It’s time to take a look at the new My Hero Academia film that came out. My Hero Academia (Although I usually just call it My Hero Academy) has become a really popular series and is now one of the big 3. Gone are the days when Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece were the 3 kings. While One Piece has remained in existence we’ve got a new generation of titles. My Hero Academia, Black Clover, and Demon Slayer are definitely those titles and MHA is the only one to currently have a film. Demon Slayer’s is coming up soon but now MHA has 2 so it has been on a nice roll. This one improves upon the first film and makes for another great experience.

The film takes place right after the Overhaul arc. The heroes are on high alert since the League of Villains now have bullets that can erase a person’s quirk. The Pros stop them from delivering more cargo but this results in a villain known as Nine escaping and joining back up with his friends. The 4 of them decide to take down the planet and since Nine can steal quirks he is a pretty big threat. In his first big scene he basically takes down a city in the span of a minute. The last quirk he needs is on an isolated island known as Nabu.

Meanwhile, Class 1A is currently on a vacation of sorts in Nabu. Calling it a vacation doesn’t really do their mission justice though. This is their chance to show that they can operate as real heroes. No pros or villains should be around so they work on smaller errands. The town loves them except for one girl named Mahoro. She wants to prove to her little brother Katsuma that heroes are all fake. Deku and the others will have to convince her otherwise, but it’ll be difficult because Nine and his partners won’t lose so easily. They are here to take names and their target is Katsuma. Can the students protect these two kids until back-up arrives?

I’m glad that the heroes have their provisional licenses now because it’s always annoying when the pros tell the students not to help. This time Deku and the others can go full blast from the start. Deku is stronger than most pros at this point anyway so it makes sense. The vast majority of the film takes place on the island with a lot of battles so that’s definitely pretty awesome. The opening scene is also a lot of fun though. We get a pretty quick skirmish with the League of Villains and Endeavor also gets in on the action. Dabi gets a good amount of hype here since he is able to block Endeavor’s first blow although he is ultimately defeated. We don’t get to see the pro heroes do anything after this so it was nice of them to get a solid scene here.

There are some brief interludes with Hawks and All Might during the movie but they never actually amount to anything. I suppose just seeing Hawks was hype for his fans but he really had no impact on the film so I don’t think he even needed to be here. If you cut him out than nothing changes. I was expecting him to get a mini fight at the end of something. Something sort of like Shigaraki’s role at the very end of the film. It was brief but pretty hype. Admittedly the other character in the scene looked pretty bad as I don’t know what he could have expected here, but his end was inevitable. This also served to help Shigaraki’s hype.

All right, let’s go back to the island. One fun thing about the set up here is that every hero gets to help out this time. Class 1-A all chip in even though not all of them are big fighters. At this point in the series there are some characters who have heavily surpassed the others like Deku and Bakugo then Todoroki, Kirishima, and Tokoyami. The rest aren’t necessarily combat types although they can fight when needed. There are 4 villains running around here and they’re all pro level which makes for some pretty tough battles. The fight scenes are pretty great. I’ll leave the best one for last. The guy with the puppets against Bakugo and the others was pretty fun. My only complaint there would be that Kirishima was heavily nerfed.

In this film Kirishima and Todoroki were given a lot of shade. Both of them are way stronger than how they looked here. Everything Todoroki tried was completely useless against the wolf’s attacks and Kirishima didn’t even get to put up a fight against anybody. His only good moment was blocking the energy blast at the end but he should have been using Red Riot from the start. Meanwhile Tokoyami looked pretty good here. While he ultimately did need some help against his opponent, he was the only student to hold his own even if briefly against one of the 4 big enemies. His quirk has a lot of room to grow and so I could see him becoming a pretty big fighter by the end of the series.

Uravity also looked really good here. We got to see her look a lot more determined than usual as she used her gravity powers quite a bit. As I mentioned, the class just got to shine here a lot more than usual. While Deku and Bakugo are clearly the power hitters, but the others are at least making contributions. From the villains Mummy gets the smallest role, but still has a good fight to himself. Then we have Slice who seems a lot more rational than the other villains and doesn’t panic very easily. Her hair abilities are quite lethal in a fight. Chimera is the most impressive as he was a beast in combat. He easily exceeded the kids in battle. Their plan to use the toxin to paralyze him was quite good but Chimera surpassed even that. He was probably a little too strong as this was the only battle where it was hard to see the heroes taking him down. It was still a clever move from Todoroki and Kirishima though. Chimera was my favorite villain next to Nine.

Nine is the standout villain here. He’s got a lot of determination and his reasons for wanting to change the world seem pretty personal. What I like is that we don’t really get to see much of a sob story though. Villains really don’t need one. All we need to know is that Nine has to be stopped, but that he won’t make it easy. The fact that he can absorb quirks through combat makes him scary tough and he gets more and more broken as the film goes on. By the end he’s clearly one of the strongest villains we’ve seen in the whole series. I dare say that only All For One would likely surpass him here. The villain from the first film would be close but I’d put him under Nine.

When you watch the film you get a really good look at how powerful the guy is. He keeps on getting up long after the point where you figure he would have been down for the count. He only has one weakness and his pure drive is able to help him get past it by the end. The final fight almost gets meta with how everyone’s fading out and moving across the terrain. Nine being able to comprehend and block such moves is totally crazy.

Bakugo is one of the main characters here and he definitely looks great. The guy’s as brutal as ever as he constantly talks about destroying the villains. Bakugo takes each fight seriously even if he doesn’t really see the value in the less exciting parts of the job. He’s always got a bit of a point behind his actions although he never bothers to share them. The film has a good Goku and Vegeta dynamic with the two of these characters. This film really seems to paint Bakugo as the more talented fighter while Deku’s sheer stats are higher. I’d say this seems pretty accurate since Bakugo trains on his fighting style so often.

Then you’ve got Deku who is still quite the contrast from Bakugo. He just loves being a hero and will take on any task no matter how small it may seem. Deku doesn’t take things personally and just rolls with each insult. This doesn’t mean he’s a pushover when it comes down to a fight though. Since he has One For All, Deku’s powers are always at a high level. He can only use 20% of this power and yet he is already a heavyweight. Once he gains 100% mastery he will really be impossible to defeat.

As you can probably tell from how I described the fights, the animation here is top tier. All of the energy attacks look fantastic and the animation is always moving. There are no shortcuts to be found here and it’s all very theatrical. The battles with 9 are particularly impressive as I liked how his energy barriers were used. Through dialogue we know that the characters can’t see these fields so they are animated for our benefit. It’s also a way to show us the contrasting styles between how Bakugo and Deku fights. The soundtrack is also a lot of fun. While I didn’t notice any new themes, the themes from the show work as well as they ever have. I probably would have chosen a song that’s a little faster than Eri’s for the final fight, but it’s a pretty emotional song so they were going for a different angle.

The film’s ending will vary for some. I’d say it was on the weaker side. The film comes close to making a pretty big decision and then cops out on it. I understand why the film backpedaled on that one, but they definitely should have just gone with it and lived with the consequences. That would have really made the film incredible and people would have lost their minds walking out of the theater. The ending slightly weakens the emotional impact of the film but it’s not something that ultimately limits the film much. We still had a great ride with terrific fights all the way through. Even the kids were pretty reasonable for a change. I thought the sister did a reasonable job in trying to turn her brother against the heroes without going overboard as the kids usually do in these kinds of films.

Overall, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is a pretty great film. The opening may take a little time to get to the good stuff but once the fighting starts there is really no turning back. The onslaught of nonstop fighting is great and this film will have a whole lot of replay value. The final fights with Nine are particularly impressive. The animation is stellar and no matter which student is your favorite you’ll have a good time. I can’t think of any other recent film that was able to juggle so many different characters at a time. The power levels may not always be perfect, but the film did a good job of keeping them pretty well balanced the whole time. If you haven’t seen this film yet then you should definitely check it out. It’s the kind of film that is definitely a lot of fun in theaters.

Overall 8/10