Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 4: You're Next

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with My Hero Academia. The first few seasons felt fresh, with a simple narrative and well-directed fights that made it stand out in the anime sphere at the time. However, by the middle of season four, I lost interest and struggled to finish it. After a few years away from the series, I saw the movie playing at my local theater and, with nothing better to do, decided to give it a chance.

To my surprise, I was pleasantly impressed. Maybe it was because I went in with no expectations, but the movie turned out to be thoroughly enjoyable. The plot ... wasn’t anything revolutionary—it had the usual clichés and anime tropes we’re used to—but it was simple and engaging, which I appreciated.

What really stood out was the production value and fight direction. Studio Bones put their foot on the gas, and it shows. The first and final fights were especially well-crafted and directed, with the soundtrack further elevating the intensity. The new characters, while not deeply developed, had a nice dynamic with the usual crew, and the villain, though not groundbreaking, had believable motivations that made him a decent antagonist.

Overall, I’m happy to say it was a solid presentation for what it aimed to be. It delivered in the key areas of a battle shounen, and those strong elements carried the rest of the film to a respectable 7/10.

I don't think this review has spoilers, but I do mention why I think the plot was dumb in various ways. I don't specify any events or characters, so I don't think you'll be spoiled, but read with that In mind.

Frankly I dropped MHA after finishing the 5th season, so a lot was new to me when watching this movie. However, I don't think that affects my evaluation very much.

The only good thing about the movie was the animation, which was really good and why I gave this movie a 7 overall. The story was pretty garbage in my opinion. The idea of a new ... All Might was quite interesting, which is why I decided to give the movie a watch. This new "All Might" had an insane quirk that could quite literally control the whole world, but just chose to not use it other than to mess around for fun. I can't say too much without spoiling a lot, but essentially the entire plot would not have even been able to happen had one character used their brain. This character basically resolved the conflict by doing something that they had the ability to do since over (what I perceive to have been, the exact time wasn't specified) a decade ago and prevented everything. Yes, this character quite literally had that entire time to do something that would have taken less than a minute, and none of this would have happened. It really was so stupid and if you watch the movie, you'll definitely know what I mean.

It's MHA, so we don't really expect a mind blowing story, but this really was just a classic "villain gains world-ending strength but trolls, then heroes come and fight and win because someone realises they had the solution the entire time and everyone cheers even though the city is in ruins". The ending was also gone through very quickly relative to the rest of the movie.

This is the worst of the MHA movies released to date... because it lacks the core component that makes MHA so enjoyable, HEART. The villain has a (semi) solid foundation to build upon and is a cool story trope, but they fail to develop him in any meaningful way. "You're Next" is one of those strange movies where there is no protagonist or really a main character. If the story were well-crafted and split the "main character energy" elegantly among the large cast then it wouldn't be an issue. But it isn't well-crafted and there isn't any heart, soul swelling, or ... even minorly impactful emotional moments.

Fact is the writers changed nothing, taught nothing, reused everything, conveyed no emotion, overused heartstring tropes, and it was so *mid* or low'ish tier that people in the theater were laughing at the movie. That's NOT good but was appropriate. This isn't a terrible movie, it's just well below average and a failure of writing. When your "best" OH HELL YES moments have the theater occupants shaking their heads and chuckling instead of being teary eyed or wanting to roar there is a problem.

Animation was solid with a few sub-par moments but mostly high quality to expectations, music was good, dubbed voice acting was great, costume design was good, settings / backgrounds were varied and detailed, bad guys with average --> good quirks explored decently, it was a movie made well and written poorly.

To give it a fair assessment my next viewing will be subbed, but I don't have any hope really of it being worth the experience...

Should you see it? Sure if you have been excited for it (I sure was). Go in thinking the movie will be terrible, just completely bad, and then maybe you'll leave saying "Hey I liked that, not terrible!".