My Hero Academia Season Four Episode Five, Let’s Go, Gutsy Red Riot Review: Rise of Kirishima.

I said in my Top 10 My Hero Academia Characters post that Kirishima became one of my favourite characters because of the Overhaul arc and the fifth episode of season four “Let’s Go, Gutsy Red Riot” is the start of that.
This really was Kirishima’s episode, building up his development for this arc nicely with a great starting point as we see him begin his work study with the hero Fat Gum and Tamaki.
Speaking of these two, they are also two characters who I am excited to see more of as they grow as characters and use their quirks.
Fat Gum’s quirk is absorption, which allows him to entrap enemies, and Tamaki’s quirk is manifest, which allows him to take on the qualities of whatever he eats.
It is Kirishima’s quirk that takes center stage this episode though, with him developing a new technique Unbreakable to fight a minor villain (which may be a reference to the M. Night Shyamalan film, or maybe I’m reaching).
This villain takes quirk enhancing drugs, forcing Kirishima to use his new move to protect civilians in an epic moment that was perfectly adapted from the manga.
The music and animation here are stellar and the only problem is that it is a bit distracting at how stupid the civilians are by not getting out of the way.
Although, this does not take away from Kirishima’s achievements, thankfully, with him beginning his development for the season upon remembering some advice from Bakugo.
This also goes to show just how much Bakugo has changed because he most likely would have yelled at Kirishima when they first met rather than give his friend the advise he needed.
Back to Kirishima, after Fat Gum manages to successfully capture the villain we get brief flashes to Kirishima’s backstory, which will play out in a future episode.
I also like how vague these flashes are because they will probably leave many anime only viewers wondering what they are seeing until it is officially revealed.
Along with Kirishima’s development, we also get our first look at the quirk removing bullets developed by Overhaul, which the minor villain uses to temporarily remove Tamaki’s quirk.
This bullet is revealed by Shigaraki in his meeting with Overhaul, which leads to Shigaraki agreeing to a form of partnership, though under very tense circumstances.
Less tense is the opening fight sequence where we see Ochako and Tsuyu on their work study with Nejire and the pro hero Ryukyo.
Their scene was mainly used to show what the two Class 1A students are doing and to  highlight Nejire’s quirk but it has fantastic animation in the opening fight.
It is also here that a meeting between many pro heroes led by Sir Nighteye is first brought up.
This meeting to discuss the threat Overhaul poses will appear next episode and fully unveil the disturbing truth about his quirk removing bullets.
Overall, “Let’s Go, Gutsy Red Riot” is another solid episode of My Hero Academia with a great starting point for Kirishima’s character arc.