Victory or Defeat

Izuku Midoriya stands motionless in the ring because one careless reply handed Hitoshi Shinso control of his body. Brainwashing takes hold of anyone who answers its user, and Hitoshi walks his opponent toward the boundary line while the stands panic. Watching from the booth, Shota Aizawa uses the moment to indict the entrance exam itself: a practical built around smashing robots left a Quirk this potent outside the hero course. Inside his own head, Izuku fights a fog he cannot push through, remembering too late Mashirao Ojiro's warning that only outside contact broke the hold during the Cavalry Battle.

With the line closing in, eight silhouettes surface in Izuku's mind and One For All stirs on its own. He snaps his fingers, and the shock of the break returns his body to him. Hitoshi tries every taunt he has about lucky, heroic Quirks, but silence is the counter, and a shoulder throw ends the bout. In defeat he revisits the classmates at Nabooh City Junior High who called his power villainous, and afterward he hears pro heroes in the crowd praising him anyway. He tells Izuku plainly that the loss changes nothing about becoming a hero.

Recovery Girl patches Izuku up while All Might, oddly blank on the subject, insists willpower and not any vision beat the Brainwashing. Once the boy leaves, the two adults quietly agree that his glimpse of All Might among the shadows is a promising sign. In the corridor, Enji Todoroki corners his son and calls the refusal to use fire a childish rebellion doomed to stall wherever the power his mother gave him runs out. Furious, Shoto walks into his match against Hanta Sero and answers a strong opening move by burying him in a mountain of ice. Midnight calls it, Shoto apologizes for the excess, melts the ice with his left side, and Izuku catches the sadness underneath.

Hitoshi Shinso's Brainwashing is revealed in full and nearly wins the match outright, marching Izuku toward the out of bounds line before he can react.

Izuku receives his first vision of the past One For All users, seven silhouettes plus one, and the power activates by itself, letting him break his fingers free and take the match. Hitoshi loses but leaves with public recognition from pro heroes and his ambition intact.

Endeavor confronts Shoto before his match and invokes Rei Todoroki, driving Shoto to unleash the Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall on Hanta Sero and win by immobilization.

This is the twentieth entry in the anime and the seventh of season two, adapting Chapters 33 and 34 within the U.A. Sports Festival arc. It first aired on May 13, 2017, with an English broadcast on September 29, 2018. Peace Sign and That's Why I'm Not Alone bookend it, and Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall debuts here.

Adaptation differences are mostly small additions. Cementoss oversees the post match bow rather than Midnight. When Izuku describes the vision, the anime has him note eyes resembling All Might's, where the manga uses the hairstyle instead. Reactions from Tenya Ida and Ochaco Uraraka are new, Hitoshi's flashback gains extra scenes, and Hitoshi is shown striking Izuku's broken fingers before trying to shove him out.

The adaptation also expands Katsuki Bakugo's irritation at Izuku aiming for the top spot, adds his and Izuku's reactions as Shoto and Hanta are announced, gives Mashirao a raised fist greeting in the stands, and cuts to Endeavor, Kamui Woods, Death Arms, Recovery Girl and All Might watching the ice wall go up.