MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE Season 18 bends the battlefield with Gentle Criminal and Twice’s Sad Man’s Parade

MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE is giving villainy a more sophisticated appearance when Season 18 launches on July 29.

Gentle Criminal joins the free-to-play battle royale as its newest playable character, bringing an Elasticity-based toolkit designed around aerial movement, elastic barriers, sudden rebounds and the temporary power supplied by La Brava’s love.

The Season 18 trailer identifies his three Quirk Skills as Gently Arrow, Gently Rebound and Gently Avant. His Special Action is Lover Mode, giving La Brava a direct role in his gameplay even though she is not entering the roster as a separately controlled fighter.

Bandai Namco is also preparing an alternative Battle Style for Twice titled Sad Man’s Parade. Its full abilities and release date remain unrevealed, but the name points toward the most destructive expression of Twice’s Double Quirk: an accelerating army of clones capable of overwhelming an entire battlefield.

Season 18 will additionally introduce Chaos City Ver. 02 and another cosmetic rotation containing Gentle Criminal’s Quirk Boost Gear, Shigaraki’s Scorching Sands costume and further seasonal rewards.

The result is a season constructed around disruption. Gentle Criminal changes how players move through the environment, Twice threatens to fill that environment with duplicates and Chaos City is being revised to accommodate another generation of increasingly mobile and mechanically elaborate Battle Styles.

Gentle Criminal is not a conventional addition to the villain roster

Danjuro Tobita never considered himself an ordinary criminal.

Operating under the name Gentle Criminal, he described himself as a modern gentleman thief determined to enter history through carefully staged crimes recorded by La Brava. The pair uploaded their exploits online, although their ambition and theatrical presentation consistently exceeded the attention those videos received.

Gentle’s criminal career emerged from failure rather than cruelty.

He originally wanted to become a hero but struggled academically and failed to progress through the formal system. An unsuccessful attempt to rescue someone caused additional harm, destroyed his prospects and left him disconnected from the heroic future he had imagined.

Becoming Gentle Criminal allowed him to reconstruct that failed identity.

His crimes gave him an audience, a role and the possibility that somebody might remember his name. La Brava then provided the loyalty he had not found anywhere else, turning what could have been an entirely self-serving performance into a partnership neither character could sustain alone.

This makes Gentle different from many of MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE’s villains.

Shigaraki wants to destroy the structures surrounding him. All For One accumulates power and controls other people. Dabi converts family trauma into a campaign of exposure and revenge.

Gentle wants recognition.

Even when he fights seriously, presentation remains part of the objective.

Elasticity is almost perfectly designed for a battle royale

Gentle’s Quirk allows him to give elasticity to anything he touches.

That can include solid surfaces and the air itself. Once altered, the affected area behaves like an invisible trampoline or barrier, repelling people and attacks that collide with it.

In the anime, Gentle uses those properties for far more than direct damage.

He rebounds through the environment, changes direction in mid-air, creates elastic surfaces beneath his feet and turns apparently empty space into a defensive obstruction. Opponents can be thrown away from him without immediately understanding what they struck.

Those functions fit MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE particularly well.

The game’s battles are not confined to level arenas. Players climb buildings, cross rooftops, move through tunnels and attack from vertical positions while seven other teams compete for the shrinking safe area.

A character capable of creating new movement surfaces can interact with that geometry differently from a conventional Rapid fighter.

Gentle can use elasticity to reach advantageous elevations, escape an unfavorable engagement or redirect himself after an opponent believes his movement has ended. The same surface can potentially interfere with someone trying to pursue him.

The Quirk also gives him a natural balance between mobility and control.

He does not need to choose between an escape tool and a defensive barrier when the same elastic principle can serve both purposes according to placement.

Gently Arrow gives him a ranged way to begin the performance

Gently Arrow is Gentle Criminal’s Quirk Skill Alpha.

The trailer presents it as his most direct way of threatening enemies before committing to close range. The attack sends elastic force toward its target, giving Gentle a ranged option within a kit otherwise defined by movement and environmental manipulation.

That ranged presence is important.

A character built exclusively around elastic traps would become heavily dependent on opponents approaching in predictable ways. Teams controlling open ground could simply refuse to enter Gentle’s prepared area and attack him from beyond his effective range.

Gently Arrow allows him to participate in those exchanges.

It can pressure an opponent while Gentle changes position, contribute damage to a team focus and potentially create the opening required for one of his advancing skills.

The real balance will depend on its projectile speed, range, ammunition and recovery after release. Bandai Namco has not yet published the numerical properties or complete skill description.

It should not become the strongest part of his kit.

Gentle’s identity depends on combining elasticity with elegant movement. A highly efficient ranged attack that can be repeated safely would allow players to ignore the more unusual parts of his design.

Gently Arrow needs to begin the interaction rather than replace it.

Gently Rebound turns empty space into an obstacle

Gently Rebound represents the most recognizable part of Gentle’s Quirk.

The ability creates elastic resistance capable of repelling whatever reaches it. Depending on its final implementation, that may allow Gentle to block projectiles, interrupt an approaching enemy or redirect movement through an area that previously appeared unobstructed.

The strategic value comes from denying expectations.

Players understand the physical limits of a wall, rooftop or corridor. An invisible elastic surface changes those limits after a decision has already been made.

An opponent may rush through a doorway expecting to reach Gentle and instead be thrown backward. A projectile fired along an apparently clear route can be disrupted. Someone attempting to escape vertically may encounter a surface placed to change their trajectory.

Gently Rebound can also provide cover while Gentle helps a teammate.

MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE frequently requires players to revive allies, use healing items or remain in exposed positions while retrieving a civilian card. A temporary elastic defense could make those actions safer without functioning as another ordinary shield.

Its counterplay needs to remain visible.

Completely transparent barriers would create confusion, particularly when several teams are fighting inside a confined space. Opponents need a readable shimmer, boundary or activation effect indicating that the air has been altered.

The ability can surprise players without becoming impossible to understand.

Barrier placement could make Gentle a dangerous final-circle character

Elastic barriers become more valuable as the safe area contracts.

Early in a match, opponents have room to avoid prepared surfaces and approach from another angle. During the final phases, every route becomes more important and even a small displacement can push someone outside the safe zone.

Gentle may be able to use that pressure more effectively than his raw damage suggests.

A rebound placed near the boundary could separate an enemy from their team. A defensive surface may deny one entrance while Gentle concentrates on another. Vertical mobility can let him occupy rooftops or platforms that become increasingly difficult to contest.

This does not necessarily make him a pure support or control character.

His barriers appear connected to a broader combo structure. A successful rebound can place an opponent at the distance or angle required for Gently Arrow or Gently Avant.

The strongest Gentle players should therefore treat displacement as the beginning of an attack.

Throwing an enemy away is useful.

Knowing where the enemy will land is what converts the Quirk into a complete combat plan.

Gently Avant gives Gentle the entrance his personality demands

Gently Avant is the most explicitly mobile part of the revealed toolkit.

The ability sends Gentle forward with the elegance and exaggeration expected from a character who treats every crime as a performance. Elasticity allows him to accelerate, rebound and approach from directions that would be difficult for an ordinary fighter to reproduce.

That makes the skill useful in several circumstances.

Gentle can use it to close the distance after landing Gently Arrow, move between elevations or escape before an enemy team surrounds him. It may also connect into another attack when used aggressively.

The name reinforces his theatrical identity.

“En avant” is associated with moving forward, and Gentle rarely does anything without making the movement appear intentional. He does not merely flee or charge. He enters and leaves a scene as though La Brava’s camera is already recording it.

Mechanically, the ability needs enough control to reward creativity.

A fixed forward dash would provide mobility without fully representing Elasticity. Directional adjustment, environmental interaction or the ability to chain a rebound would make the move more consistent with the trailer’s description of darting freely around the battlefield.

Too much freedom would create another problem.

Characters capable of covering large distances with minimal commitment can become extremely difficult to punish, particularly when they also possess defensive tools. Gently Avant must expose Gentle when the player chooses a poor route or enters without a remaining escape.

Elegance should come from execution, not automatic safety.

His three skills appear designed to function as one elastic system

Gentle Criminal’s toolkit should be evaluated through its interactions rather than as three isolated abilities.

Gently Arrow provides ranged pressure.

Gently Rebound changes positioning and establishes control.

Gently Avant moves Gentle into or out of the situation created by the other two.

A basic engagement may begin with Gently Arrow forcing an opponent to move. Gentle can then place elastic resistance along the likely escape route or use Gently Avant to attack from another angle.

The sequence can also work defensively.

Gently Rebound creates separation, Gently Avant moves Gentle toward safer terrain and Gently Arrow discourages immediate pursuit.

That flexibility is likely to make him difficult to classify through one traditional role.

His mobility resembles a Rapid character. His barriers and manipulation resemble Technical play. His potential to create movement opportunities for teammates carries elements normally associated with Support.

Bandai Namco has not yet published Gentle’s official role or complete statistics through the Season 18 overview. The trailer instead sells him through function: he moves elegantly, distorts the battlefield and uses Elasticity to remain difficult to contain.

Lover Mode ensures La Brava remains essential

Gentle Criminal does not arrive alone in any meaningful narrative sense.

His Special Action is Lover Mode, the state created when La Brava activates her Love Quirk and declares her feelings for him. Her affection temporarily amplifies the power of the person she loves most.

The trailer represents the state through a visible power-up rather than making La Brava a separate fighter moving around the battlefield.

That is the most practical way to incorporate her.

La Brava is an exceptional hacker and Gentle’s emotional center, but she is not normally a frontline combatant. Turning her into a complete battle royale character would require inventing a combat kit that does not reflect how she operates in the series.

Restricting her to background dialogue would create the opposite problem. Gentle’s most important relationship would be reduced to cosmetic presentation.

Lover Mode preserves both characters.

La Brava remains the source of Gentle’s greatest power, while Gentle remains the character directly controlled by the player.

The exact benefits have not yet been detailed. The trailer indicates a temporary enhanced state, but Bandai Namco has not confirmed whether it increases damage, movement, defensive properties or several attributes simultaneously.

Its limitations will matter as much as its power.

La Brava’s Love Quirk is not something Gentle can activate continuously in the source material. A significant gauge requirement or long recharge would preserve that sense of a decisive intervention.

Lover Mode could change Gentle from evasive controller to direct threat

Without Lover Mode, Gentle appears designed to win through positioning.

He redirects attacks, changes movement routes and outmaneuvers opponents until they enter a disadvantageous angle.

The powered state can give that preparation a more dangerous conclusion.

A temporary increase in Elasticity’s force could strengthen his rebounds, extend movement or improve the pressure generated by his attacks. Even without changing every mechanical property, increased damage would make opponents less willing to challenge him while the state is active.

That creates an important rhythm.

Gentle spends part of the fight manipulating space and conserving his Special Action. La Brava then activates Lover Mode when the team needs to break a defensive position, survive an ambush or finish a weakened opponent before they escape.

The state should feel exceptional without making his ordinary form incomplete.

A character who is ineffective until a temporary buff activates becomes frustrating during every period when that resource is unavailable. Gentle’s core elastic toolkit still needs to function independently.

Lover Mode should transform an advantage into a performance worth recording.

It should not be the only reason the character can compete.

Gentle’s environmental utility could extend to his teammates

Elasticity is not inherently limited to Gentle himself.

An elastic surface can affect anyone who touches it. In MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE, that opens the possibility that teammates may be able to use some of his creations for additional movement or protection.

Bandai Namco has not yet confirmed the complete allied interactions.

Allowing them would give Gentle a valuable team function.

A slower character could use an elastic surface to reach a rooftop. A downed teammate’s location could be protected by a rebound barrier. A coordinated squad might use Gentle’s movement setup to attack from a direction the opposing team did not expect.

The same system creates potential frustration.

An ally who touches an elastic surface accidentally could be sent away from cover or lose control of an attack. Friendly interactions need to feel deliberate rather than becoming another environmental hazard the team must avoid.

Visual clarity and placement control will determine whether Gentle becomes a valued squad enabler or an unpredictable presence capable of disrupting both sides equally.

Gentle’s arrival completes a much longer redemption arc

Gentle Criminal first enters My Hero Academia as the principal antagonist of the U.A. School Festival storyline.

He plans to infiltrate the school and record the act, believing that violating its security will finally give him the historical significance he has pursued. Deku stops him before he can reach the event.

The confrontation reveals that Gentle is not indifferent to the consequences of his actions.

When defeat becomes unavoidable, he attempts to protect La Brava by minimizing her responsibility. His surrender begins a gradual transition away from the identity he had created through public failure and online performance.

Gentle later returns during the final conflict and uses Elasticity to prevent the airborne U.A. fortress from falling. La Brava simultaneously assists the heroes through her technical abilities.

The same character who once intended to infiltrate U.A. for attention helps save it when no audience is required.

MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE does not operate under a strict canonical timeline, allowing heroes and villains from different stages of the story to fight together. Gentle’s inclusion nevertheless arrives after the anime had shown the full scope of his development.

Players are not receiving a one-dimensional comic criminal.

They are receiving someone whose failure to become a hero never completely removed the instinct that led him toward that ambition.

Season 18 is built around villains who cannot be reduced to one label

Gentle Criminal and Twice share an important narrative quality.

Both are officially treated as villains, but neither is defined only by a desire to harm others.

Gentle created a criminal identity after losing his original future. Twice’s mental instability followed a traumatic collapse caused by his own duplicates, while the League of Villains became the first community in which he felt accepted.

Their loyalty is directed toward people rather than abstract villain ideology.

Gentle will surrender to protect La Brava.

Twice will endanger himself for the League members who gave him somewhere to belong.

Season 18 places those relationships directly into gameplay.

Lover Mode represents the bond between Gentle and La Brava. Sad Man’s Parade represents the moment when Twice’s loyalty and recovered confidence allow his Quirk to expand beyond its previous psychological limit.

Both mechanics become more powerful because the character stops functioning alone.

Sad Man’s Parade promises a radically different Twice Battle Style

Twice already has an Original Battle Style built around Dagger Shot, Self-Duplicate, Foot Boost and Mad Imitation.

That version mixes ranged knives, mobility and clone creation. His Special Action can produce an imitation of a defeated opponent, allowing Twice to expand his team through characters encountered during the match.

Sad Man’s Parade suggests a different priority.

In the source material, the technique allows Twice to produce enormous numbers of duplicates. Those duplicates can create further duplicates, generating a rapidly expanding force that becomes almost impossible to contain through ordinary combat.

The new Battle Style is therefore unlikely to be satisfied with one companion clone.

Its identity needs to communicate escalation.

That could involve creating several weaker duplicates, allowing clones to multiply under specific conditions or using a mass-summoning attack as one of its principal skills. The official trailer does not yet reveal the complete kit, role or release date, so those possibilities remain analysis rather than confirmed mechanics.

What is confirmed is the direction.

The alternative Battle Style is named after the largest expression of Twice’s Quirk rather than one of his ordinary knife or movement techniques.

Season 18 intends to put more Twice on the battlefield.

A clone army creates serious readability problems

Sad Man’s Parade is an obvious fantasy for Twice players and an unusually difficult mechanic for a battle royale developer.

MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE already contains 24 players divided among eight teams. Each character may produce projectiles, persistent effects, structures or summoned objects. Multiple Twices can already create additional clones.

A Battle Style centered on mass duplication could increase that visual density substantially.

Players need to distinguish:

• The real Twice from his own duplicates.
• Enemy clones from allied ones.
• Temporary combat duplicates from cloned characters created through another ability.
• Targets capable of using skills from visual distractions that disappear after limited damage.
• The original enemy player from duplicated versions occupying the same space.

Bandai Namco has previously acknowledged that identifying Twice and his clones can be difficult enough to affect how other abilities function.

Sad Man’s Parade cannot solve its fantasy by simply filling the screen with identical full-strength bodies.

Clone durability, damage, duration, artificial intelligence and targeting rules will all need careful limitations.

The army should feel overwhelming without making the match unreadable.

Sad Man’s Parade could transform area denial

Even weak clones can be strategically important when several occupy the same location.

They can interrupt healing, reveal hidden players, block narrow paths or force opponents to spend attacks identifying the real threat. In the final circle, every additional body complicates targeting and movement.

A clone-focused Twice may therefore function less like a conventional damage dealer and more like an area-control character.

The duplicates can advance while the real player remains behind cover. Opponents must either destroy them, move away or risk allowing the entire group to reach close range.

That pressure could create opportunities for Twice’s teammates.

An enemy concentrating on clones becomes vulnerable to attacks from another direction. A retreating squad may be driven out of a defensible building. A downed player can become difficult to revive while duplicates continue entering the area.

The danger is automatic value.

If clones locate enemies, apply substantial pressure and require no meaningful direction from Twice, the Battle Style may reward activation more than decision-making.

Sad Man’s Parade should require the player to choose where the crowd goes and what tactical objective it serves.

The new Battle Style must remain different from Original Twice

Alternative Battle Styles are most successful when they alter the character’s priorities rather than replacing the original kit with stronger versions of the same abilities.

Original Twice already creates a personal duplicate and copies defeated opponents through Mad Imitation. Its identity combines imitation with direct combat.

Sad Man’s Parade should move away from that individual-clone structure.

A mass-production style may sacrifice the durability or sophistication of each duplicate in exchange for quantity. It could reduce Twice’s personal mobility or ranged consistency while increasing his ability to occupy space.

That would create a genuine choice.

Original Twice would remain appropriate for players who want a versatile combatant capable of acquiring powerful character clones.

Sad Man’s Parade would serve players who prefer pressure, deception and large-scale disruption.

The alternative should not make Mad Imitation obsolete. Copying an enemy character is a different fantasy from overwhelming an area with Twice’s own face.

Chaos City Ver. 02 gives both characters a complicated battlefield

The Season 18 trailer also reveals Chaos City Ver. 02.

The original Chaos City was introduced in Season 9 as the game’s third principal stage. Its design emphasized underground areas, mixed terrain and the importance of understanding whether enemies were moving above or below the player’s current position.

A revised version can address how the roster and movement systems have evolved since that release.

Gentle Criminal should be especially effective in a dense urban environment.

Buildings provide surfaces and elevations through which his elasticity can create unconventional movement. Alleys and tunnels increase the value of rebound barriers. Underground routes give him ways to disappear from one level and re-enter from another.

Twice benefits for the opposite reason.

Confined spaces make clone groups harder to avoid. Multiple entrances allow duplicates to approach from several directions, while dense architecture can make identifying the original player more difficult.

Bandai Namco has not yet detailed exactly what Ver. 02 changes.

New structures, modified underground routes, altered destruction, additional mobility elements or a different safe-area pattern are all possible, but none should be treated as confirmed before the patch notes and Season 18 page are published.

The revised designation does confirm that this is more than a rotation adjustment.

Chaos City itself is changing.

Gentle could solve some of the original map’s harsh mobility divisions

Chaos City’s vertical structure naturally favored characters capable of rapid climbing, flying or covering long distances.

Less mobile Battle Styles could become trapped below an elevated enemy team or forced through predictable stairways and access points.

Gentle’s Elasticity may offer another solution.

If his created surfaces can assist teammates, he can provide vertical movement without requiring every squad member to possess a dedicated flight or grappling ability. Even when the surfaces only affect Gentle, his ability to scout and contest high positions can reduce the pressure placed on slower allies.

The revised map could also include structures intentionally designed around his release.

New open shafts, broken rooftops or expanded underground exits would give Gently Avant and Gently Rebound more opportunities to affect traversal.

Designing a map around one seasonal character would be a mistake if it made everyone else feel incomplete. Updating the geometry so more movement styles remain viable would benefit the complete roster.

Shigaraki enters the Scorching Sands collection

Season 18’s costume rotation includes a Scorching Sands appearance for Tomura Shigaraki.

The collection has already reinterpreted several villains through desert clothing, layered fabrics and survival equipment suited to extreme heat. Moving Shigaraki into the same visual line expands the coordinated options available for villain-focused squads.

The contrast is appropriate.

Shigaraki’s Decay destroys whatever he touches, while a desert environment is already defined by erosion, exposure and material breaking down over time.

Gentle Criminal receives Quirk Boost Gear, giving his launch a more technology-focused alternative to his default gentleman-thief appearance.

The design is particularly important for a character whose original silhouette is so recognizable.

His formal clothing, mask, cape and carefully shaped facial hair establish the performance before he uses a single ability. Quirk Boost Gear needs to preserve that identity while making the equipment appear capable of supporting Elasticity in a more demanding combat environment.

The trailer promises additional costumes beyond those two headline examples. Their complete roll periods, rarity categories and acquisition conditions will be clarified through the Season 18 schedule.

A new character still enters through a roll-driven economy

MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE remains a free-to-play game structured around seasonal Character Rolls, alternative Battle Style Rolls and Costume Pick Up Rolls.

The Season 18 trailer confirms Gentle Criminal as the launch character but does not yet provide the complete banner duration, drop conditions or pity exchange details.

Players should review the live roll information after maintenance rather than assuming that obtaining the season’s new character is automatic.

Recent seasons have placed their headline character inside an Original Character Roll accompanied by featured PUR costumes. Battle Styles arrive through separate Alternative Rolls later in the season.

Sad Man’s Parade should therefore be treated as an independent acquisition objective unless the final Season 18 schedule states otherwise.

Someone interested in both Gentle and the new Twice Battle Style may need to divide Roll Tickets across different release windows.

The reveal trailer establishes what is coming.

It does not establish that every new item will be available through one shared banner.

Gentle will be judged by how much control his elasticity actually provides

Gentle Criminal is one of the most conceptually suitable characters MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE could add.

His Quirk interacts with movement, projectiles, terrain and positioning—the four systems that define most battle royale encounters before raw damage is considered.

That suitability also creates high expectations.

Gently Rebound needs to feel like a surface Gentle created rather than another temporary shield. Gently Avant needs enough freedom to support inventive routes. Gently Arrow must give him credible range without becoming the only ability worth leveling.

Lover Mode needs to make La Brava essential without leaving Gentle weak whenever it is unavailable.

The kit will succeed when players feel that they are controlling where the next exchange occurs.

It will fail if Elasticity becomes a collection of ordinary dashes and projectiles carrying translucent visual effects.

Gentle is memorable because he turns the environment into part of his performance.

His Ultra Rumble version needs to do the same.

Season 18 lets its villains take control of the stage

Gentle Criminal enters MY HERO ULTRA RUMBLE on July 29 with one of the most unconventional movement systems in the roster.

Gently Arrow gives him a ranged opening. Gently Rebound reshapes contested space. Gently Avant allows him to move through the battlefield with the theatrical confidence expected from a self-proclaimed gentleman thief.

Lover Mode ensures La Brava remains beside him when the performance reaches its most dangerous stage.

Twice will follow with Sad Man’s Parade, replacing the controlled duplication of his Original Battle Style with a concept associated with exponential disorder. Chaos City Ver. 02 gives both villains a revised urban battlefield filled with enclosed routes and vertical positions capable of amplifying their strengths.

Season 18 is not introducing the most conventionally destructive lineup in the game’s history.

It may be introducing one of the most disruptive.

Gentle changes where players can move.

Twice changes how many targets they must process.

Chaos City changes the terrain beneath both of them.

Gentle Criminal spent years trying to create an event important enough for history to remember his name.

On July 29, seven opposing teams will be forced to learn it.