My Hero Academia The Movie: Heroes: Rising Review: Going Plus Ultra Never looked So Good!
Promotional poster for My Hero Academia The Movie: Heroes: Rising
Kohei Horikoshi, creator of Boku No Hero Academia, or as its English name, My Hero Academia celebrated the fifth-year anniversary of My Hero Academia gracing the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, a magazine that has brought amazing shonen manga to the masses for years. The success of My Hero Academia has spawned tons of new media from the franchise including spinoffs, like My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, action figures, funko pops, clothing and accessories, and even video games with a sequel to the first game dropping in just a few weeks. Just this past week, Heroes: Rising, a follow up to last year’s first My Hero Academia movie dropped in US theaters.
Many people, myself included, entered the theater with high hopes for the movie as a precedent had been set. Caleb Cook, who is a translator for the manga for Viz Media, translated a quote from Horikoshi that had the internet buzzing. “In a certain sense, one could say that this movie will be finale-ish for MHA. Let me clarify: the movie is going to feature one element that I wanted to use in the final battle of the manga.” This quote set the internet ablaze as fans of the series began to wonder what spectacular “finale-ish media they were going to feast on soon. Heroes: Rising did not disappoint.
Opening with a slew of familiar faces, audiences in the theater were greeted a few Pro Heroes, those whose have trained and are hired to protect the world from villains, both that we have been introduced to in the anime and ones we haven’t, fighting against the League of Villains. As fans of the series know, the League of Villains is a group that has been a major thorn in the side of the heroes, both pro and in training, wanting to twist the world into the image of their leaders All For One and Tomura Shiguraki.
Without giving too much away, fans will be surprised to see, as I was, that the story takes place after the events of where the anime currently is and is more in line with the current manga chapters. Many characters, like the newly crowned number one pro hero Endeavor, sport items and appear to be placed in the time period where they have received some of their best character development, such as Endeavors face scar.
Our young heroes, who are the faces of the series, are tasked with learning the ins and out of what it really means to be a pro hero during what seems to be a summer vacation style situation, much like with the first movie. However, things take a turn as they greeted by the villain Nine and his crew whose ambition is to change the world, crafting it into one in which Nine is the ruler and only those who are strong can survive and thrive.
Heroes: Rising does an amazing job with pacing, never rushing the story, and taking the time needed to show that our protagonist and his classmates are simply that: students and young teens who want to follow their dreams of being pro heroes and helping people. Not only that, but the movie allows the character to breath and grow, showing new sides to them that many may have only just started seeing if they are anime only viewers, such as the growth of one Katsuki Bakugo. Even while showing such growth in characters, like getting to see Midoriya and Bakugo working together as two sides of the same coin of their all time favorite hero All Might, it’s a movie that can still be enjoyed by newcomers of the series, able to foster a need to watch the series to see just where they characters came from and to see where they are going.
My favorite part of the movie was seeing the amazing fight scenes on the big screen, a huge change from seeing the episodes on television, but even more so, it was seeing and hearing how passionate the fans of the series was in the theaters. To be able to geek out and express the excitement of watching these young pro heroes commit amazing feats and work together to overcome the odds made the experience that much more real. If you can, see this movie with others and enjoy the experience.
Boku No Hero Academia, also known as My Hero Academia, can currently be viewed on platforms such as Funimation Now, Hulu, and Amazon Prime in both English sub and dub, and also on Crunchyroll in English sub. However you wish to enjoy it, be prepared for the ride of a life time as my hero continues its fourth season!
