Note: This review is based off a screening of the English subtitled version of the film.
By the third movie it is obvious there is a built-in audience for a product-franchise, even more so when it’s “My Hero Academia” who on the strength of its anime adaptation by Bones became one of the biggest Manga-Anime properties of the past decade. With the property at such saturation levels there exists the temptation to play to the crowd that got you here. My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission , the third feature animation based on the franchise again directed by Kenji Nagasaki, certainly plays well to a crowd that can recognize every character in the background as the World Heroes Association spans the globe to battle the rising terrorist cult Humarise. That doesn’t stop World Heroes’ Mission from being an honestly good introduction to MHA as a property short of starting the anime or picking up the first tankōbon.
Prior MHA films are more directly tied into the seasons that proceed them. World Heroes’ Mission features timeline placement, but also can be easily understood as a wild bit of work-study for Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, and Shoto Todoroki. The weight of history hangs over any long running franchise, perhaps more so when the property revolves around the always lore obsessed genre of the superhero. World Heroes’ Mission ably carries that and gives something close to a quintessential example of Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki’s personalities. Director Kenji Nagasaki, writer Yōsuke Kuroda, and the animation team turn World Heroes’ Mission into an enjoyable stand-alone mission that longtime fans will enjoy, and the uninitiated can easily engage with. To draw a comparison it’s similar too, if not quite as good, as showing someone Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train without any prior knowledge.
The success of Kōhei Horikoshi’s manga, and the subsequent anime adaptation in the West is supported by the overall rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and cinematic superhero in general (along with other larger changes to distribution of anime and manga over the decade.) With the success of the cinematic superhero came a renewal of narrative tropes and interest by audiences. Intentional or not, one of the real joys I’ve derived from My Hero Academia (and to a lesser degree “My Hero Academia”) is seeing how the various writers, directors, and artists all interact with the concept of the Superhero and make it work as a Shōnen manga or anime. As these feature animations tend to be the plot of World Heroes’ Mission is a straightforward skeleton that allows for a ludicrous amount of action in the films 105-minute running time. That skeleton, however, could be understood as remixing elements from “X-Men” stories like ‘God Loves Man Kills’ and films like The Wrong Man. These understandable elements open World Heroes’ Mission up to new audiences, they just don’t know it yet.
With the general separation of the feature films and anime series, it is something of a bummer that an element like Humarise is likely relegated to this one-off adventure. Their genocidal xenophobia isn’t exactly unique but acts as interesting texture in the context of MHA. While their leader Flect Turn is eventually given that surprising amount of sudden depth-realization the melodramatics of Shōnen storytelling allows, it would’ve been interesting to explore them and the other self-loathing Quirk’d who work with Humarise more. Outside of Flect, due to narrative constraints, they are reduced to visually interesting heavies with little substance.
World Heroes’ Mission is a transnational affair which results in the series cohering everything through parallel editing. From various teams in the field trying to find the Trigger Bombs Humarise have planted to the final battle as Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki take on various foes all at once. Cross cutting everything together in this way can be somewhat tiresome in spots but also allows the film to achieve a decent amount of tension and never let one fight get too boring. The movie is clearly built around franchise lead Midoriya, what the parallel editing allows for is a sense of scope and scale to be achieved.
As previously mentioned, this film is filled to the brim with action, primarily chase sequences. In the early going of the film these continual chase sequences are worth the price of admission with several physics defying only-in-animation tracking shots. Looking back, I don’t even think they cohere spatiality the way the tracking shot is meant to guarantee, they however capture the affective thrill of these chase sequences. The downside to these chase sequences is that it sets a bar the film is unable to match in the latter sequences, particularly the fight between Flect and Midoriya. The choreography for Flect and Midoriya is repetitive and kind of boring, justified due to the nature of how their quirks interact.
After three feature films and five seasons of animation, My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission is a knowable quantity from the outset. It isn’t a groundbreaking piece of storytelling but features enough unique spins on things and endearing storytelling that it never gets dragged down. Those novel spins open the film up to being a good example of what the larger Academia franchise can be, offering an easy viewing experience that isn’t predicated on watching 260 minutes of a first season or reading the first three tankōbon. It is an immediate and self-contained adventure; the kind of product western superhero publishers and their corporations wish they could produce at a regular clip.
