English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Gold Tips Imperial”

 

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Togata brings Eri to see the festival as things are getting ready, including the beauty pageant, Support Corps exhibits, and 1-A’s rehearsals. Deku then goes to practice his new training with All Might, but also gets some help from Hatsume to best control it. Meanwhile, Gentle Criminal and La Brava reflect on how they met and what they hope for in their next plan.

OUR TAKE

Once again, not a whole lot going on in an episode during this arc, since it’s pretty much just continuing what we’ve been watching happen already. The festival is getting ready, Eri is recovering and being integrated into the show more, and Gentle Criminal and La Brava continue to looks really cute while they work on their plan to have a showy heist. That’s not to say that it’s a bad episode necessarily or that there’s nothing work talking about, just that there becomes far less that’s new the more time we spend on these three specific plots. This whole arc in general is meant to be a breather from a pretty heavy list of intense arcs that preceded it, so I guess you wouldn’t expect it to be the most eventful, but as someone who has to review it each week, I can’t help but admit it is getting more challenging to come up with something to say.

And since we’re really scraping here, one notable detail about this episode would be the mention of a beauty pageant, though more specifically that it includes Nejire Hado, one of the Big Three, in its ranks. Where Togata and Amajiki got a lot of time to shine in the Overhaul arc, Nejire sadly did not, being relegated to simply being a bit character. With that in mind, it’s cool that she’s (hopefully) going to get some focus here to make up for that, especially since we get to see more of Quirk that I guess includes using electricity in spirals somehow? And then there’s Hatsume, who’s been a cool side character in her own right and looking to be instrumental in helping Deku get those gloves we saw him use in the movie, which look to be the main upgrade he’ll be getting to his costume for this arc. As uneventful as it is, it does look like they’re doing what they can to make use of this time to do impactful things in it.

Lastly, Gentle Criminal and La Brava continue to be a pretty interesting team of anti-villains. I say ANTI-villain mostly because they don’t seem to be doing anything particularly out of malice, just for the sake of pageantry and a message, further showing that “villains” in My Hero Academia are often acting as reactions to the symbols of heroes prominently displayed in-universe. I am a little weirded out by La Brava’s origin of meeting Gentle, though not as weirded out as I would have been if she were as young as she looked. Yeah, turns out she’s 21, but more fully formed female characters in this show like Nejire and Hatsume are 17 and 16? Confusing but…I’ll let it slide. Anyway, next week sees Deku come face to face with Gentle for the first time as we enter the final five episodes of the season!