“Gold Tips Imperial”, the 20th episode in My Hero Academia’s fourth season, started off well with a great joke centering around Eri and Miro (as seen above)… only to follow it up with the worst joke of the entire series.
Seriously, Mineta telling Eri he will probably like her when she is ten years older made me want to throw up.
Is having a character say they will only care about a traumatized little girl if they become attractive when they get older supposed to be endearing?
Because it’s not.
I wish they had removed the joke.
It wasn’t funny in the manga and it definitely isn’t funny in the anime.
As for the rest of “Gold Tips Imperial”, it is a decent episode that sets up more events in the Cultural Festival to come.
Although, will say that even though the Mineta joke at the beginning is terrible, a lot of the jokes that come afterwards make up for it.
For example, the moment when a serious looking, sun glasses wearing Mina tells Deku that he has been fired, only to immediately clarify that he has been transitioned into another job is quite funny.
The funniest part of the episode though is the gags about Class 1-B, with Monoma declaring their play is named Romeo, Juliet and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Return of the Kings.
I’m so glad this joke did not get cut because of copyright because it gets a big laugh.
Another moment that gets a laugh is the recurring joke where Monoma gets whacked on the head by one of his fellow classmates after he gets carried away again.
This then leads into the reveal of the beauty pageant preparation where Nejire is going all out to try and win this year.
The episode goes full fan service with Nejire here, resulting in even Deku getting flustered.
Jokes aside, we got to see a lot of old characters again this episode, like Hatsume and even Shinsou, briefly.
Hatsume in particular had a big role, interrupting All Might training Deku where All Might reveals he once used support gear.
This leads into another funny moment when Uraraka is freaked out by Deku frantically searching for a video of All Might in support gear, calling himself a failure for not having seen it before.
However, this results in Deku accidentally watching Gentle and La Brava’s video, which will have a big impact in the next episode.
Speaking of Gentle and La Brava, once again they are the most entertaining parts of the episode, with our first look into their backstories, as La Brava is revealed to have hacked Gentle’s address to find him and wants to help carve his name into history.
The relationship between the two is genuinely sweet and quirky, and I cannot wait to see the rest of their backstory unfold.
They also get a lot of laughs, as Gentle struggles with basic technology and needs La Brava’s help.
Overall, “Gold Tips Imperial” is a standard episode of My Hero Academia.
It is mainly set up with probably the standout moments being the great gags and La Brava and Gentle’s scene.
Although, the Mineta joke certainly brought the episode down for me.