The Sports Festival arc of My Hero Academia continues to build upon the preceding USJ arc, and features some fantastic moments, both in terms of character and action. The arc’s real strength, though, is how well it utilized the growing ensemble of student characters, giving some characters their first chance to really stand out from the crowd.
The Sports Festival arc surrounds the eponymous festival, which sees UA students going up against one another in a variety of contexts, designed to test their strength and aptitude with their Quirks. It opens with a race that involves a great many obstacles, then moves on to a “cavalry battle,” which forced students to team up, before finally going for a traditional 1v1 tournament to find out who’s best. This arc also expertly transitions into the next, with Iida receiving a call that his brother was attacked by the Hero Killer, Stain, forcing him to leave early.
My Hero Academia‘s Sports Festival Gave All Students A Chance To Show Off
My Hero Academia created by Kohei Horikoshi
By far the greatest thing about the Sports Festival arc is how it allowed the many student characters opportunities to show off both their personalities and Quirks. While the USJ offered some of this, the Sports Festival’s structure really allowed a wider variety of characters to succeed. The desperate, every-man-for-himself race to open the festival saw the students competing with each other to gain an edge, offering not only a chance to see them using their Quirks all out, but how they operate under pressure as well.
Characters like Tokoyami, Uraraka, Iida, and even new characters like Hatsume get a chance to show their stuff in a way that few arcs that follow would. The arc goes to great lengths to organize some unusual combinations of students as well; during the cavalry battle, for example, Deku ends up paired with Hatsume, who he doesn’t even know, and Tokoyami, who’s often relegated to the background. That also meant characters Deku usually allied with, like Iida, got to show their skills in opposition of him, proving that they weren’t satisfied being overshadowed.
The Todoroki Family Drama Begins
By far the biggest element of this story arc in the long run is the introduction of Endeavor and Shoto Todoroki’s backstory relating to his family and father. Todoroki’s past would go on to have a bigger role in the series as it continued, but it all begins here, as Shoto opens up to Deku about his dysfunctional family. Without spoiling future arcs too much, this drama becomes a bigger problem as it’s eventually aired for the entire world to see, giving Todoroki a nemesis with a deeply personal connection who he must defeat.
Endeavor’s introduction certainly paints him in an unsympathetic light; he’s rude to All Might, domineering towards his son, and even confronts Deku in between matches. It sets Endeavor up as an extremely flawed hero, someone who’s clearly not an ideal to be emulated the way All Might is. This is essential for his eventual redemption arc, which remains one of My Hero Academia‘s most controversial, despite being relatively well executed.
A Shocking Turn for the Tournament’s Finals
Bakugo’s victory and Deku’s elimination were a surprising development
This arc does such a good job of building up the motivations for so many characters that it can be difficult to decide who to root for. Deku takes the challenge far too seriously, determined to make an All Might-worthy debut that causes him to push himself too far. It proved that while Deku has come a long way already, he still wasn’t anywhere near where he wanted to be. Deku ultimately goes too hard in the semi-finals and is defeated by Todoroki in a shocking turn of events.
The story makes it clear (through Recovery Girl, among others) that this type of behavior on Deku’s part is reckless and shouldn’t be encouraged, which is a refreshing change of pace from some shonen series, which push their heroes too far without ever acknowledging the danger of doing so. Deku’s injuries are truly severe, and it’s far too early in the series for him to be taking such major injuries, especially when the stakes really aren’t as high as he seems to think.
That all leads to a climactic final round battle between Todoroki and Bakugo, rather than involving Deku. Even more shocking is that Bakugo actually wins, and doesn’t receive any sort of comeuppance for his arrogant behavior throughout the Sports Festival. In fact, he’s even angry that he won simply because he didn’t like how he won. It’s certainly not the kind of turn one would expect a tournament arc to take, and it was a bold choice to keep Deku from even entering the final round.
The Sports Festival is the Pinnacle of the UA Section
As My Hero Academia continued on, the scope of the story grew larger, and many of these school-based events lose importance or are even canceled altogether as the world deteriorates. For the part of the story that focuses on taking classes at UA and training to be a hero, the Sports Festival is the inarguable peak. For fans who enjoyed the school element of the series, the Sports Festival has basically everything one could ask for.
It introduced major characters like Endeavor and Hatsume, featured almost every character in Class 1-A in a significant scene, and has some awesome battle scenes, particularly Bakugo’s fights against Uraraka and Todoroki, as well as Deku’s battle with Todoroki. The Sports Festival would also have a lasting impact on the series, with the Provisional Licensing Exam arc relying on the fact that other schools had watched the televised Sports Festival for themselves. It transitions rather smoothly into the Hero Killer Stain arc as well by having the dangerous villain strike someone close to a major character.
All in all, the Sports Festival is one of the most successful arcs in the series, and it’s easy to see how My Hero Academia‘s popularity took off with a relatively strong start followed by two well-executed story arcs.
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My Hero Academia
In My Hero Academia, some humans have superpowers called quirks. Izuku Midoriya, nicknamed Deku, is not one of them. Deku has always idolized heroes like the number one hero, All Might, and since he was a child, he has always wanted to be a hero. However, his lack of a quirk has always held him back, but a chance encounter with All Might after discovering a classmate in danger sets Deku on the path to becoming a true hero. My Hero Academia centers around Deku and a class of heroes-in-training at UA. This school shapes young quirk users into future heroes through fake rescue missions, combat training, and other hero-tempering tasks. With young Deku inheriting the “One-For-All” quirk, he will learn what it means to be a true hero while facing off with dastardly supervillains.
- Cast
- Aoi Yuki , Ayane Sakura , Christopher R. Sabat , Yûki Kaji , Nobuhiko Okamoto , Luci Christian , David Matranga , Justin Briner , Kenta Miyake , Clifford Chapin , Daiki Yamashita
- Release Date
- April 3, 2016
- Seasons
- 5
- Website
- https://www.funimation.com/shows/my-hero-academia/
- Franchise
- My Hero Academia
- Production Company
- Bones
- Number of Episodes
- 113
