‘My Hero Academia: You’re Next’ Review – A ‘Fight First, Talk Never’ Superhero Anime Film

The Gollini mafia family is known as the largest criminal organization in Europe. Their leader, Baldo, was inspired by All Might’s final fight with All For One and took All Might’s final words in the closing moments, “Now it’s your turn,” to heart. Baldo nominates himself as the next Symbol of Peace.

As U.A. High’s Class 1-A is on a mission to capture a group of villains known as the Jailbreakers, Midoriya encounters a hostage situation involving a key member of the Gollini family. The hostage is a girl named Anna with a special quirk that allows others to enhance their quirk if they touch her. Meanwhile, a man called Giulio is trying to kill Anna for unknown reasons. Giulio wears an eye patch, has a machine-like arm that can transform into a gun, and a bitchin’ motorcycle that puts Kaneda’s from Akira to shame.

Baldo is now a sinister version of All Might, known as Dark Might, with a physical appearance similar to the former number-one hero. Dark Might plans to utilize Anna forever as he and the rest of the Gollini family intend to save Japan by destroying U.A. High and rebuilding everything as he sees fit.

I stopped watching My Hero Academia after the fourth season. The anime is loaded with cool characters and the action sequences are top-notch, but the dialogue is atrocious. Most speeches are only given to stretch out episodes, overstate the obvious, and express the lamest of emotions to an unbearable degree.

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This isn’t new to an animated series from Japan. I’m a massive fan of the Dragon Ball franchise and Toriyama was a mastermind of stretching things out beyond comprehension (Freeza’s claim of the fight on Namek with Goku will only last five minutes for example), but the bad outweighed the good for me with My Hero and I mostly watched the manga end earlier this year through random Twitter updates and was mostly content. 

You’re Next is a mixed bag if you attempt to consider it as a worthwhile entry in the My Hero Academia film franchise. The Gollini family consists of seven new characters all with insanely cool designs and no character development. They have a flying fortress like Bowser and a ridiculous set of powers as a whole that should make them unstoppable: nullifying quirks, slowing down time, trapping people in daydreams, teleporting, telekinesis, and alchemy.

All of the character development is given to Anna and Giulio. Anna’s quirk of overmodification and Giulio’s quirk of neutralization got him hired by her wealthy family to keep her quirk in check when it was at its worst. You’re Next explains why half of his body is mechanical and why he’s trying to kill her, but the big reason he agrees to work with Midoriya and the rest of Class 1-A is to see Anna smile again.

The entire budget for the animation of You’re Next had to be invested in the final ten minutes of the film. Admittedly, it’s an awesome finale. Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki go toe-to-toe with a crazy monster in a fast-paced sequence loaded with surreal character design and extremely loose creativity.

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However, the animation in the rest of the film is touch and go. It’s solid for most of the film, especially during close-ups, but around the time Endeavor and the rest of the pro heroes enter the fight the visuals take a nosedive. Everyone is suddenly colorful blobs with little to no detail. Different teams often animate different episodes or sequences when it comes to an animated series or film, but something is noticeably missing squarely in the second half of You’re Next.

My Hero Academia: You’re Next is still worth seeing, especially if you’re a fan of the anime television series. With its uneven animation, groan-worthy dialogue, and an array of one-dimensional villains, You’re Next feels like it’s going out of its way to let you know it’s unnecessary.

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