My Hero Academia: Winners and losers of Episode 85

The most recent episode of My Hero Academia gives us more of Gentle’s backstory and makes the events that transpire feel more conflicting.

The way I see it, My Hero Academia Season 4 has showcased how villains in this universe can be far more intricate and interesting than the “I’m evil and want to kill people!!” ilk. Of course, that’s no shade towards previous seasons, because I think my personal favorite moment of the entire series is Midoriya’s fight against Muscular, whose goal as a villain was literally just to kill people. With Overhaul, it was a grand and ambitious plan for the future, while Gentle Criminal is more of a tragic figure. Let’s break it down!

Winners

Izuku Midoriya / Deku

Well, he won! As I called him during the last episode, Hoodie Deku has truly been a revelation. He was able to take down Gentle all by himself without having any scarring injuries to show for it. That’s what we call growth! Of course, this wasn’t quite as epic a fight as the one against Overhaul, but it was cool nonetheless.

Love

Yes, the second winner of the episode goes to the very concept known as love. It’s easy for me to make self-deprecating jokes right now, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do! If you couldn’t tell by the fact that he writes recaps of My Hero Academia every week for fun, love is something your boy Javier isn’t exceptional at. Was that a good enough joke?

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Anyways, I never spoke about Gentle’s sidekick, La Brava, who’s quirk was revealed to literally be love. Basically, whenever she expresses her love for someone, they gain a temporary power boost. Is this supposed to be some extremely on-the-nose symbolism? I think it is, but I’ll allow it for now.

Losers

Liking someone in high school

Gentle wasn’t the only one who got their backstory shown off this episode. La Brava, bless her soul, turns out to have been the victim of the classic tragedy: Having a crush on someone in high school. She was mocked, insulted, and depressed after the boy she liked found out and started telling the whole class about it.

I, for one, can relate to this! I, too, liked a girl in high school and was, for some reason, ridiculed by a bunch of people. One of those people was even a good friend of mine, and I still remember when he randomly decided to roast me for it on New Year’s Eve out of nowhere while we were playing a game of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I promise it wasn’t a friendly roast, either. He was literally like “Hey, remember how Beth doesn’t like you?” in a tone that was intent on just making me feel bad for no reason (her name wasn’t actually, just didn’t want to use her actual name).

That was a bit of a tangent. You’re here for anime recaps, not my life story. But my point does remain the same: High school crushes are a dangerous game and this episode of My Hero Academia is a painful reminder of that.

The hero system

While it’s true that Gentle is by no means a good person, it’s hard to strictly quantify him as a villain. Instead of being guided properly, he was cast aside and barely given a chance to be a hero. The system, in my view, failed him. His quirk may have been an odd one, but there’s no doubting the potential it possessed. Instead, this episode was another reminder that the hero system is flawed.

My Hero Academia likes to show us the fantastical and extravagant possibilities that a hero society presents, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Midoriya is my favorite character, but I couldn’t help but feel conflicted about his clash with Gentle. He wasn’t a villain trying to outwardly harm anyone, but a villain that was the victim of a series of unfortunate circumstances and bad breaks. He just wanted to be seen, and that’s something I’m fairly sure we can all relate to.

Gentle is the first truly tragic figure that the show has presented us with; he’s the counter-programming to the maniacal nature of Overhaul. I can’t help but feel bad for the guy and ponder the potential what-ifs that might’ve been if not for the system letting him down.

As always, remember that you can tune in every Saturday for new episodes of My Hero Academia on Funimation and Crunchyroll followed by breakdowns here on Hidden Remote.