I appreciate the insight, but it doesn't solve the ongoing problem. But we'll see. The chapter was so short. The corrupted situation seems to be taken care for now, with Deku already about to unlock something or rather fix something. Other than that, it was an okay chapter. I seriously hope next year is far better for this series. It's still upsetting that the side characters continue to disappoint and really, it only makes it harder to care in the long run. The effect is stronger than ever, so it's going to be a challenge for me to care. It's worse when you realized the weakest portion of the series are when the side character get the focus. That is bad. Anyway, end this arc and renew my hope.
Personally, I think y'all have become wayyyy too jaded with what happened with Naruto. IMO, the arc itself is perfectly fine. It's just that Horikoshi's got other stuff on his plate. Aside from likely health issues, he's also in the middle of moving out to a bigger studio (as he should be for a top-tier mangaka). There were better story direction decisions he could've taken, sure. But it's hardly consequential in the bigger picture of things.
For example, maybe I could've had the first two sets won by Class A, followed by a tie and a loss or maybe there should've been 4 sets instead of 5, but really, it wouldn't have changed much. And to everyone complaining about Momo's loss, seriously..... People are making such a huge fuss over it that they don't see how much she'd actually accomplished at that time.