Alright, finally back, so let's not waste any time, shall we? Next up, we're going over the villains from the second movie, so to keep up with what I did with the first movie, here's a quick review and synopsis of it. Like with the first movie, this one's canonicity is a hot topic, though it had way more crossover with the main series than the previous movie (which only has had the All Might flashback sequence in the beginning referenced in canon, with the recent-ish introduction of Star and Stripe as the number one American hero, who was revealed to have been the girl in the car All Might saved from the Red Villain's rocket attack, which was a REALLY cool way of bridging the manga and movies). In the second movie's case, Nine had a brief appearance in the manga, when Shigaraki was first talking to Dr. Garaki, where an image of him seen from behind with a bunch of cables connected to him appears behind Shigaraki in a collage of other scenes when he is talking about his desire to destroy everything, since the second movie takes place more or less at the same time as this, kind of solidifying it on canon more and all. There were also two special chapters of the Team Up Mission spinoff made to promote the movie, where we see Midoriya and Bakugo in middle school helping the pro hero Air Jet capture a villain who could turn to sand and was disguising himself as a puddle of mud after the weather had suddenly changed, which is revealed to have been Nine's doing.
As for the movie itself, I like it a lot, in general, way more than the first one at least. I think the first half of it, where we see the 1-A students helping the locals of Nabu Island and stuff, but the fights and action from the latter half feel a bit rushed and off and all. I'm also not really that big a fan of Nine himself as a villain, even less than Wolfram, since he doesn't really have much going for him other than a cool power. I kind of hate the two kids on this movie as well, since they are kind of annoying and all the dialogues with them feels off and weirdly patronizing, which probably comes from the movie not being written by Horikoshi, I guess. I like Mahoro's quirk tho.
As is tradition with BnHA movies, this one also has a generic name that doesn't really mean anything:
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, which I guess is in reference to the students having to deal with situation they were facing on their own, not having any assistance from the pros, having to "rise" as heroes and stuff, tho by that logic, that name would also work for the first movie. I kind of just call this one
My Hero Academia: Movie 2 - The Island One... even tho the previous one also takes place on an island, now that I think about it. Huh.
The movie is centered on Nine, a villain with an incredibly powerful weather control quirk, who wishes to tear down hero society in order to create a world ruled by the strong where those with strong quirks are free to use them as they please and rise in society, like some weird super-powered feudalism, I guess, and started gathering a crew of other uber-powerful misfits to do that. However, Nine would later find out that his powerful quirk also caused his cells to slowly damage themselves, meaning that he didn't have very long to live, and made him and his group start seeking a way to revert and counter that. This lead him to All For One and his League of Villains, putting him in contact with Dr. Garaki, a long time member of All For One's inner circle and one of the world's most talented quirk scientists, who offered to give Nine experimental treatment so his body could hold more than a single quirk, so he would have the opportunity to find and acquire a cell regeneration quirk to combat his condition, also planning to give him a copy of All For One's own quirk so he could take other quirks for himself. After accepting to undergo this experiment, Nine ended up locked up inside a big sciencey tube in a secret lab for a while.
The movie opens up with part of the League of Villains, specifically Spinner, Mr. Compress and Dabi, conducting an operation to finally free Nine, now that the experiment was finally over, under Dr. Garaki's orders, before being intercepted by pro heroes trying to stop the extraction. A fight breaks out, with Compress and Dabi delaying the villains with their quirks while Spinner attempts to drive away, but they end up overpowered by Endeavor's flames, turning to mud and being revealed to have been copies created by Twice (which raises the question of how there were three of them, since Twice's quirk only allowed him to create two duplicates before he learned his Sad Man's Parade super move, but OK), and the truck falls down the cliff on the side of the road.
As the heroes examine the fallen truck, Endeavor and Hawks start to speculate what they could have been carrying, theorizing that it could have been a new type of nomu, as we see that Nine managed to escape the truck and reunites with his crew, stating that he is ready to implement their plan.
After that, we cut to class 1-A doing hero work on Nabu Island, a small island off the coast of Japan that has no pro heroes, where they have been for the last month as a mandatory preparatory program for heroes in training, mandated by the Hero Public Safety Commission (which I feel doesn't really connect with the series timeline too well, I'd guess, but don't really know for sure. IDK, just sounds kind of weird for a class of highschoolers who are licensed to assist in times of crisis and stuff to spend a whole month out of the country, I assume having to have remote classes, while the country is facing one of the biggest villain crisis it ever has), where we see them having to help the locals with the problems they are facing, like Kaminari having to to use his quirk to help a local farmer with his truck's battery, Iida taking an injured old lady to the hospital with his high speed and Koda helping to locate the missing pets of the residents, in a sequence that is really nice and showcases how the core of heroism in this universe really is centered on wanting to help others, not just beating up supervillains.
As the class continues to help the locals with their issues, they get a call from a girl asking for help locating her missing brother, to which Midoriya, Jirou and Uraraka respond to. However, as they locate the missing boy, named Shimano Katsuma, at a park, it is revealed to them that it was just a test by her sister, Shimano Mahoro, to measure their response time, as she calls them sloppy and unworthy for taking over an hour. Midoriya, however, is just relieved to know no one was actually in danger.
Later that night, we see the two siblings in a video sent to their father, who is working in Kyushu and is away from home, where they tell him how much they miss him, as he is watching it with a smile on his face while driving. His car is suddenly attacked by Nine's crew, as Nine approaches the man. We learn that recently Nine has been attacking Japanese heroes with quirks he sees as useful and stealing their quirks for himself after defeating them, arming himself with many powerful abilities. As he uses one of the quirks he recently stole, Scanning, to see what the man's quirk is, Nine says that the man's Cell Activation quirk is exactly what he needs to counter his celular degeneration, and uses his copy of All For One to steal the quirk as him and his teammates celebrate, finally ready to overtake the world and topple down hero society. However, as Nine feels a deep chest pain, he realizes that Cell Activation only seems to work on those with blood type A, unlike himself. As the group laments their wasted effort, they notice the video on the man's phone, seeing his kids, and realize that one of them may have a version of the quirk that would work on Nine.
Back on Nabu Island, Midoriya and Bakugo run into Katsuma outside their agency, who warns the pair about a villain attacking the ancient castle ruins on the island, as the two heroes follow the kid to the direction of the villain. Arriving at the ruins, they see a giant mantis-like monster. As Bakugo attacks it, ready for a fight, he quickly stops, noticing that the monster doesn't seem to produce a shadow even after being hit by the light of his explosion, deducing that the creature is illusory. He creates a huge explosion, scaring away Mahoro, who was hiding and using her quirk, Hologram, to create the monster. Bakugo, pissed off as all hell, starts screaming at and scolding the two siblings, before Midoriya intervenes to restrain him, giving the pair a chance to escape. After getting some distance from the heroes, Mahoro rants about how Bakugo seems more like a villain than a hero, and how Midoriya seems incompetent, talking about how she thinks pro-heroes are all too self-aggrandizing and not worthy of being considered heroes, but her brother interjects, saying that the two wanted to help someone they thought was in need and that was enough for them to be called heroes.
The next morning, Midoriya runs into Katsuma outside again, who shyly apologizes for what happened the previous night, explaining that his sister wanted to prove that the heroes wouldn't come to help. The two bond over their mutual love for pro heroes, as Midoriya notices an Edgeshot pin on Katsuma's bag. The kid ends up telling Midoriya about how he wants to be a hero one day, but thinks he won't be able to due to how his quirk isn't useful for fights, having a Cell Activation quirk like his dad. Midoriya ends up deducting that Mahoro's dislike for heroes must come from her concern for her little brother, thinking that hero work is too dangerous. Seeing a bit of himself on the kid, Midoriya tells Katsuma that he will absolutely be able to be a great hero one day if he is willing to put in the effort.
Later that day, Nine and his team arrive at the island's harbor, with Slice using her quirk to shoot sharp strands of her hair at the nearby boats and destroy them, as Nine tells the rest of the crew to create a distraction while he tries to locate the kids, with Chimera destroying the local phone tower so contacting pro heroes on the outside, and Mummy using his quirk to animate local objects and spread havoc on the urban area of the island, forcing the 1-A students to intervene and try to stop the villains.
We see Aoyama, Hagakure and Mineta near the region Mummy is attacking, trying to fight him off, but having trouble bypassing all the objects he has animated to block their path, as Hagakure attempts to call their agency to discover that they have been cut off. The three end up having to fight Mummy and his army of puppets on their own, leading to them being exhausted and about to be defeated, before being rescued by Bakugo, Kaminari and Kirishima, as Yaoyorozu, Ashido and Jirou arrive to evacuate the area and help the tired students escape. As Bakugo's squad starts to destroy Mummy's army, Bakugo eventually ends up being captured by the villain's bandages, turned into a puppet himself as the villain controls his costume, but Bakugo manages to escape by detonating one of his bracers, quickly flying towards Mummy and using his remaining bracer to unleash a full power explosion point-blank at the villain, incapacitating him.
Meanwhile, at the beach, Tokoyami and Ojiro struggle to hold Chimera off while Shoji and Asui evacuate the place. After noticing how futile their attacks against the villain are, the group decides to base to inform the rest of class A about what is happening and get backup. After hearing from Tokoyami about the villains, Iida quickly separates the claa on their groups, each with a specific role, to defeat the team of villains, as the class quickly separates to do each of their designated functions. Returning to the beach, Ojiro. Todoroki, Tokoyami, Iida, Sero and Sato all try to take Chimera down, but the villain is able to take down both Ojiro and Sato easily, proving to be way to strong for the class to be able to deal with, being forced to retreat.
As the villain attack continues, Katsuma and Mahoro try to return home for safety, but end up seeing their house destroyed by Nine, who had arrived earlier. As the villain uses his Scanning, he is able to see that Katsuma has the Cell Activation quirk he needs, and slowly approaches the siblings, ready to steal it. However, Midoriya arrives at the scene, creating an opening and telling the kids to run away. Midoriya tries to fight Nine off, but ends up being blocked by his Air Wall quirk, which he uses as a shield. After scanning Midoriya, Nine says he has an interesting quirk, and tires to steal it for himself, but ends up failing, as he realizes the boy has more than just one quirk and he doesn't have room for all of his powers, deciding to simply defeat him.
As Midoriya gets more and more beaten from the fight, Mahoro and Katsuma worry about him, but he continues insisting they run. Desperate, Mahoro ends up using her Hologram quirk to create a giganting cartoony image of Midoriya as she cries, which manages to get the attention of Bakugo who arrives at the scene right after defeating Mummy. However, Nine reveals another of his quirks, creating a hydra from his back to hold Bakugo down, but creates an opportunity for Midoriya to attack him back, having to use his Weather Manipulation to summon a bolt of lightning and severely wound the two heroes and causing a massive blackout on the whole island. Nine prepares to get hold of Katsuma, but ends up being affected by his cell degener5ation, falling to the floor and grunting in pain as Slice arrives to help him, as he orders her to get to the children, but ends up unable to due to a big wall of birds brought to the scene by Koda with his quirk, as the rest of 1-A arrive there and rescue both their classmates and the kids, with the both groups of villains and heroes alike being forced to retreat for a while to recover from their wounds.
As the hero students gather all residents of the Island on an abandoned factory for protection, Midoriya and Bakugo, still incapacitated, are getting medical assistance from locals with healing quirks, as the rest of the heroes assist on making sure they have enough resources and provisions for everyone there and organizing and calming down all the locals. Midoriya and Bakugo's treatment isn't going very well due to the quirks there only really being able to cure their external wounds, and them seeming to need help from an actual hospital. However, Katsuma and Mahoro arrive, with Katsuma insisting to use his quirk to attempt to treat them, which ends up succeeding, as the wounded heroes now only need to rest a bit before being in fighting condition again.
On another room, the rest of class A is converging to figure out a plan of action, Yaoyorozu having already created a drone to send to the mainland and ask for help, but it will only arrive in six hours, and that questioning the captured Mummy didn't get them any useful information. As the class is starting their discussion, Katsuma enters the room, announcing that the villain wants his quirk, and that the best plan of action not to risk the lives of the locals would be for him to simply peacefully surrender to Nine and allow his quirk to be stolen. However, as the kid is suggesting this, Midoriya and Bakugo arrive at the room, advising against that idea, since that would only empower Nine even further and make him near unstoppable, and saying that the only possible course of action would be to defeat the villains, to which the whole class agrees and starts to devise their strategy to separate and defeat the villains one by one.
The following day, as the villains approach the ruins, where the heroes have prepared their last stand, Aoyama initiates their defense by blasting Nine's crew with his Supernova super move, which, assisted by Yaoyorozu attacking with canons she created, succeeds in breaking the group up, with Slice falling underground into a hole that leads into a cavern, where she is confronted by Ashido and Tokoyami, and Chimera ends up falling off a waterfall, landing on a valley where Iida, Todoroki, Kirishima and Asui await him.
As Nine continues approaching the ruins, the heroes start their plan to immobilize him, using Mineta, Sero and Uraraka's quirks to pile lots of rubbe on top of him to immobilize him, but end up failing as the hero knocks them, Yaoyorozu and Aoyama out. Midoriya and Bakugo then approach the villain, prepared for a rematch, but end up still being overpowered by him like before, using his Hydras to immobilize and wound the pair, but, as he is readying himself to finish them, his cell degeneration starts affecting him like before, forcing him to kneel down and deactivate his quirks as he grunts in pain, giving the heroes an opportunity to attack him, however, as they are about to do so, Nine uses his support item to lessen the effects of his degeneration, enabling him to summon a bolt of lightning like before, presumably incapacitating the pair.
Meanwhile, Slice is fighting off Tokoyami and Ashido, more than able to keep up with them, laughing as they attempt to take her down. However, eventually, Ashido is able to use her quirk to melt Slice's hair, making her unable to use it for melee attacks and setting Tokoyami up for a final strike, but now majorly pissed off, Slice sends a barrage of strands of her now short hair towards them both, which ends up hitting and harming Ashido. Surprised by his friend being hurt, Tokoyami loses control, allowing Dark Shadow to become much more powerful than before due to the darkness of the cave, easily overpowering Slice and defeating the villain.
At the valley, the heroes try to take Chimera down, but his brute strength still proves too much for them, even able to survive being frozen under the waters of the local river by Todoroki. As the battle continues and more attacks are unleashed by Iida and Kirishima, Chimera notices that he feels sluggish and weaker, as the group reveals that they have coated their clothing with Asui's poisonous mucus, which allowed them to somewhat weaken the villain. This enrages the villain, as he activates his quirk to further empower him even more, becoming a huge monstrous beast, with his animal traits and muscles augmented even more than before, blasting them with a huge beam of fire that destroys the surrounding forest. The heroes, as a final plan to take Chimera down, Iida uses his great speed to distract Chimera while the rest of the group approaches him, with Kirishima using his Unbreakable super move to block the beams of fire when the villain finally takes notice of them, and Asui and Iida quickly try to hold him down while Todoroki take him down by powering up his cold side more than ever and freezing him.
Back at the ruins, Nine is easily overpowering the rest of class 1-A with his many quirks, finally catching up to Mahoro and Katsuma, taking the girl hostage and demanding that Katsuma surrenders himself or he will kill her. As the boys starts approaching Nine to surrender his quirk, Midoriya intercepts Nine with a kick, revealing that the lightning from before had been blocked by Kaminari, who had absorbed the electricity. Now desperate, Nine goes all out with his quirks, fully aware that he is accelerating his degeneration, summoning a powerful hurricane around himself that carries the flames from his surroundings, turning into a fire tornado, as Midoriya and Bakugo get ready to fight him for the final time.
Throwing caution to the wind, Midoriya goes all out with his quirk, severely damaging his arms with each attack, as Bakugo delivers powerful explosions on the villain, but that ends up proving useless, as he block them with his Air Wall and immobilizes the pair with his Hydras. Desperate, Midoriya decides that the only way they have to overpower the villain would be to transfer One For All to Bakugo, and does so, allowing them to deliver devastating attacks that finally take down the villain, who falls onto the ocean and disappears, and Midoriya tanks One For All for everything, as he readies himself to lose the quirk that had done so much for him.
Later, as the skies clear out, All Might arrives at the scene, after Yaoyorozu's drone succeeded in warning the pro heroes on the mainland, and sees the two boys fallen on the ground heavily wounded, and approaches them to check on them. As Midoriya wakes up, he tells All Might about what happened, with tears in his face, apologizing for having had to give up on One For All after all they had gone through, which shocks All Might as he congratulates Midoriya on his dedication to being a hero, but then calms him down, as he notices that One For All is still inside Midoriya, claiming that the quirk had allowed for a miracle to happen due to Midoriya's desire to save the island, as Midoriya cries, relieved to still have a chance to be a hero.
As we see the rest of the 1-A students being rescued by the arriving pro heroes and the knocked out villains being captured, we see Nine on a nearby island surrounded by flowers, wounded and barely conscious after the fight. As Shigaraki teleports to the island through Johnny's Warping quirk, Nine says he needs more time to achieve his dream and collapse society, but Shigaraki tells him that he will topple over society himself soon enough, and that Nine doesn't need to worry, before killing him with his Decay quirk and leaves.
A few days later, after helping the people of Nabu Island to rebuild and restore everything that had been destroyed, class 1-A finally gets on the boat to leave the island, ad Midoriya talks to Bakugo about the final fight, but Bakugo claims to not remember having used One For All. As the boat is starting to leave, Mahoro and Katsuma run towards it, waving goodbye and thanking the heroes for all they have done. Midoriya smiles and tells Katsuma to not give up on his dream of being a hero, and that he will be waiting for him at U.A., as the boy tearfully agrees and the movie ends.
So, fun fact, the way the fight against Nine ended, with Midoriya giving his quirk to Bakugo, was originally intended as the way the final fight on the series was gonna go, but Horikoshi gave up on it as the series developed more.
All in all, this movie is pretty good, with way more memorable villains than the first one and a more interesting plot. Sadly tho, the writing for it just feels kind of off most of the time, with dialogue feeling weird and just slightly out of character most of the time, which is pretty sad, because otherwise, this could have been a near-perfect movie. I kind of remember liking this movie more than I did rewatching it before doing the villain builds.
Still, I'd say this movie is still worth watching if you get the chance. The animation, especially on the fight scenes, is fucking amazing, and the plot is overall pretty good. Nine can be a bit of a boring villain, but he at least feels very different from other villains the series has had so far, with his interesting worldview and plans, and with how menacing he feels due to how powerful his combine usage of quirks is, and his crew is also pretty cool, both in design and in concept and powers.
So yea, not really a must watch, but still a very nice treat. I think I like the third movie more than this one, but I'll have to rewatch it sometime before deciding that concretely.
