Hero Notebook

The look back opens on a small Izuku Midoriya putting himself between a bully and a smaller child, only for Katsuki Bakugo to jeer at a boy with no power trying to act like a rescuer. A physician later confirms what the second joint in his pinky toe implies, and the child who idolizes the world's strongest hero is advised to let the ambition go. Years on, nothing has softened. Katsuki detonates his notebook of hero research and mocks the idea that U.A. would ever take him.

Walking home, Izuku is grabbed by a creature made of sludge and pulled loose by All Might, who happens to pass by. The boy grabs hold as his idol leaps away, which forces an unplanned rooftop landing. Asked whether someone born without a Quirk could still do this work, All Might answers as a gaunt, hollow figure rather than the smiling giant. A serious wound years earlier now caps how long he can hold his powered shape. Dreams are fine, he says, but they should not blind anyone to what is real.

Izuku is still turning that over when he finds the same sludge villain in an alley, this time wearing Katsuki like a suit and setting off his explosions at random. He charges in with no plan at all, which shames All Might into swelling back up and ending the fight with a Detroit Smash. Afterward the hero takes back every discouraging word. Izuku can reach the goal, he says, and then explains One For All, a strength handed down from bearer to bearer the way a torch is passed. Ten punishing months of conditioning follow, and on the morning of the entrance exam a swallowed strand of hair completes the inheritance.

The exam itself nearly goes badly. Izuku registers no score at all until a huge machine bears down on another applicant, Ochaco Uraraka, and a single borrowed punch flattens it. Convinced he has failed, he learns from All Might that the scoring rewarded saving people as much as smashing targets, and that pulling Ochaco clear earned him a seat. He is welcomed into the school by the man he grew up watching.

Class 1-A puts him back beside Katsuki, now under the eye of Shota Aizawa, a homeroom teacher with no patience and enormous expectations. A Quirk assessment follows, and after a dressing down at the ball throw Izuku finally routes One For All into a single fingertip, launching the ball an absurd distance while sparing the rest of his arm. Aizawa is impressed. Katsuki is livid at the thought that his old target has been hiding a power all along.

Combat class splits the room into raiding and defending sides. Paired with Ochaco against Katsuki and Tenya Ida, Izuku is outclassed in the direct exchange, so he aims his power at the building itself, blowing a hole through the upper floors to occupy Tenya long enough for his partner to seize the target. The win is theirs.

Class 1-A then travels to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, a facility built to imitate disasters for rescue drills. Communications die and the League of Villains pours in behind Tomura Shigaraki, hunting All Might. Aizawa and Thirteen fall to Nomu and Kurogiri respectively while the students hold their own better than anyone expects. All Might reaches Izuku and Tsuyu Asui in time, trades brutal blows with Nomu while Tomura preaches that heroes are frauds and their smiling figurehead a lie, and finally puts the creature down. The faculty arrive thanks to Tenya, and Kurogiri warps himself and Tomura out at the last instant. With the injured left to Recovery Girl, attention turns to the Sports Festival ahead.

The special covers One For All passing out of All Might's hands into Izuku's, the ten months of preparation that made his body able to hold it, and his admission to U.A. on rescue points earned by saving Ochaco Uraraka.

It also revisits the ball throw that proved he could control the power, the Battle Trial victory over Katsuki and Tenya, and the League of Villains raid on the U.S.J. that ended with All Might defeating Nomu and Tomura Shigaraki escaping through Kurogiri.

This is a clip based recap rather than a new chapter of the story, assembled entirely from Season 1 footage and slotted between Episode 13 and Episode 14 within the U.A. Sports Festival arc.

It first aired in Japan on March 25, 2017, and closes on Jet Set Run, a vocal arrangement of You Say Run.