Episode 84

Deku vs. Gentle Criminal (デクVSジェントル・クリミナル) is the eighty-fourth episode of the My Hero Academia anime and the twenty-first episode of the fourth season.

Summary
In the gymnasium, Class 1-A is making their final preparations for their musical performance before the day of the school festival, with Mina working hard to have the dance choreograph precisely. The practice is cut short when Hound Dog arrives to tell them it's 9:00 PM and they must return to their rooms.

In Heights Alliance, some of the students cannot sleep from how nervous and excited they are. Izuku and Yuga are checking the stuff for when Yuga plays the mirror ball. Izuku realizes that the rope is frayed from being overused during practice. Denki advises him to ask Momo to create another rope but Mina tells him that she is sleeping right now and reproaches him for treating her as a handy tool. Izuku says that since tomorrow morning he has to go out to buy several things, he will take the opportunity to buy a new rope. Before all going to sleep, Class 1-A vows to make their School Festival event a success.

The day of the festival has arrived. At 6:30 AM, Izuku is training with Toshinori Yagi when a scruffy Mei shows up and gives him the support equipment he requested: a pair of gloves. She also made sure the design went with Izuku’s hero costume. Izuku thanks her for making the gloves, and Toshinori is impressed by how compact they are. Before leaving, Mei gives Izuku the gloves manual, and Toshinori asks him to test them, with which Izuku agrees.

Izuku was practicing to get used to it until he was almost out of time. At 7:50 AM, Izuku rushes to buy the things he needs while still wearing the gloves. At 8:30 AM, Izuku hurries back to the U.A., after buying everything he needed, when he suddenly runs into a disguised Gentle Criminal and La Brava. Izuku apologizes while Gentle tells him to be careful because he has been about to ruin him the aftertaste of the Golden Tips Imperial. Then, Gentle and La Brava attempt to leave wanting to avoid further contact.

Upon hearing that variety of tea mentioned, Izuku notes that the house next to the store is some kind of café, which grabs Gentle's attention, who cannot help praising him for being so knowledgeable about tea despite his youth. Izuku admits that this is because a friend of his made some for him. From that conversation, the disguised Gentle realizes that Izuku is a U.A. student, and after realizing that he made a blunder for talking too long, He and La Brava try to leave. However, after hearing his passion for tea and recognizing his voice, Izuku manages to deduce that he is the villain in the video he saw several days ago: Gentle Criminal.

Knowing fully well that if the alarms sound, the festival for which everyone has worked so hard on and with which he wants to make Eri smile will be canceled, Izuku drops his groceries and he tells Gentle to not do anything to the U.A. Being aware that his cover has been blown, Gentle asks La Brava to start recording. It is 8:32 AM, half an hour until the School Festival begins.

Izuku can’t expect any backup: there are no people on the streets being a Saturday morning, there are no hero agencies in the vicinity, and the option of going for help is ruled out. With no choice but to stop Gentle by himself, Deku activates the One For All: Full Cowl at 8%. Gentle informs La Brava that there is a change of plans, and tells her to continue filming, whatever happens. She obeys, puzzled that he intends to fight.

With a flourishing movement, Gentle takes off his overcoat and hat and tells his listeners to bear witness to his dazzling ambitions. Although his plan has been altered, he still intends to infiltrate the U.A. Gentle has the courtesy to pull an intro on himself for the camera while Deku is about to get ready to fight. Izuku charges at Gentle but suddenly an elastic sheet stops him. Gentle reveals that when he removed his disguise, he activated his Quirk, Elasticity, which allows him to give elastic properties to everything he touches, and that includes the air itself. Gentle uses Gently Rebound, which repels Deku, knocking him backwards.

Gentle says he doesn't like using violence to solve his problems. La Brava comments that his attack has been quite violent, to which Gentle surmises that Izuku possesses considerable speed and power despite his appearance, making his Elasticity do so. Gentle and La Brava run away as Izuku recovers and chases after them. Gentle uses his Quirk on the ground to make it elastic, bouncing Izuku high into the air with Gently Trampoline.

Gentle is aware of Izuku's feelings and desires to protect the school festival. When he was a student he also worked hard to put on events, but he does not intend to allow those feelings to get in his way of infiltrating the U.A. and becoming a legend. Gentle Criminal bids farewell to Izuku while he and La Brava bounce away in the air. La Brava recognized Izuku as the crazy boy who broke his fingers fighting in the U.A. Sports Festival. Fearing Izuku's insanity, Gentle changes the mission to a timed attack on the school. Gentle wishes to not be further involved with him and tells the listeners that their infiltration operation has become a race against the clock. They have to quickly infiltrate U.A. before Izuku can warn them.

As Deku recovers from Gentle's attack in midair, he recalls everything that's riding on the School Festival. He remembers Eri looking forward to Deku’s work at the festival; nearly pulling a complete smile. He also recalls a conversation he had with Kyoka Jiro, when she showed Izuku all the advice she wrote to all the members in her notebook, proving that she is putting in her all for the school festival.

Izuku prepares to shoot a wind pressure attack. He thinks he needs to land after he remembers All Might telling him that he's having trouble using air blasts while he is moving, but after recalling one of Mina's lessons where she advises him that he must focus his attention for an instant as he moves, and when he asked Mei to build him special gloves, Deku clears his head of all doubts and shoots a Delaware Smash Air Force, hitting Gentle right in the back mid-air.

Despite being hit, Gentle Criminal refuses to give up. Izuku lunges off a telephone post and charges at Gentle, culminating into a full-on brawl between Gentle and Izuku as the two crash into a construction site, as La Brava cries out. The crash to the construction site attracted the attention of an old man. La Brava tries to convince him that they are filming and to pass it on to his neighbors, hoping to buy some time for Gentle to retreat.

Izuku has landed on the construction site and recovers quickly, thanking Mei Hatsume for building the gloves in time to stop Gentle as well as Mina for balancing his stance with her dance lessons. On the other hand, Gentle ends up stuck by his jacket onto a girder, hanging him in mid-air. Despite his situation, Gentle intends to continue with his infiltration plan.

As La Brava runs to where they are, Izuku asks about Gentle's objective. Gentle tells him that he prefers not to be lumped as being the same as the League of Villains, because he has no intention of stealing or harming anyone since all he wants is to sneak into the school festival. As La Brava reaches them, Gentle pleads with Izuku to let him go, which shocks her.

Izuku tells him that he cannot allow him to do that, because if the alarms sound, the festival will be canceled. Gentle assures him that he does not have to worry because his partner in crime La Brava will disable the alarm system, in this way his plan can succeed and they don’t have to suspend the Festival, a win-win situation for both. Izuku quickly refutes his argument saying that it will make an even bigger problem, and Gentle can’t deny that Izuku is right, which shocks La Brava again.

Deku tries to bluff Gentle with a false report that the police are on their way to arrest him. Sadly for Deku, Gentle wants to accomplish his goal, so the battle resumes. Izuku charges at Gentle, but Gentle uses his Quirk again, bouncing around the construction site by causing all the girders to become elastic, and causing Izuku to simply be unable to calculate or predict Gentle's movements due to all the bounciness of the girders, as well as causing the air to be bouncy. Izuku shoots Gentle, but he uses his Quirk to make the attack rebound, hitting Deku himself.

As Izuku stumbles, La Brava suggests retreating but Gentle plans on dealing with Izuku first. Gentle plucked out the rivets holding together one of the beams due to them being turned into elastic and he starts bouncing the steel beam like rubber. Gentle tells Izuku that he can't really remove the elasticity from an object and must wait for it to resume its own inertia. Izuku makes note of the old civilian with whom La Brava met before, who just happens to be standing by the construction site because of the commotion that was causing their fight.

Gentle jumps from the collapsing construction beam, distracting Izuku by forcing him to jump in the way of the steel beam to catch it and keep it from crushing the bystander underneath him. Izuku is angered because Gentle tried to harm a civilian, but Gentle retorts that he had no intention of dropping the beam on the old man but rather delay him, as he expected Izuku to avert that incident, assuring him that he was going to bounce the beam away from the civilian if Izuku didn't move. As the civilian runs away, Gentle uses his Quirk and turns a crane's hook into elastic, planning to use it as a slingshot to launch himself and La Brava towards the U.A.

It is 8:45 AM and Class 1-A have finished preparing for their live dance performance. Everyone is getting their places ready as well as their dresses. Shoto Todoroki notices that Izuku is not there and wonders what is taking him so long, to which Yuga Aoyama concurs, stating that he went out to buy rope. There are 15 minutes remaining until the start of the festival.

At the construction site, Gentle and La Brava launch themselves and are flying towards U.A. Gentle tells his partner that he is confident that his infiltration will succeed and then his name will become even more well-known as a man who accomplished a great feat. With no intention of letting them continue, Izuku uses his enhanced strength to lift up the beam with one hand, while using the other to unleash another Delaware Smash Air Force from a great distance at the pair of villains. Gentle manages to dodge Izuku's flick of pressured air in the nick of time and notes Izuku's tenacity.

As Izuku drops the construction beam, La Brava notes that they might have no choice but to use her Quirk.

Quirks

 * One For All
 * One For All: Full Cowl
 * Delaware Smash Air Force
 * Elasticity
 * Gently Rebound
 * Gently Trampoline

Locations

 * U.A. High School
 * P.E. Grounds
 * Heights Alliance
 * School Grounds: Forested Area

Battles & Events

 * U.A. School Festival
 * Deku vs. Gentle Criminal (Started)

Manga and Anime Differences

 * The episode skips the scene that features every U.A. student preparing for the festival from Chapter 175.
 * Instead, it starts off right where Class 1-A is preparing the night before the festival.

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