U.A has transitioned into a boarding school and Class 1-A begin their new life living at U.A. The first task Class 1-A needs to accomplish at their new abode is finishing their training which they failed to do at the camp so that they can be ready to take on the Provisional Hero License Exam, a rigorous exam that allows students to obtain Provisional Hero Licenses, temporary licenses for students which enables them to legally engage villains in combat and save civilians in times of danger. Meanwhile, the world begins feeling the effects of All Might's retirement.
Following the events of the Hideout Raid, All Might is now officially retired, and promises to focus on training his students, and especially his pupil Midoriya. Due to the recent events, U.A. High is now a Boarding School, taking in the students to keep a better watch on them. Aizawa and All Might go to the student's families one by one and eventually manage to convince everyone, though Midoriya's mother needs some convincing from All Might. Bakugo seems to have caught on on Midoriya and All Might's relationship.
On the dorms, Aizawa gives everyone a harsh scolding for their actions in the previous arc, knowing that Midoriya and the others planned to invade the pros plan and save Bakugo, he almost expels everyone that was involved, but opts out, since due to All Might's retirement, society needs more heroes than ever. As everyone settles down, a competition to see who has the best dorm starts, ending up with Satou as the winner.
In the next day, Aizawa tells everyone that they'll be mandated early to get their Hero Licenses in a nation-wide exam, and for starters, they'll all need to create special moves. All Might focuses harder on becoming a better teacher. Midoriya figures a new way to use his powers that puts less stress on his arms by focusing on kicks. The entire class updates their costumes.
On the day of the exam, Class 1-A meets up with other hero schools that will be their rivals.
First Stage of the Exam
The first half of the exam revolves around a battle royale game where every student puts three targets in their costume and receives three balls. The first 100 students to get two others out of the game by hitting all their three targets pass.
All other students focus on Class 1-A, except Todoroki and Bakugo (who left because they wanted to work alone) since their quirks were shown nationwide by the Sports Festival, but Class 1-A has since evolved and they manage to fight back, though they are separated when Yo Shindo, a student capable of creating earthquakes from another school, destroys the ground of the exam.
Midoriya is targeted by a mysterious girl from Shiketsu High, Camie, who has a creepy fascination for him, but he escapes and teams up with Uraraka and Sero, managing to get the three of them past the exam. Off-screen, Todoroki is the first one of Class 1-A to pass the test, and another student from Shiketsu, Inasa Yoarashi, who passed by taking out more than a hundred students single handedly with his Gale quirk, has it out for him. In the anime, it's shown he passed the exam after taking out a group of ninja-themed students that went after him as a group.
Bakugo teams up with Kirishima and Kaminari because they followed him and wouldn't let him alone. The two face another Shiketsu student, Seiji Shishikura, who has a grudge against 1-A's flashiness. He takes out Kirishima and Bakugo, but Kaminari is able to knock him out with hi new equipment and the three pass the exam.
In the anime, Yaoyorozu, Shoji, Tsuyu and Jiro team up against an all-girls class and their hyper-inteligent leader, Saiko Intelli, and they all pass the exam after defeating them.
Meanwhile, with the class scattered and time running out, Iida and Aoyama team up. Aoyama attempts a heroic sacrifice by using his laser beam as bait and to attract the other 1-A students to a single spot, but Iida doesn't accept and convinces him to keep fighting. With this, class 1-A passes the first exam.
Second Stage of the Exam
The second stage revolves around rescuing people from a disaster, while being attacked by villains, played by the Tenth ranked hero, Gang Orca, and his sidekicks. The rescuees are professionals that will thoroughly critique their techniques in saving victims, keeping calm under a disaster, and treating each individual situation. Yaoyorozu leads class 1-A in their rescue efforts, while Bakugo cusses out potential victims and leaves to find the villains.
When the mock villains to come out, both Todoroki and Inasa go after them, but quickly start to argue. Not only do their Quirks interfere with each other, Inasa has a grudge against Todoroki, seeing him as being similar to Endeavor- cold and ruthless. Their fight almost gets Shindo caught in the crossfire, but Midoriya saves him and berates both Todoroki and Inasa for letting their grudges get the better of them. Todoroki and Inasa are then able to temporarily put aside their differences and combine their Quirks to create a fire tornado against Gang Orca.
Aftermath
Following the exam, the results are out. Everyone in Class 1-A passed, with the exception of Todoroki and Bakugo. Todoroki because he put his argument with Inasa over protecting his teammates or defeating the villains (Inasa also fails because of this), and Bakugo because the rescuees didn't like his attitude and failure to reassure the civilians. These two will take a remedial course, and can get their licenses at the end of that.
All Might meets with All For One to try to get information out of him but nothing comes out of it, though he is proud to see Midoriya get his license.
Back in the dorms, Bakugo calls Midoriya at night and tells him to meet him in the area where they had their first fight in U.A., Ground Beta. See, Bakugo is hot-tempered, but he isn't stupid. He's put two and two together about Midoriya's Quirk, figuring out the true nature of One for All. He wants to fight Midoriya, both to prove himself and to express his Hidden Depths. Bakugo blames himself for All Might's retirement, because his loss of power happened saving Bakugo (which in turn happened because of his bad attitude). Midoriya is able to draw out 8% of One for All during the fight, but is still defeated by Bakugo. However, the battle-therapy has had a calming effect on Bakugo, allowing the two to break out of their toxic relationship and Bakugo to begin respecting Midoriya as an equal. This does not impress Aizawa, who puts them in dorm arrest/suspension for fighting.
During that house arrest, Midoriya meets a strange student with the power to phase through things.
Tropes
- Boarding School: Following the events of the last two arcs, U.A. becomes this in order to better keep an eye on its students.
- Breather Episode: The start of the arc acts as this following the Hideout Raid arc, with a slice-of-life mini-arc as the characters move into their dorms. This is recognized in-universe and it's possible the characters started the mini-arc trying to dispel the tension formed during the previous arc.
- Damsel in Distress: Invoked by the HUC (Help Us Company), who are professional Damsels In Distress. Justified too, as their role is to judge an aspiring hero's ability to handle the situation during crises, and they have terrifying eyes for details in this case.
- Filler: The anime adaptation includes two extra fights: Todoroki's fight against a group of ninjas and Yaoyorozu, Shoji, Jiro and Tsuyu facing against an all-girls school and their super intelligent leader.
- Foreshadowing: "Camie's" obsession with Midoriya (and to a lesser extent Uraraka) is quite familiar, because it's exactly how Toga acted last time she met them.
- Hero Antagonist: Gang Orca is the "official" villain of the Exam (he's playing the role of the leader of a villain group), but the closest thing to an actual antagonist is Inasa.
- I Work Alone: Deconstructed. Todoroki, Bakugo, and Yoarashi attempt to do this, and it results in all of them failing the exam, with the explanation that their inability to work together is damaging to the generation of heroes focused on unity and teamwork that they attempt to create to compensate for All Might's retirement. In particular, Yoarashi and Todoroki stopping to deal with their personal issues during the fight against Gang Orca almost gets Shindo killed.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Gang Orca takes up the role of the villain but he only does so as part of the licensing exam and to make the students being restated feel truly challenged in their prioritization between helping people and fighting villains.
- Quality over Quantity: During the provisional license exam, over a thousand entrants are whittle down to about one hundred in the space of the first round alone. Invoked by the proctors, who are trying to bolster the number of effective heroes against the recently surging Villain Alliance.
- Wham Shot: After the exam, Camie walking away and slowly melting her skin to reveal she was Toga all along.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Izuku calls out Inasa and Shoto for stopping in the middle of an attack against a dangerous villain (actually Gang Orca, the #10 pro hero) and almost getting Yo Shindo killed in the process, just because Inasa had a grudge against Shoto for snubbing him in the UA exam.Izuku: Dammit!! What are you two doing?!!! \\
