first mention of a place called Deika City.  A disaster of some sort has happened there, with many casualties – a plot, it’s surmised, by the League of Villains to undermine public trust in heroes.  Which seems largely to have failed, for the moment.

For now, though, we’re still in the interstitial period between arcs – a staple of Boku no Hero Academia transitions.  Shouto and Kacchan’s botched interview (well, Kacchan botched it so much he ends up being edited almost totally out of it) prompts a visit by Mount Lady to give the kids some tips on dealing with the media.  And the principal lets All Might know that the internship program will be starting up again.  In fact this time it’s not going to be voluntary, but a required assignment – which sets up a challenge for Deku given that Nighteye’s death has left his agency in flux.

There’s a common thread running through these developments.  To wit, prepping the students to be working heroes as soon as possible, and an increasing focus on the way heroes are perceived by the public.  The school isn’t being told everything, the principal knows that much.  But what’s to be done?  An order is an order, and whether it’s the events in Deika or something else Yuuei isn’t in a position to say no.

The Christmas party, then, takes on rather a morose feeling of a calm before the storm, even if Eri’s arrival and complete whiff on the holiday concept is an amusing distraction.  So is Bakugo’s refusal to involve himself in any way, much to the irritation of Mina especially.  As to the question of where Deku will go for training (El Camino too has recused himself), that seems resolved when Shouto suggests that the three amigos head off to Endeavor’s agency.  That’s interesting on multiple levels, not least that it reflects a growing willingness on Shouto’s part to use his father as a resource.  It also reinforces the elephant in the room, that these three are special – like it or not, they’re joined at the hip in a way none of the other Yuuei students are.