Despite my earlier gripes with Gentle and La Brava, I liked this ending. I feel for their relationship woes and liked how Gentle took responsibility for La Brava's codependency. I don't have much else to add.
@Cyclone_Baroness:
I think he also wasn't getting good grades. So it wasn't necessarily just his quirk being a problem.
But why wasn't he getting good grades though? We still don't know that. Was he just not smart? Did he slack off on his studies? Does he have some sort of mental deficiency or physical disadvantage like Quirkless Deku? Does he have other obligations that keep getting in the way of getting his schoolwork done like Koichi in Vigilantes being late for his exam because he had to save a kid?
Without anymore info, we can only assume the simplest answer (lacking smarts or laziness). And… neither of which makes me too sympathetic for him (maybe the former can if you execute it in a way where Gentle REALLY put all his effort and we saw more of how his parents were affected, like in the Simpsons episode Bart Gets an F). I mean, it's always slightly sad when a student doesn't do well in school if they're not a jerk since education is a necessary requirement for opportunities later on in life. But as far as we know, My Hero Academia's education system is "fair" in accurately testing whether or not students have the mettle to become Pro-Heroes. If Gentle couldn't make the cut, then... boo hoo, I guess. He wasn't cut out for it and let his naive ego get to his head.
Gentle did get in trouble for saving that random civilian by breaking the law in using his Quirk publicly, but I saw that more as the straw that broke the already extremely flawed camel's back than it being that one bad day out of his control costing him everything.
That's my issue with his flashback. Horikoshi wants to give him a selfish motivation? Fine. But don't try to make his backstory out to be sympathetic like he was unfairly wronged by the world if his goal all along was something rather petty (unless that goal ties into becoming psychologically unhinged from some sort of tragedy, which can be validly sympathetic to a degree). Deku in this chapter explaining his dream was a hundred times more inspiring than the dozen repetitive monologues we got from Gentle talking about making a mark in history and vaguely inspiring others without going into detail.
Gentle's flashback would work a lot better for me if the story acknowledged that he didn't take school seriously enough and needed a midlife crisis to make him realize his past errors, not just breaking out of depression. I really don't know what exactly this flashback wants me to feel, but if it's sympathy, it has issues.
@Mr.:
Ultimately he is miles ahead of Chisaki in my eyes, but there is still that nagging feeling for something more. I do believe that this chapter goes a long way in showing that Gentle isn't JUST a self-centered braggart, as he was willing to sacrifice himself for La Brava. So time will tell if Gentle and La Brava will become more well-rounded as the series progresses–I hope that they do when we see them next.
I agree with both this and your first post. Welcome to the forum!
@Nectar:
Sucks they got caught. Really sucks. Again, I have no problems with their backstories. People have selfish dreams, I think it makes them more realistic. Luffy wanting to be the Pirate King is selfish, but the One Piece narrative is turning the success of that dream into an unintentional mission to protect/save the world.
Luffy has valid ideals when it comes to promoting freedom and pride though. He's "selfish", sure. But it's always in this peculiar but charming "mutual selfishness" way where he empowers other people to stand up for their dreams and value the people they care about above everything else as the greatest treasure.
Gentle only looks selfish to me though. Not in a particularly malicious way, but still simply self-centered and using his altruistic escapades as more of an excuse to get attention than really being into heroism. Which is fine! That's unique and, like you said, realistic. He's a small-time villain, that works for him. But doesn't mean his dream deserves a sympathetic flashback that's supposed to make it seem cool and inspiring. At least not without going into more detail about how he might use his fame to better society or help somebody. I feel like Horikoshi could have improved there. He "helped" La Brava, sure, but that's because she's an obsessive stalker and Gentle likes to talk about this vague goal of changing the world without ever actually going into much detail as to how or why.
If Gentle got his selfishness and criticized more outside of one retort from Deku and the sympathy angle was mostly concentrated on Gentle and La Brava's relationship rather than their backstories where both of them are almost kind of unstable dislikable people (maybe that's too harsh as I still like and slightly pity them, but stalking is no joke no matter how cute/shy you are and fame can easily look shallow, especially if you don't look like you put the work into achieving that) then Gentle would work much better for me as an antagonist. That kind of "villain" where their goals are obviously selfish or corrupt, but their camaraderie with their allies and whoever they protect executed in a very endearing way. Which doesn't fully justify what they're doing, but makes them still feel human and deep enough to like.