Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. You saw the title so know what’s going on this week. Yeah, I’ve talked about this a number of times but My Hero Academia has really gained worldwide popularity and of course everyone wants me to review which I would like to but only after the anime is truly completed. In the meantime, let’s enjoy. . .the movies. The movies of Academia are good, but don’t really stick out. Most likely because on paper they look good, but unfortunately they drop the ball in one area of the movie. As was the case with World Heroes’ Mission. Released in 2021, this was the third movie in the series and there was a lot of hype surrounding it. Let’s start the mission and take a look. This is MHA: World Heroes’ Mission.
The movie starts by introducing us to this quirkless group of humans known as Humarise an anti-quirk religious group (who look like they belong in Fire Force) who believe that all humans with quirks are diseased and must be eradicated (right away I do like the idea of this group. For most of the series we’ve seen the world through the eyes of the 80%, but how does the 20% feel? Are they afraid, are they jealous, does the mere thought of knowing that a metahuman can kill them at any time keep them paranoid? We’ve seen this idea explored in the DC and Marvel universes, so a religious group with the goal of destroying those with quirks in a world they dominate doesn’t seem too far-fetched. After all we saw what Izuku’s life was like before he got a quirk. Who’s to say other quirkless humans didn’t go through the same thing he went through if not worse?). The leader of this group is a guy named Flect Turn (and why are they following this guy, he obviously has a quirk. Look at him: https://i0.wp.com/www.gamerfocus.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/My-Hero-Academia-pelicula-3.jpg?resize=740%2C428&ssl=1) who unleashes a gas known as the Trigger Bomb on a city (no relation to Studio Trigger). The bomb causes people with quirks to lose control of their powers and die (haven’t seen gas this deadly since an all-you-can-eat buffet at Chipotle). We then go to Otheon where Izuku along with other heroes including Katsuki, Shoto, Endeavor, and many more have been called in to respond to this attack. The plan is to hit Humarise’s hideouts all over the world simultaneously and take them out before another bomb goes off. The group of heroes invades the branches and captures the members but they don’t find Flect or the bomb anywhere. The heroes are told to go into standby and await further directions.
In the slum part of Otheon we meet a new character named Rody who works a number of sketchy jobs in order to provide for his younger siblings. He gets tasked with helping rob a jewelry store where our young heroes Izuku, Katsuki, and Shoto respond to the call and go after the criminals. Katsuki and Shoto take the criminals while Izuku goes after Rody. We get a good chase scene between the two (the camerawork during this chase is really good). Despite Rody’s best efforts Izuku manages to catch him and when they open the briefcase all they find is documents. The jewelries, on the other hand, were picked up by a person named Beros by mistake who is working with Flect and she has a quirk (this religion is built on hypocrisy). Apparently, Beros has been brainwashed by Flect into believing that her quirk (which is cool, she can create magic arrows and uses her hands to form a bow) is a sin and the only way to redeem herself is to help him achieve his goals. After the misunderstanding, Rody tries to go back to the spot where he dropped the briefcase in the hopes of finding the real one with Izuku trying to help him. The local police show up and surround Rody (scene here: https://youtu.be/3B8SN9ADf1M) where Izuku helps him escape and then the two get attacked by Beros (scene here: https://youtu.be/v6CSSq36czQ. By God, the camerawork in this movie is good. I also like how Izuku is using the Blackwhip to swing around like Spider-man. Kohei has gone on record saying how much of a Spider-man fan he is. Even calling No Way Home his favorite movie). Izuku and Rody manage to escape Beros and the police and once Izuku contacts the others, the police release a statement making Izuku a wanted man for mass murder (really? This guy? Mass murder? I wouldn’t buy that for a second). Sure enough the police are part of Humarise and made up the story to put heat on Izuku. In order to protect him and Rody, Izuku says they’re going on the run and will make their way to the neighboring country for safety.
While Izuku and Rody are on the run, Shoto discovers that the briefcase they have belonged to a member of Humarise meaning whatever is inside that briefcase is important information that Humarise can’t risk the heroes seeing. Back with Izuku and Rody, we do learn a little bit about him. We see how he has dreams of being a pilot and used to live the good life with his siblings and single dad, but then one day his dad disappeared on them and joined Humarise (https://youtu.be/EYWbatgKN4g). Rody and his siblings were quickly ostracized by their neighbors and were forced to live in the slums. Wanting to return to his siblings, Rody stupidly calls the police to hand the case over where he gets attacked by Humarise members with quirks (and the hypocrisy continues). Izuku saves him and manages to escape even after getting shot by Beros. They hide out in a cave and the two finally bond with each other thanks to this incident.
The two continue to travel to the country’s border where they reach it but it’s heavily guarded. They get spotted by Beros who attacks them but they get saved by Shoto and Katsuki (scene here: https://youtu.be/C6DEYlRQXSk). After a quick fight scene, Beros kills herself and the group finds the secret of the briefcase and just in time. Flect announces that he’s going to release the Trigger bomb in 25 countries within two hours causing widespread panic (on a global scale). Back with Izuku and the others, they find a chip with a video file belonging to a scientist named Alan who was kidnapped along with other scientists by Humarise and forced to work for them on the Trigger Bomb. Alan says Flect’s plan is to gather all the heroes at the branches of Humarise, set the bomb off and kill all the heroes thus making society collapse on itself and kill any stragglers to create a quirkless world (with him as the ruler no doubt). Rody’s dad was one of the people who was kidnapped by Humarise and thankfully he created a key to disarm the bomb at the cost of his life. Thanks to Katsuki’s computer skills (who knew he was a techy? The guy is just full of surprises) they manage to find Flect’s secret base and plan to go there to stop the bombs (three student heroes against an army of quirkless believers. Pretty tough odds. For them). The group lets everyone know about the bombs but they’re being guarded by members of Humarise whom you guessed it, are using quirks themselves (you forsake people with quirks yet don’t mind using them yourselves!? You’re all hypocrites!). Rody flies Izuku, Shoto, and Katsuki to Humarise’s secret base where they attack head-on while Rody gets captured. Katsuki and Shoto each have their own battles (scenes here: https://youtu.be/Z54aET9aG7c and https://youtu.be/DKO2wp94cX4) while Izuku makes it to the main hall and gets confronted by Flect whose quirk is reflection, he can deflect any attack sent his way (hmm~, blue and can deflect anything. He’s a Wobbuffet). What makes things worse is that his quirk is always activated. He can’t control it and because of it everyone he ever cared for abandoned him which is why he sees quirks as a disease (you’re still a hypocrite). As Izuku struggles to beat Flect, Rody shows up to make a deal. He’ll give Flect the key in exchange for keeping Otheon safe. Of course this is a trick to lower Flect’s guard and Rody sneaks past him to go deactivate the bomb while Izuku continues to fight (we could really use Eraserhead right about now). As Izuku continues to fight and not give up, Flect’s quirk finally reaches its limits and Izuku finally unleashes his brand of justice on him to win (scene here: https://youtu.be/tNZkMG5OBAs). Rody manages to stop the bombs from going off and the world is saved (well, that was fun. Anybody up for some shawarma?). In the aftermath, all the Humarise members get arrested (give them all quirks), everyone returns home, and Rody gets a job working at a bar (where the bartender looks like Danny DeVito. Again, never in a million years did I think I would see him in an anime).
Final Thoughts
World Heroes’ Mission is probably the weakest of the three movies. While the animation is similar to that of the show, the visuals and camerawork are spectacular and really helps this movie stand out from the others. The villain this time is decent. Flect is a hypocrite, but he had a good quirk, and explored a part of the world that fears quirks and believes that they’re evil expanding on the world of MHA. The only real downside with this movie are the characters. The character of Rody isn’t really all that interesting or memorable when compared to the characters from the past movies. There’s also a few slow parts where there’s not much going on which is a shame as I felt it could been used to help us get more interested in Rody’s character but nope, he and his siblings just have a pretty standard story with not much change to his personality. While it was cool to see all the students go off to different countries with their respected teachers I was mad that a lot of their activity was offscreen and we didn’t get a chance to see what they were doing. In hindsight, this movie really does feel like it would have worked better as a part of the anime in some way. It would have given us more time to see the other characters, explore and develop new characters, and show off the villains more. I really did want to see just how far Humarise’s fangs were in society and how they manipulated the masses.
Final Score
World Heroes’ Mission gets a 7/10. If you want to see some cool visuals and camerawork from this series then you’re in for a treat with this movie. This is probably the one movie I think you can skip over if you didn’t want to see it, but if you wanted to watch I say go ahead. This one will probably be the last movie in the series and at least the movie series is ending on a decent note. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.