My Hero Academia: You're Next

 Deku and His Hero Academicians ended their decade of manga school days just a few months ago. They're expected to wrap up their anime school life with next year's eighth season. But before that, they'll headline a new anime movie, My Hero Academia: You're Next. It debuted just in time for that last manga chapter in Japanese theatres and is now going Plus Ultra in US theatres now.

Let's introduce our villain first. His name is Valdo Gollini, a mafioso who happens to be a huge fan of the world's best superhero, All-Might. When All-Might retired, the hero finished off his farewell speech with "It's your turn." Valdo, like much of the world, has a Quirk, and his lets him turn gold into anything. So, he makes himself look like All-Might and sets out for his turn to be a superhero. In actuality, "Dark Might" and his family want to lord over the world with their strength. He's basically a Superman fanboy who thinks his greatest attribute is that he's stronger than everyone, and not that he uses that incredible strength for good.

A little foreshadowing for the next film I'm covering.

Meanwhile, Deku and his classmates are rounding up escaped supervillains when the Gollinis show up with their hostage, a rich girl named Anna Scervino. Anna's Quirk magnifies other Quirks at her physical expense. Dark Might uses Anna to turn his flying yacht and several city blocks into a flying fortress, which draws in everyone in range. Fortunately, that includes the class, and they set out to fight the Gollinis on their turf. Giulio Gandini, Anna's cyborg butler, reluctantly joins Deku to find his charge. 

The screenplay gives plenty of showtime for Deku and his classmates, even more so than last time. Sure, the final battle boils down to Deku teaming up with two of his main classmates, Bakugo and Shoto, but several of the "extras" get several scenes to show off their Quirkiness. That's more than, say, watching news coverage in a hotel room (like plenty of them were in the first movie, Two Heroes). A few of the actual extras seem invested in Giulio when he exposits his backstory with Anna, which is a neat bit of animated acting. While this is an interquel between the sixth and seventh seasons, you won't be completely lost if you go in blind. You may be confused when Deku talks to "ghosts" (the previous users of his Quirk, long story), but that's just in one scene. 

The main crux of the film is Anna and Guilio's relationship. Their shared history is kept a mystery, which begins with Giulio trying to mercy kill Anna. Except, we don't know the mercy part for much of the film. It's still intriguing as the film unravels Giulio's motives before the audience and Deku. That suspense is rewarded when Giulio comes clean and the film flashbacks to them meeting and enjoying life at her estate. I'm sure you've seen their dynamic before, but you'll still care about these two. It makes the Gollinis quite detestable that they don't even care about Anna's physical condition. It makes it rewarding when Anna and Giulio earn a happy ending.

Studio Bones continues their Quirky excellence with its animation. It gets going good when Deku leads a team of his classmates against a trio of villains, one of whom can turn a truck into a sentient Mad Max machine. The flying yacht, both in its normal form and its super fortress form, is quite impressive. The different environments in the super fortress, which include a maze, an amusement park, a castle, and snowy mountains, are all splendid to look at. The new characters designed by creator Kohei Horikoshi are as memorable as the rest of the series' favorites. Those include a teleporter/psychic duo, a legion of brutish monsters, and a wizard cosplayer whose DnD LARP is cut short. The most memorable fight, of course, is the very long final battle, which is a good showcase for Yuki Hayashi's score.

Yes, the final battle is so long that it practically has two climaxes. That's the only time it felt longer than its actual runtime of 110-minutes. That aside, My Hero Academia: You're Next's anime superheroics make this a great afternoon matinee. The relationship between its two new characters is a great throughline. There's quite a bit I've left off here, and I think you'll be impressed with a few of them. It'll be a long while before it comes to home media, so see it soon if you want to see it in theatres at all. As for me, it's time to go from anime heroics to real heroics.