English Dub Review: My Hero Academia: You’re Next

Overview:

Hoping to be the best hero he can be, high school student Izuku Midoriya confronts a villain who imitates the hero he’s long admired.

Our Take:

One thing I caught myself thinking as I watched this movie was that since My Hero Academia is a seasonal show they’ve never had to do filler. Sure the first episode of a season has been a little bit but usually those are recaps. That leaves the movies to be you’re filler for this series and with the way the manga ended, I decided to embrace these movies when we get them. I don’t know how many more we’ll get because they are “soft canon”. What that means is that they take place and exist within the universe they just aren’t referenced a whole lot. Melissa from the first movie for example has been seen in the main series and some of her inventions have been referenced and used. But the status quo always has to be reset, in the second movie, for example, Bakugo gets One for All and that obviously can’t continue so those things get conveniently reset.

I appreciated how this movie got going from the start. It opened with action and for the most part didn’t stop from there. We are introduced to an evil version of All Might conveniently called Dark Might. We learn he is part of a mob family along with the other villains who join him which as a fan of old-school mafia movies, I enjoyed. The villains were mostly canon fodder with none of their quirks or motivations being explored a whole lot. Anna Scervino and Giuilo Gandini were the heart of the film to me. Anna’s quirk allows her to overpower others as long as they’re compatible with her but it also causes her pain and seizures. Luckily for her, Giuilo’s quirk is like Aizawa’s and neutralizes quirks but it’s only when he touches someone with his right hand and since he lost his hand in a recent accident this creates a problem.

If I was judging this movie off of visuals alone it would be a 10/10. They brought it for this movie and the final fight scenes in particular were a visual treat. During the final fight, I heard “Might+U” start to play and I wasn’t surprised but I was a little disappointed they didn’t let it play out.

The movie was a good time but there were a lot of times I felt like it was a little over the top. For a series about people with superpowers, My Hero Academia is pretty grounded but I felt this one got a little wild. If you just shut your brain off and let your eyes enjoy the amazing animation the movie is worth it. But the story goes how you expect it and because of the nature of its place in canon nothing remarkable happens that will change the foundations of the story. I still found myself getting goosebumps and feeling hyped up for the fights so there’s still something of value here.