My Hero Academia s4 ep86- A Gentle Victory

Hello everyone. I hope you’re all keeping healthy and safe! These are strange times and we could all use a little sunshine in our lives. At work we’ve been lucky enough to be able to mobilize rather quickly and get the majority of people set up to work from home, and I’ve been diligently self-isolating since Tuesday. For me it really doesn’t change much to my daily life except more work and less bogging time, but I’m going to fix that. I’m a bit of a workaholic and whenever I start working from home (this isn’t the first time), I end up working all the time unless I set up a strict schedule that includes leisure time. For anyone else out there that might be working from home for the first time, I hardily suggest it. You can burn yourself out without noticing it if you’re not careful! How are you holding up Crow? And how’s the family?

 

Fine, thanks for asking! I’m working from home now as well, and I’ll second your advice about sticking to a schedule. I also force myself to get up at the same time and get dressed as if I’m going to work. It’s less comfortable, but when it’s time to wrap things up, it’s great to throw on an anime tee-shirt and kick back. Helps me know the work day’s over, too! Until I get a text from work or something…

I do the same thing. Even occasionally put makeup on which is ridiculous…

So we finally got to see the school festival. But first we had to put a cap on Gentle’s ill-fated little endeavour. You know, as I watched Gentle quiet and utterly defeated, pleading to shoulder all the blame and pretending to have brainwashed La Brava into joining him in order to keep the repercussions for splattering onto her, I thought that he had never looked more like the hero he had so longed to be than at that moment.

I may be reaching, but I think Midoriya also felt that way. They may have had a difference in circumstances but unlike the villains Deku has fought in the past, he could truly understand and sympathize with Gentle. At least in that moment. The both just desperately wanted to see a sad young girl smile again.

But I tend to be a reckless optimist. I might be overly generous here. Maybe it was simply that this was the best of the limited options Gentle had left to him at this point… What do you think?

I think your character instincts are spot on, as usual! Gentle’s decisions were clearly the kind a hero would make, and the policeman (who looked like a gorilla — I wish I could find his name, because I really liked how empathetic he was) thought so, too. 

The writer seemed to confirm how you saw Midoriya’s reaction. Remember when Deku picked up La Brava’s camera? He was thinking that if he had never met All Might, he saw himself ending up very much like Gentle Criminal.

Seriously, I thought this was a great arc. It show-cased the kind of ambiguities in hero society that I’ve always enjoyed about this series.

Regardless of what Gentle’s inner turmoil actually was, the show must go on, and at that point Deku only had about 40 minutes to get the rope he dropped, go back to everyone and get ready for the big show. All of this was to save the performance, how silly would it have been if Deku being late is what ended up spoiling everything?

Eri would have worried. That would be sad.

But he made it in time, of course, and we actually got to see the show. Series will often cut to black or fast forward through performances. You know, I think there’s something inherently cheesy about most stage performances. Not all of course, but a lot of them. Without the wonder of camera and cinematic or digital production, I think that a lot of shows end up looking a little silly. Like this one did. But let me get super cheesy for a moment.

If you let yourself get swept up in the moment and just appreciate the artifice of it all, it can also be a deeply moving experience. One that can make you feel things and appreciate the moment. One that can bring a smile to a sad little girl’s face or tears to a jaded hard drinking anime fan. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

The show was pretty cheesy and I think I like the acapella song better than this one. But it made me smile and tear up a little and if my classmates had put it on, I would have been super proud of them. Did you enjoy it Crow?

Yes, I did, and I felt similarly compelled to defend that I liked it. But the way the 1-A students used their quirks to augment the performance, like Hanta Sero/Cellophane shooting streamers or Ochako Uraraka/Uravity touching random people in the crowd so they’d reverse mosh-pit, was so perfectly in character. So I’m going to push myself not to be ashamed and flat out say I liked it. 

And seeing the effect it had on Eri? That was worth the whole fourth season.

One thing we did get to see is just a little snippet of how Kyouka joined UA. It wasn’t anything dramatic so it didn’t warrant a full episode. Basically her parents are both musicians and she was raised with music her whole life. So when it came time to choose a school, she was pretty anxious to tell her family that she wanted to be a hero rather than a musician, but they were both super fine with it and very supportive. She was worried for nothing.

I really liked this flashback. It’s so relatable. Kids often think their parents won’t understand but most parents just want their children to be happy and as long as they’re not doing something super unreasonable, they’re more likely to be supportive than not. But we rarely see these stories because they’re not very dramatic, now are they? Still, it’s nice to be reminded that things can be simple once in a while.

I really liked her mom, by the way. She seemed way more pleasant than Katsuki Bakugou’s mom! It looked like Kyouka inherited her Quirk from her mom.

Wow, this turned out really short. It’s not quite over yet though. The closing act echoes the first and reinforced my belief that Gentle is the real winner here even though he may not realize it yet. La Brava’s skills are officially recognized and the police seem open to giving him a second chance, or at least a fair sentence considering how harmless most of his criminal activity has been. They do have bigger fish to fry. I know a lot of fans don’t like this character but I hope to see him again. Where do you stand?

I say give him a second chance. His heart is clearly not set on doing evil. And La Brava loves him, so how bad can he really be? 

Finally we got a little taste of what’s coming up next and it seems we finally get to meet Hawks. I know nothing about this character but manga readers love the guy so I’m kind of excited. He had nice hair…

I’m always interested in bird-themed heroes. Not sure why…