Plot wise, nothing was changed from the manga, and if anything they made the joint training arc a little more dynamic and fun. BUT WHY? An arguably meaningless arc that exists only to display and show off the powers of characters that could've been explored much deeper and efficiently ALL THE WAY BACK in the tournament arc! Was the animation good? Yeah sure I guess. Did they explore Deku's connection to OFA more? Definitely and that's all good and fine, but 12 episodes of just straight up meaningless fights!? Come on Bones.
But the inclusion of this arc would've been fine, if it wasn't at the expense of the Villain arc.
ONE OF THE MOST if not THE MOST beloved arcs in the entirety of MHA for the way it shakes up the formula, and truly shows how the League Of Villains have grown from being complete losers to an actual threat, is SHAFTED to say the least. Not only is the preamble for the main body of the arc long and arduous in anime form (at least it felt that way), the animation for some of the most pivotal scenes is the animation equivalent of AFO's wrinkly-ass, preserved plum face. One of my favourite scenes from the manga is where Shigaraki tears through a crowd of civilians with his newly strengthened decay ability, so imagine my shock when that scene became down graded into a literal before and after shot in the anime, I mean the MANGA HAD MORE FRAMES! And before you say, it was out of their skillset or budget, there is test footage from other scenes in the arc that didn't make it in, that look 10x smoother than the final product, and from the movies we've seen them produce for the series, we KNOW for certain it isn't a skill issue. AND if it was a budget issue, WHY NOT DIVERT THE FUNDING FROM THE LESS VISUALLY DEMANDING ARC THAT CAME BEFORE!? Idk i'm not part of the industry and i won't claim to be or know what I'm talking about, but still, it just seems odd that such a widely beloved arc didn't get the love it needed.
Conclusion, the visuals in this season are great, but just at the wrong moments. It's problematic when you can say the manga animated it better than the anime. Story wise? It's more MHA, if you were a fan of the fights and/or story before, you'll probably still like it here now.
