My Hero Academia Dives into La Brava's Emotional Origin Story

My Hero Academia's fourth season is close to the end, and that means that the Cultural Festival arc has finally reached its climax. The fight between Deku and the surprising new villainous duo of Gentle Criminal and La Brava had come to an end with the latest episode of the series, but it took a strange turn as the fight progressed and revealed new sides of Gentle and La Brava's lives before they became villains. The anime might have revealed how the two of them first met, but it kind of pegged La Brava as a obsessed fan. But that's not totally the case.

The latest episode of the series dives more into what lead La Brava to this point as she seems much like Gentle in the fact that they are relatively nonviolent. It's why fans have been quick to want to protect the villain, and her origin shows how the cruel world around her led her not only to Gentle's doorstep, but his loving acceptance of her inspires her fandom.

Episode 85 of the series reveals that during La Brava's first year in middle school she wrote a confession letter to her crush, but it was ridiculed for being several pages long. They called her a stalker for it, and this hurt her feelings so much that she turned into a recluse who stayed in her home and searched the internet all day. She was even considering suicide, but soon stumbled on one of Gentle's videos.

Seeing how upbeat he was about changing the world, La Brava was inspired by Gentle and sought him out to help him achieve his dream. And as we learned about Gentle's past, he was also looking for acceptance from the outside world and was following this villainous path to do so since it was literally thrust upon him. The duo then found comfort in one another, and Gentle even started to darken his eyes to make La Brava feel less self-conscious about the dark circles that surrounded hers during her depressive episode.

The two of them have a pair of heartbreaking origins in that they were outliers from the traditional hero world that found comfort in one another. It's why Deku putting an end to their dream made him seem like the villain this time around, and puts a whole new perspective on those in this society that don't fall directly into either the hero or villain categories. But what do you think?

How do you feel about Gentle Criminal and La Brava's origin stories? Does it put a new light on the way this hero world works? Does it explain why La Brava and Gentle are so close well enough? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!