Well, this March has been going by
swimmingly. Three months into 2020 and we’ve got a pandemic on our hands.
Stressful. Let’s forget about that for a little bit and talk about something
fun. Anime!
No, I’m not talking about My
Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. Instead, I’m going back to its first movie, Two
Heroes. Why? Because I’m trying to do this more or less chronologically,
just in case some of you read my stuff before reading/watching the series, and
while Anime movies are largely self-contained, Heroes Rising contains a
number of spoilers for the series overall. I’ll probably do Heroes Rising
during the gap between season 3 and 4, as the biggest spoiler will be covered
this season. Just so you know.
Anime movies, at least ones based
off of Manga, are largely self-contained original stories. Example, all of the
Dragon Ball Movies. None of those connect to the source material, even ones
like Cooler’s Revenge, where the antagonist of the film is the
sibling of a main series baddy, evil emperor Freeza’s older brother Cooler.
While the characters within the film are the same as they are in the show, and
may even refence events that happened prior in the show, no one will bring up
what happens in a movie within the show. With few exceptions at any rate. Two
Heroes is largely the same, but unlike many others, they try to fit the
story in where it could work. The movie itself takes place sometime after the
sports festival and yet before the semester final arc. That enough preamble?
Let’s get to it.
Also, this movie isn’t available on
Funimation.com for some reason. But you can rent it on a few streaming sites. I
went with Amazon.
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| Oh my God, you can see his face soo clearly! |
The movie opens with a pair of
villains robbing a casino before running through downtown and causing as much
damage as possible. One’s a giant monster, the other fires missiles. What a mismatched
pair. They’re only stopped by a young man in a “Plus Ultra” jacket. Holy crap,
we can see All Might’s pupils!?! Yeah, this is All Might at around 20 or so,
back when he was more as Toshinori than All Might. He’s intimidating enough to
scare off the villains, they run off before he can hit them but thankfully, he is
given a ride by his friend in a turbo speed car, a fella named David Shields.
They race after the villain pair, Dave’s tech disabling the smaller villain’s
rocket attacks, and All Might punching at and finally disabling the pair with a
California Smash! All Might laughs his manic laugh as Dave explains to the
watchers that he’s All Might, a hero from Japan, and that the world will one
day know his name. They end up skipping the lecture they were frantic to get to
during the first attack to stop more villains.
We then flashforward to present, where
sickly All Might is waking up, he was apparently dreaming about this event on a
flight. He and Izuku are landing on I Island, a mobile artificial island where
scientists and inventors of the Hero world work and live. All Might was heading
out to the island to see an old friend, and offered Izuku to come along as the
kid was on his summer break. Or so he says. Izuku suits up and All Might bulks
up for the cameras as their private jet starts landing.
 |
| Really not sure if the blow to the face or hitting the ground is going to hurt more... |
After Izuku gives a quick schpeel
about the background of My Hero Academia, world of heroes, no powers, got All
Might’s powers, and all that jazz, Izuku and All Might disembark. All Might
quizzes about what Izuku knows about I Island; It’s a mobile island that
scientists and researchers in the hero field can work without fear of villains,
it’s got security on par with Tartarus Prison, and that no one has ever
successfully attacked it. I added that last part, but Izuku pretty much said it
with how impregnable the island is supposed to be. Oh, and people are allowed to
use their quirks freely so there are a lot more displays of power.
After All Might gets through the
mandatory “OH MY GOD IT’S ALL MIGHT!” mob, he tells Izuku about wanting to meet
up with his old friend Dave. Before they can do much else, they’re met by a
young woman on a pogo stick. Okay, as far as entrances go that’s not THE
weirdest, but it’s certainly in the top ten. This is Melissa Shield, Dave’s
daughter. She and All Might are fairly close, with her calling him Uncle Might.
Turns out, she was the one to invite him out and she did so to surprise her dad
to celebrate the latest breakthrough of his. It’s after this short back and
forth that All Might introduces Izuku to her. Like another tech geek he knows,
she immediately looks over his costume. Close attention from a woman causes
Izuku’s “male” to flare up slightly, causing him to turn red with
embarrassment, before All Might gets her to focus again. Good thing Uraraka
isn’t there, or else she’d probably start being passive aggressively annoyed at
another gear head that gets too close to her favorite green head. The three go
to meet Dave.
Meanwhile, a mysterious group has
arrived on I Island, claiming they’ve infiltrated it and are here to “pick up
the goods.” Well that’s ominous.
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| All Might sure has a soft spot for passionate quirkless kids. No idea why. :^P |
Melissa meets her father and his
coworker Sam at his lab. She gives All Might a set up line and he rush in and delivers
with gusto. Dave is completely astounded with his arrival. Once again, after a
few hellos, All Might introduces his protegee. Izuku gushes about Dave a bit, as
he knows the man designed all of All Might’s costumes. Dave has Melissa show
Izuku around the Island while he and All Might have a private talk. As the two
teens walk off, Izuku tells Melissa to call him Deku.
All Might reverts back to his
sickly form as Sam leaves as well. He’s coughing pretty bad but thankfully not
coughing up blood in front of his old friend.
Melissa shows Izuku around the
island, mostly showing him tourist stops and the tourists themselves. Lots of
pro heroes are in town for the expo. There’s even one that looks like Godzilla!
Melissa shows him an expo of new hero gear, and the two kind of geek out a
little. Most of the machines she shows off were based in part on tech her
father designed. She admits to wanting to be a support scientist like her
father. She laughs a bit about how Izuku was fanboying out, much to his
chagrin, when who should show up but Uraraka of all people. The girl you have a
crush on is seeing you alone with an attractive older girl, Izuku, now is the
time to Panic!!!! They’re saved from a somewhat awkward moment by Yaoyorozu and
Jiro’s polite cough. How odd that they’d all be there. Izuku introduces Melissa
to the girls. Melissa start’s mentioning All Might, but Izuku cuts her off and
convinces her to try to keep his connection to All Might on the downlow. That
whispered conversation probably doesn’t help Uraraka’s nerves. While the group
gets tea, they find out lightning shooting Kaminari, and sticky ball throwing
Mineta are working at a café on the island. Iida is there too, as his family
got tickets due to the Iida house being long time heroes. And Yaoyorozu
explained that she got tickets the same way, and brought Jiro and Uraraka as he
guests after they won a big rock-paper-scissors tournament the Class 1A ladies
had for the honor. The other ladies are there, but they can’t go to the expo. This
is getting pretty convenient, next Bakugo is going to …
 |
| Izuku might have a rival for presidency of the All Might Fan Club ... Other than Bakugo. |
Bakugo totally shows up along with
Kirashima. They’re fighting robots on a tournament course. And, low and behold,
5 seconds after seeing Izuku, Bakugo leaps at him and starts demanding what
he’s doing there. The calmer Kirishima explains that Bakugo got invited because
he won the Sports Festival, and he kind of sniped the rage-aholic’s plus one.
Izuku ends up getting forced into trying the villain course, in which in his
full cowling form gets 16 seconds, just below Bakugo’s 15 second record. Which
obviously infuriates Bakugo almost as much as Izuku beating him would have. The
green haired lad is saved by Todoroki popping in, because of course, and freezing
the course to get the new 14 second record. Right, he’s there because his dad
got an invite, snubbed it because he’s a dick, and obviously Todoroki isn’t
passing up on a free trip. The boys all rush in to restrain Bakugo’s freak out
at being bested.
The baddies picked up the goods and
learn that All Might is there. That can’t possibly be good.
 |
| Oo, this could have gone horribly. Thank god for other friends to break awkward tension. |
All Might meanwhile is getting a
body scan from Dave, who’s clearly freaked out by the results. He’s terrified
to see that All Might’s strength is waning, and even faster than before. All
Might hides that he passed on his quirk and that’s why his power is dropping so
much. Dave explains that Japan’s crime rates are so low because of All Might,
he keeps it around 6% while the average is around 20%. I suppose knowing the
person you believe to be the guardian between civilization and chaos getting
close to a forced retirement would put anyone on edge. All Might tells him to
keep hope as he believes the new generation will step up.
The UA students agree to meet up
before the party and go as a group. They got Mineta and Kaminari tickets too,
to reward them for working hard. Melissa asks to show Izuku something.
Dave tries to tell All Might
something as he hulks up and walks away to attend the party. But chickens out.
Dave thinks back to how he met All Might, when he saved him from a lab
explosion when they were in school. He made All Might his firsts costume in
thanks and went on to Support All Might through most of his early career in
America. Is it any wonder he grew to idolize All Might as much as he did, given
how connect their young adult lives ended up being?
The baddies start infiltrating the
main building where the party is going to be help. Oh, that can’t be good.
Melissa takes Izuku to her room to
show her something. Why do I sense that Uraraka wouldn’t be down for this? It’s
because I ship them and any obstacle to them hooking up annoys me, that’s why. Anyway,
Melissa shows him some of her academic awards and mentions she’s actually
quirkless before showing Izuku her invention. She made a support item, a
wristband that could become a full glove that should reduce the strain on
Izuku’s hands when he uses his power. She thinks it could sustain three of All
Might’s punches, so it should work well with Izuku, since they seem to have
similar powers. How convenient. Iida then calls and yells at Izuku for being
late.
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| Hahahahahahaha, two goons, against these three, and they act like the goons have a snowballs chance in hell. hahaha |
Izuku meets up with the crowd. Iida
is irate that Izuku and the ladies are late. To which I must point out, while
most stereotypes about women are just that, I’ve yet to see one arrive on time
to a party. Ladies got to primp and primping takes lots of time. Just saying. The
girls do show up shortly after Izuku, and then only ones that are missing are Bakugo
and Kirishima, whom are revealed to be wandering around hopelessly lost. Crap. That
said, I think they’re all going to be thankful for being late in a second. During
the event, All Might is called up to give a speech. Just before he can speak,
the security system goes off. Everyone is required to return to their loggings
while they’re under lockdown. We’re shown that most of the rest of 1-A are on
the island, but didn’t swing invites to the party. That’s a fun little Easter
egg. A moment later, the lead villain in an iron mask, Wolfram, walks in with
his goons, announcing that they’ve taken over I Island. The security drones
will start shooting civilians if the heroes don’t cooperate. He then activates
emergency restraints to capture All Might and the other heroes. All Might could
probably have broken free at his full strength, but obviously he’s running on
fumes at this point.
The teen heroes decide to go for the party as
All Might is there and can help them. Wolfram nab David Shield and his assistant
Sam for reasons unknown. All Might struggles against his bonds, but sees Izuku
from the skylight. Using Jiro’s earphone jack, they learn what has been
happening. Iida suggests that the students make an escape, but Todoroki and
Izuku refuse to just give up. Izuku gives an impassioned speech that all they
have to do is free All Might to save the day. Melissa tells them that they just
need to reach the top floor of the tower to reactivate the security system. The
students agree to try and stay out of sight and reactivate the security system.
Izuku tries to get Melissa to stay behind, you know because no powers, but
she’s the only one who knows how to fix the system so they agree to take her. Izuku
goes back to the balcony and gives All Might “The Look” to let him know he’s
not running. He’s annoyed, but not surprised.
The bad guys take David and Sam to
the top and force them to get working. They’re supposed to open a special vault
for the villains.
The students start running to the
top. They’re on only about floor 38 of 200 when they start getting winded, but
they soldier on. They’re able to keep running all the way to floor 80, where
they discover the higher floors are blocked off. Mineta, the idiot, opens a side
door that alters the baddies to their presence. Wolfram tells his goons to lock
them in on the 80th floor. They’re able to go deeper into floor 80
into a “plant factory” thanks to Todoroki’s freezing and Iida’s high-speed
kick. Melissa explains this lab is about seeing how different plants react to
quirk usage. They hide in the flora when they notice the villains coming up an
elevator.
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| Sigh, shame he's like 97% looks. |
The students watch in fear as some
of the goons walk by. They call out the students, causing the hidden kids to
tense up, but it turns out they actually only spotted Kirishima and Bakugo. One
of them lobs a blast wave of some kind at the two. Todoroki protects them from
the villain’s attack with an ice wall, he lets the others escape on an iceberg
and tells them to keep moving. He, Bakugo and Kirishima will handle the goons.
I actually feel a little sorry for the idiots that will have to face off
against this trio. The baddies are a dude that hulks out into an ogre form and
a dude who can fire off a destructive wave of energy.
The others discover the next level
halls are locked down as well. They notice a hatch that could lead them to the
outside, but they’d need someone to open from that side. They force Mineta to
do it as he’s small enough to fit and climb on the outside with his sticky
balls. He climbs along the outside at high speed for the promise of girls
loving him. Obviously, the actual group of girls present just give him a “good
job” as the little creep doesn’t deserve much else despite his usefulness.
The baddies notice the kids on the
higher floor, but can’t really do anything about it as their two free goons
have got their hands full with the other three. Kirishima takes a heavy hit
protecting the other two as they dodge around the villains. Bakugo uses his
Howitzer Impact on the purple Ogre, knocking him out cold. Maybe. Or maybe he’s
dead. Who knows? The other guy tries to blast Bakugo, but only gets some of his
shirt and sweat. Which works like Nitro Glycerin. Todoroki blasts him with a fireblast
and knocks him out too. They get Kirishima out of the hole he was knocked into,
and Bakugo actually thanks Kirishima for protecting him. The villains activate
the drones, and open up the floors from 100-130. At 130, they run into rooms
filled with robots. They try taking out a bunch of drones by having Kaminari
blasting them with electricity, but they’re too insolated. When that doesn’t work,
they throw a much of some kind of grenades to confuse them and try to stick
them Mineta’s balls. That only slows a
few down, so Iida and Izuku try their hands. Well, hands and feet. Izuku puts
on Melissa’s gauntlet and unleashes 30% of his power, highest amount to date.
He sends robot’s flying. Iida grabs Kaminari and they run for the exit.
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| "I am here! You may commence wetting your pants at any time" Ha, he didn't actually say that but you totally read it in Chris Sabat's voice. |
Back with the heroes and villains,
Wolfram gets told about the kids escaping the bots. They make it to floor 138
before even more drones attack them. They have the added issue of not being
able to go ham because this is the server room and damaging the servers could
cause harm to the city. Melissa, Uraraka and Izuku try to circle around while
the others hold off the robots.
Sidenote, Super impressed Uraraka is doing so much running in sensible
heels. The kids hold the bots off for a little while, but then Iida’s engine’s
stall, Yaoyorozu runs out of raw materials to make ammo, and Mineta’s scalp is
bleeding. Give that that only leaves Jiro, who left her combat speaker boots at
the hotel for more party appropriate shoes and Kaminari who’s mind is still
fried standing, the kids are captured fairly easily.
The three remaining kids go out to
the outside to the wind turbine generators the lab has. At this point, I’m not
even going to ask. The plan is to jump up to the top and use an emergency
access door to get inside. Using her quirk, Uraraka makes them weightless and
throws them skyward. More drones arrive to attack, with Uraraka on the ground
by herself. She has to keep her powers active on Izuku and Melissa, so she has
no defense. They almost make it to the top when the drones attack Uraraka! Whom
is then saved at the last second by Bakugo. You go, angry kid. The other two
join Bakugo. There’s a mad scramble to fight the bots and make sure that Izuku
and Melissa make it to the tower. Izuku unleashes a full powered punch to knock
themselves through the wall and into the tower. Wolfram gets an update on the
status and starts to rush to the top to intercept them. Izuku is attacked by
one of the goons with knife hands, but is saved by Melissa distracting him and
then Izuku knocks him into the stairs.
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| In the Dark, Evil stirs. |
The duo make it to the top, to find
that Dave and his assistant are working on something in the storage room. They
pop open one of the vaults, and we learn that Sam and Dave were working with
the villains to get said device. It’s revealed the device is a power amplifying
device. The device was taken by the board of directors at I Island and sealed
away for fear of what the device could do. Sam is the one that suggested hiring
goons to steal the device. Melissa is obviously a bit stunned to hear that her
father might count as a criminal mastermind, but is even more surprised to hear
his reasoning. Dave designed and build the power amplifier to use on All Might.
He knew his friend’s powers were waning and seems truly terrified at the
thought of living in a world without All Might to protect it. Melissa counters
with saying that All Might wouldn’t approve of using villains to help him. Dave
is somewhat shocked to hear about the methods the group of “actors” Sam hired
crossed ethical lines. That’s when Wolfram walks in and reveals that “PSYCH”
they really are villains. He uses some kind of metal manipulation power to
capture Izuku. Sam brings the device over to Wolfram, as he was in on the whole
thing. As his reward, he gets shot in the shoulder by Wolfram. What? Criminals
betraying their mole? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Oh, that’s painful sarcasm.
He’s saved from execution by Dave jumping in the way and taking the next shot,
and they’re both saved by Melissa distracting him long enough for Izuku to
break free and rush him. Wolfram tries to bury Izuku in concrete and metal.
Young Midoriya tells Melissa to run while he’s distracting Wolfram and restart
the security system. Which she does. Realizing things are going haywire,
Wolfram buries Izuku and grabs Dave, telling the doctor that he’s going to mass
produce the amplifier for him.
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| It's weird to see the phrases "It's working perfectly" and "Damn it" so well illustrated. |
Izuku frees himself and runs to the
roof to stop the villains escape. He leaps and grabs the helicopter, before
being knocked off back to the ground again. Thankfully, he slowed Wolfram long
enough for a freed All Might to leap to the roof and slam the helicopter back
down to Earth. The Other students also arrive to give backup. Unfortunately,
Wolfram is a bit of sore loser, and elects to use the Amplifier on himself. So,
it’s Izuku and All Might, with a little backup from the other
heroes-in-training vs. an amplified villain. Can they do it? Watch the film and
find out.
I was tempted to give the full-full
breakdown, but this is six pages already without my final thoughts, so I should
probably finish.
So, the good first. The film is
visually impressive. It’s animated by Studio Bones, which does the main anime,
but it’s clear that they threw a ton of money at the animation so it looks
spectacular. I enjoyed seeing the students that they focused on in this one.
Jiro, Yaoyorozu, Kirishima and Kaminari are great and I’m always happy to see
more of them. I also enjoyed the addition of the Shields. Melissa is a fun
character, being kind of an alternative to Izuku. Both are powerless
individuals that are still trying to do the right thing and be heroes in their
own rights. I was also happy to see that they didn’t do too much “fan service”
with her. I get enough of that in the main show. And her Dad’s motivation was
rather interesting. Doing something evil for money? Boring. Doing something
evil to help your friend and/or the world, much more interesting. I just wish
they could have focused on that plot line a little more than just have it as
something hinted at in the beginning and revealed at the end. But then this is only
an hour and a half movie, with credits, so they obviously had a lot of ground
to cover in a short amount of time.
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| The end of All Might is pretty scary in universe, but out, we know someone is getting ready to step into his giant shoes. |
I think there’s very little bad
here, but there is some. I rolled my eyes so hard at how hard they contrived to
get everyone onto I Island. Here’s the breakdown, Iida, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki
being there, plausible. They’re all part of respected hero families and would
probably get invites. Bakugo being there, a little harder to swallow, but he
did win the Sports Festival which is a big deal in their world, so it’s
feasible. But Kirishima, Uraraka, and all the others? You’re letting upwards of
a dozen random high schoolers onto your highly secure government facility? Da
hell! I don’t hate that they’re there, just maybe next time make it a class
activity if you want them all there. Which they do in the next film, just
saying. As far as villains go, Wolfram is kind of boring. He’s more or less an
extra for most of the movie, only popping in to yell orders when things start
going off the rails. Sure, his powers are cool, and the *spoiler* reveal that
he has multiple powers and is in league with All For One was interesting. But
when your most interesting feature is proof of working with a more dangerous
big bad, you did something wrong. And finally, I wasn’t a huge fan of the
Gauntlet. I’m fine with it in principle, but the fact that a high school senior
was able to design something that powerful in her free time boggles the mind.
If it’s so relatively easy to make, I’m shocked Izuku hasn’t ever received a
replacement. I know, it’s an anime film and I went at length to describe how
they’re almost never canon, but typically when a McGuffin like the Gauntlet
breaks, it’s a rare or one-of-a-kind item. Not something a seventeen-year-old
can whip up on the sly. And don’t give me the, oh, her dad was revealed to be
criminal so she lost all her privileges on I Island explanation. She’s proven
to be an incredibly talented student, was instrumental in getting the island
back into working order and is the de facto niece of All Might. A school board
would have to be high on schrooms to think expelling her would be a good idea.
All I’m sayin.
So yeah, overall, it’s a fun movie.
There are weaknesses to it with its lackluster villain, the contrived arrivals
and one-use power item, but it’s not enough to make me dislike watching the
movie. Its problems stem from being a side story that was made to fill in some
character background and to just highlight our heroes on a big screen
adventure. So long as you treat it as a fun bit of filler, you’ll be fine. If,
somehow, you saw this movie without seeing the series, I’d highly recommend it
as it’s just more of the films good stuff and significantly less of the bad.
Oh, and you should also see Heroes Rising at some point, as it improves
on the My Hero Academia film formula in every way imaginable. But I’ll
get to that in a year or two. We’ll finish out March and probably continue
through April with some My Hero Academia Episodes, so look forward to those. Or
stop reading my stuff for a few weeks as I get my anime kick out of my system.
Whichever you want to do. Have a goodnight, and stay safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35346595
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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