Training of the Dead is My Hero Academia's second OVA, taking place after the Hero Killer arc.
After the hero internships, Aizawa announces that 1-A will participate in an amicable training exercise alongside four heroes-in-training from Isamu High School. One of them is Tsuyu's old friend, the snakelike Habuko, while another student, Fujimi, instantly clashes with Bakugo. All Might explains that the training exercise will split the twenty-four students into six groups of four, with the goal just being to outlast all the other teams. Since the survival battle royale setup puts Midoriya's team (comprised of himself, Uraraka, Asui and Ashido; none of whom specialize in long-range attack or scoping out the enemy) at a disadvantage, they decide to lay low. Meanwhile, Bakugo quickly takes out a couple of other teams, but during a clash with the Isamu students, Fujimi releases his "Zombie Virus" Quirk which turns people into zombie-like creatures.
Midoriya, Todoroki, Uraraka and Ashido manage to escape the horde and hole up in a cave, but as Midoriya and Todoroki stage a frontal attack on the zombies, the effects of Zombie Virus are reversed and the students are returned to normal. With the training exercise concluded and everyone's injuries patched up, the Isamu students bid farewell to 1-A.
Tropes:
- Amusing Injuries: Bakugo attacking Midoriya, resulting in the latter ending up as a Bandage Mummy at the end, is played entirely for laughs.
- Animal Jingoism: The froglike Asui's best friend is a snakelike girl. The sight of them reuniting unnerves Midoriya, who lampshades that this shouldn't happen in nature.
- Bandage Mummy: Midoriya is left as one after Bakugo attacks him at the end of the OVA.
- Character Tics:
- Tadan is always seen wiping his face from sweat.
- Habuko, just like a snake, sticks her forked tongue out at random times unintentionally scaring Uraraka and Mina.
- Color Failure: Midoriya's reaction when All Might's Hour of Power runs out just as he was about to save them.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Bakugou defeats most teams in a matter of seconds.
- Decoy Protagonist: The beginning of the episode focuses on Froppy's friendship with Habuko, but she is turned into a Zombie considerably before the episode ends.
- Demoted to Extra: Todoroki, and to a lesser degree, Bakugo, who are major characters in the main series, play very minor roles in this OVA. Todoroki, in particular, only says a few lines near the end.
- Didn't Think This Through: All Might jumps into the fray to save Midoriya, Ashido, Uraraka, and Todoroki from the zombies, only to run out of steam and revert to his skinny form. When they run off and leave him alone with the zombies, All Might realizes that he has no idea how to stop zombies.
- Downer Ending: Discussed. Midoriya mentions that most zombie movies end badly.
- Dwindling Party: As expected of zombie media. Midoriya's group meets up with Todoroki's group, but Ojiro, Hagakure, and Koji are quickly zombified, and Asui is bitten by Aoyama.
- Dynamic Entry: All Might announces his presence by bombastically leaping down from the sky.
- Ear Ache: Bakugou defeats Jiro by firing off an explosion into the cliff she's stuck her Earphone Jacks into, blowing her eardrums out in the process.
- Episode of the Dead: This OVA features Class 1-A having a joint training session with Romero Fujiminote , who has a Quirk that can temporarily turn people into zombies.
- Friendship Moment: Subverted and played for laughs. A zombified Habuko initially seems to remember Asui and doesn't seem like she'll bite her, much to Asui's relief...until Aoyama does instead. Now, the two friends are zombies together!
- Genre Savvy: Midoriya discusses zombie-related tropes and compares the happenings around him to the zombie movies he's seen.
- Ghostly Gape: The 'zombies' have wide black hollows for eyes and mouths.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Fujimi uses his Zombie Virus Quirk without any concern for his teammates, just to show up the UA students. Later, he gets turned into a zombie by the specific person that he was trying to take down: Katsuki Bakugo.
- Mistaken for Undead: All Might's real form gets him mistaken for a zombie by Ashido, Uraraka, Todoroki (seemingly) and the zombies themselves.
- Never My Fault: Iida states this about Bakugo in the locker room, saying that he often doesn't own up to his wrongdoings. Iida isn't wrong that Bakugo initially doesn't take responsibility for his actions and often blames others when things don't go his way. This would be proven when at the end, despite Bakugo having contributed to the exercise going downhill and injuring Midoriya to the point where he was wrapped up in bandages, Bakugo refuses to apologize even when Iida tells him to.
- Ocular Gushers: Jiro, of all characters, cries streams, screeching in pain as Bakugo discovers her team's location and fires off a blast into the ground below her.
- Oh, Crap!: All Might's reaction to landing in the middle of the zombies with no way to defend himself is a "SHIIIIIIIT!" Luckily for him, the zombies mistake him for one of them and pat him on the back before lumbering past him.
- The Power of Friendship: Asui and Habuko are so close that even after Habuko is turned into a zombie, she refuses to bite Asui. The sweet moment is undercut when Aoyama shows up to bite Asui instead.
- Power Incontinence: One of the side effects of Fujimi's Quirk is that the victims will fire off their own Quirks at random. Momo, for instance, pops out a pile of matryoshka dolls while shambling around.
- Predator-Prey Friendship: Tsuyu, who's part-frog, befriends Habuko, a Snake Person. Even Midoriya comments on the bizarreness of their friendship in nature.
- Technically-Living Zombie: Fujimi's Quirk lets him emit a gas that turns living people into zombies. Being bitten by one will turn you into a zombie, too.Midoriya: It's just like the movies!
- Title of the Dead: Training of the Dead, to be specific.
- Undeathly Pallor: Those affected by Fujimi's zombification Quirk gain chalky white skin.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Played for laughs and discussed. Starting from the halfway mark, the students are turned into zombies, and Midoriya and company have to outlast them. Everyone gets better by the end. Still, they have time to comment on their classmates' quirks (literal, non-superpower Quirks) as they're zombified. Also discussed, since Izuku has apparently seen his fair share of zombie films. And in the end, the zombification wears off on its own, but not before Midoriya unleashes a Smash to clear the way for his group to escape, leaving him to apologize to his formerly-zombified friends.
