Review of 'My Hero Academia: Two Heroes'
1st film in the 'My Hero Academia' series
The first big screen outing for the “My Hero Academia” anime set in a world where almost everyone has a superpower known as a “Quirk” and those who show promise are sent to The Hero Academy to train to become professional heroes who face the on-going battle with villains having superpowers as well. The series is focused on the journey of “Deku”, aka Izuku Midoriya (voiced by Daiki Yamashita), who was born without any superpowers but in whom world's greatest superhero “All Might” (voiced by Kenta Miyake) sees the heart and spirit of a true hero so passes to Deku his quirk, the greatest of them all: “One for All”. “Two Heroes” is set in series three of the long-running television anime series and sees Deku travelling with All Might to the “I-Expo” set on a highly secure floating island where scientists research Quirks. Deku is surprised when many of his fellow students from The Hero Academy are there as well and quickly gets involved in a quirk contest. Things start to go badly at the evening banquet when villains seize control of the island and hold All Might, and other professional heroes, hostage. It is up to Deku and the rest of the students to save the day…
“Two Heroes” is a suitably big story that has time to develop and along the way provide more background into the characters we know and love from the television series. The amazing, impressive settings and action sequences are much more intense but, unlike the series, battles are fully resolved before the end of the film (I am a bit put off by many anime series where battles go on and on and on often with episodes set in the middle that consist of little more than the characters posing and making speeches to one another - though, it has to be said, “My Hero Academia” is better than most in this respect with few such episodes). As with many such series, there are a lot of illogical things going on here. Yes, it is a bizarre setting anyway, but it has some degree of logic about it that often gets thrown out of the window for sake of a good story and this certainly is that. We are along the fun of the ride.
The series has grown quite serious from it's more playful first season and that is certainly echoed here with the stakes very high and the jeopardy to the characters quite real. The writers are not afraid to kill characters off so you can never be really sure it will end well for everyone. This is certainly true here where even the best of the best are shown to have their weaknesses and failings.
The film looks great and will be a huge amount of fun for fans of the series. It is “in your face” Japanese super-powered animation with frenetic action throughout along with silly, childish humour, which makes it such a joy (perhaps guilty) to watch. Though there is an introduction to the series at the start of the film new viewers may find themselves quickly lost so it is suggested that you watch the television series first then after episode “Save the World with Love” in series 3, watch this.
Rating: “Really good but I have some issues”
Review Date: 2025-02-02
Directed by: Kenji Nagasaki
Studio: Bones
Year: 2018
Length: 96 minutes
Genre: Japanese Animation
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7745068/