English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Deku vs. Gentle Criminal”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The rehearsal is going smoothly with the performance happening tomorrow, but the ropes they use are starting to get frayed, so Deku decides to go buy some more in the morning before they start. He also gets some training of his air pressure finger flicking, as well as getting new gloves (or at least new to him since we’ve seen them in the recent movie) from Hatsume. The trip to the store goes smoothly enough, but this leads to an accidental encounter with Gentle Criminal and La Brava. Though they don’t recognize each other at first, Deku’s familiarity with tea gives him away as a UA student, while Gentle’s voice gives him away as the villain that streams his crimes.

Deku knows that even a small disturbance will get the school festival shut down, so he plans to stop Gentle in his tracks before he can make it to the campus. This becomes more difficult than expected, as Gentle’s quirk is Elasticity, meaning he can put bounce into any solid surface, as well as the air itself. Deku’s still able to push the air pressure to attack, bringing the fight to a construction site. While he’s still able to shoot from a distance with his gloves, this also helps Gentle to bounce around the steel beams. Eventually, Gentle manages to distract Deku by endangering a civilian nearby, but Deku refuses to let him get away, so La Brava decides to use her quirk. Only 69 minutes remain until the performance begins. Nice.

OUR TAKE
My Hero Academia’s dub returns after nearly a month off!…and who knows how long it will be before it comes back again. Due to the ongoing pandemic, progress on Funimation’s current simuldubs halted for awhile but now seems to be steadily crawling forward. Whether the recently released dubs like this and Listeners were already in progress is hard to say, but they do look to be moving along, if only slightly. Maybe they’ll have more done in time to not mess with Toonami’s scheduling further!

With this episode, My Hero still has four episodes left to dub in its current season, but MAN what an episode to come back to AND leave us on. I’ve made no secret that this School Festival arc hasn’t been the most eventful or thrilling for me personally, but now it looks like everything is coming to a head on the day of the festival itself. Deku gets to put both his new hero gear and the dancing lessons he learned to get ready for the show in order to face a threat to the fragile stability that UA has found for the time being. So, in a way, this still ends up feeling like a natural climax for the arc, even if it was a bit slow and steady at the start there. All the elements introduced converge and come to a single point where everything will soon resolve. Plus, in the wait between the dubbed episodes and this, I went and watched ahead, so without giving anything away, I can tell you that things most certainly end on a high note.

We also finally get to see Gentle’s quirk, which is quite versatile. With his ability to elasticize his surroundings, he’s definitely a formidable opponent, especially for Deku in his current area of power development. Seems almost a bit too convenient that this guy serves this exact purpose, but I’m inclined to let it slide because the fight so far is still very entertaining. And La Brava’s quirk, which we’ll see next episode, is also a great thematic component to both the arc and her and Gentle’s subplot. But that will do it for this week’s My Hero, though hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for the final four of the season. We’re in for a really solid batch here, which will give us all hope to get past this crisis and truly go beyond, plus ultra.