Episode 34

A televised panel argument between Mt. Lady and Midnight over whether sex appeal belongs in hero work opens the episode, delighting Minoru until the two women turn on each other about their ages. Seven days remain before term-end testing, and Shota warns his class that both a written paper and a practical trial are coming. Denki and Mina, sitting at the bottom of the midterm rankings, confess that the semester's chaos left them no study time at all, and Rikido points out that the finals will be harsher still.

Momo volunteers to tutor anyone struggling and ends up promising a study party at her family estate, while Katsuki loudly appoints himself Eijiro's private instructor. At lunch, Neito wanders over to needle Class 1-A for attracting trouble ever since the Hero Killer, and Itsuka flattens him mid-rant, though not before passing along an upperclassman's tip that the practical means fighting machines. Katsuki dismisses the distinction between robot and human opponents entirely, insisting control is what matters either way, and promises to outscore both Izuku and Shoto before storming out.

Three days of written papers pass. When the practical finally arrives, Nezu springs out of Shota's scarf to announce there will be no robots at all. Rising villain activity has pushed U.A. toward realistic combat drills, with Class 1-A up first. Each pair of students will instead fight a member of the faculty. Shoto and Momo draw Shota; Izuku and Katsuki draw All Might.

A faculty meeting held days earlier reveals the reasoning. The teachers judge machine opponents inadequate preparation for the villain resurgence they expect, Cementoss and Present Mic worry that pitting students against pros is unfair, Snipe answers that a handicap solves it, and Nezu settles the debate by arguing that keeping students safe means making them stronger. Shota pairs Shoto with Momo because both lean too hard on their Quirks, which he intends to erase, and puts Izuku with Katsuki precisely because the two cannot stand each other.

The remaining matchups follow: Denki and Mina face Nezu, Yuga and Ochaco face Thirteen, Koji and Kyoka face Present Mic, Fumikage and Tsuyu face Ectoplasm, Hanta and Minoru face Midnight, Mezo and Toru face Snipe, Rikido and Eijiro face Cementoss, and Tenya and Mashirao face Power Loader. Thirty minutes are allowed to either cuff a teacher or reach the exit, the escape option being a deliberate lesson in retreating for help when the gap in strength is enormous. Each instructor wears ultra-compressed weights built by Mei Hatsume as a handicap, which Katsuki reads as an insult and an invitation to fight.

Eijiro and Rikido open the exam against Cementoss and try to punch straight through his walls. Izuku, watching the feed alongside Ochaco because neither communicates well with their partner, works out that the teachers were assigned to attack weaknesses, and that the pair is burning through Quirk time limits their opponent simply does not have. They lose. Ectoplasm then surrounds Fumikage and Tsuyu with duplicates and warns that no teacher intends to go easy.

The episode draws on Chapter 34.5, Chapter 60, the opening pages of Chapter 61, and the first pages of Chapter 67. It restructures the exam so pairs go one after another rather than all at once, which lets the faculty deliver the win conditions and the explanation of the weights as a single briefing instead of separately to each pair. The study montage runs far longer than on the page and adds Ochaco, Katsuki, and Eijiro, along with Momo's guests arriving at her mansion. Rikido and Eijiro also fail much earlier here, knocked unconscious rather than timed out, and their bout is expanded considerably where the manga showed only its final moment.

While tearing through Cementoss's barriers, the two shout a rapid "Ora ora ora", which together with the flurry of punches nods to Jotaro Kujo's Star Platinum from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.