Warning, this article contains spoilers for the latest episode of My Hero Academia Season 4 Episode 23, “Let if flow! School festival!” If you still haven’t watched the latest episode, you can watch it on Crunchyroll and Funimation! 

After much build up throughout the second half of the season, the U.A School Festival is finally here on My Hero Academia. To be very frank, we were certain that some villain would make a random surprise entry and spoil the festival for which the students had worked so hard. After all, the fourth season of My Hero Academia has been dark, to say the least.

Instead, we got a very touching and pleasant episode of Boku No Hero Academia, which very surely exceeded our expectations. 

My Hero Academia Season 4 Episode 23 Review!

After the battle between Deku and Gentle Criminal came to an end in the previous episode, the latter decides to surrender to the heroes keeping watch on the school. Gentle’s love for La Brava makes him confess his crimes in a way that she won’t be punished. As the face-off between the two comes to an end, we see that Deku and Gentle has developed a strong sense of respect for each other.

By the time everything is sorted out with Gentle, the school festival is about to start and Midoriya has to rush back to the shop and collect his bag which he left there when the fight began. Thankfully, he is able to make it back in time.

Gentle Criminal and La Brava make a great team, but their love can't stop Deku!

[via My Hero Academia] pic.twitter.com/6povIi5HAc

— Funimation (@Funimation) March 20, 2020

The rest of the episode is dedicated to the school festival which the students and the franchise of My Hero Academia invested so much on. The whole arc was dedicated to building up the hype for this episode and we, like the spectators in the festival, were skeptical about why a school festival needed to be hyped so much. But the efforts seemed to have paid off in earnest as the performance of Class 1-A really caught the eye.

The performance begins with a bang and keeps us hooked till the end. The song used for the performance is a good one and goes well with the mood of the episode. However, we did feel that more could have been done with the dance moves that our young heroes did, considering the time that was put in. Towards the end though, the performance was more like a dazzling visual treat. The best part of the whole showcase, or in fact the whole episode, is Eri finally smiling after watching how Class 1-A performed. 

It’s not just Eri who is enthralled by the amazing performance that Jiro and company put out, but the crowd too is slowly swayed by the music, dance and dazzling show  Class 1-A manages to put out. 

We could say that in some ways, “Let if flow!School Festival!” is the episode that actually pulls the curtain on the Overhaul arc, as Eri chan gets to enjoy something thoroughly for the first time in her life and get over her depressing past. Seeing Eri smile for the first time at the festival also lifted a huge burden off the shoulders of Togata (who is no wonder the most wholesome boi, ngl) and Midoriya, who have been blaming themselves since they failed to rescue her the first time they encountered Eri with Kai Chisaki, a.k.a Overhaul. 

The whole moment is the cherry on top for My Hero Academia, which has focused so well on developing a huge set of characters, through well written arcs. The series manages to take us on a whole new level with every episode, be it action or fun and games and is surely rising to be of the quality of big three.

After a performance that blew us away, thanks to the animation and the music, the rest of the episode really doesn’t matter much. What followed is a highlight reel of the rest of the programs in the school festival. We get a brief glimpse of the play that Class 1-B had prepared, and just like its name suggested, it had borrowed heavily from all the pop culture cliches. We hope that My Hero Academia releases an OVA or a special which has the play in full, because that one’s gonna crack you up pretty hard. 

Nejire Hado is another character, whose arc gets a fitting end for this season (we sure want to see a lot of her in the coming seasons too) as she wins the beauty pageant. As the season progressed, we saw Nejire beginning to trust in her own powers and not copying someone else, growing as a person and also as a hero. Kudos to My Hero Academia for focusing on the small things and making the show even more close to the heart for the fans. The same goes with Jiro’s backstory. The flashback might not have lasted even a minute, but it gave her performance a whole new meaning.

“Let It Flow! School Festival!” was pleasantly surprising and entertaining. It was a perfect way to end the school festival arc and bring to close a season that will be remembered for its dark and depressing theme. Now that the school festival is done with, we can’t wait to see what the last couple of episodes have in store for us. We used to crave for more action, but after watching how well the school festival arc was handled, we are going to let MHA let proceed with things at its own pace. So why don’t we sit back and relax the show, eh?