Boku no Hero Academia 176 Review: Gentle vs Deku

My Hero Academia, Chapter 176: Deku VS. The Gentle Criminal

I forgot to do a review last week, although that's mostly because there's not really that much interesting stuff going on beyond the sudden twist of Midoriya meeting Gentle before the sports festival instead of during it. It's not a bad chapter, nor is it a bad twist, but at the same time there's really not that much for me to talk about since it's mostly just their meeting.

This chapter begins with Gentle telling La Brava to continue filming, whatever happens, while Midoriya is all "I have no one to rely on but myself. We get to see Gentle's quirk, Elasticity, in full swing, which causes him to 'bestow elasticity to whatever I touch", like the air... which he displays by causing a blast of force to knock Midoriya backwards.

And then after a bout of "how impressive!", Gentle just books it out of the scene, noting how powerful Midoriya must be after surviving and essentially shaking off a blow from Gentle's Elasticity. These two are really  joke villains, aren't they? Gentle jumps straight into the air and gives this whole speech about the spirit of youth and how he dislikes school festival, while La Brava recognizes just who Midoriya is. Midoriya himself gets a brief set of flashbacks both to his promises to Eri and to how Jiro is putting in her all for the school festival, and we get a combination of Midoriya putting together All Might's training and Ashido's dancing lessons, and then flicking off a machine-empowered "Delaware Smash", hitting Gentle right in the back mid-air.

It's genuinely well-done, and while this arc has been extremely mellow, it does lead to this pretty emotional and well-done moment that combines the various aspect that Midoriya's been going through, and while Gentle's not taken out and merely wounded, it's still a pretty cool moment, culminating into a full-on brawl between Gentle and Midoriya as the two crash into a construction site. Pretty great stuff, honestly, and while, again, it's not the most interesting of storylines, it does end up making me care a whole ton.