Save the world, heroes!
My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission is a Japanese anime film centered on My Hero Academia. It premiered in Japan on August 6, 2021, and in North America and the United Kingdom on October 29, 2021.
The film is set sometime before the Paranormal Liberation War arc. While the students of Class 1-A and 1-B are doing their Hero Work Study with the pros, a terrorist organization called Humarise declares that it will unleash bombs all around the world to "cleanse the world" of the "sickness of Quirks." After a mix-up with a street thief, Deku gets himself and his new companion thrown into a plot to destroy all people with quirks, so that pure human can rise again.
To tie in with the movie, a special prologue chapter, Endeavor's Mission, was released digitally the day the movie screened in North America and the UK. A bonus physical volume, Volume W, was given out to people at the theater who bought tickets.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: A few Pro Heroes outside of Japan, such as Egypt's Salaam, make an early appearance in the movie. Starting with Salaam, they are presumed to be officially shown after the events of the main story's ''Paranormal Liberation War'' arc.
- Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Flect Turn's vision of triumph is shown with him standing atop of the corpses of all of the Pro Heroes and especially the corpses of Class 1-A. Thankfully, this doesn't come to pass.
- Avengers Assemble: The movie has Pro Heroes all over the world form the "WHA", in response to Humarise's attack on the Quirk-powered population. This includes almost everyone from U.A. High's Hero Courses, who tag along in the middle of their Work Studies.
- Batman Gambit: Flect Turn's plan is this. He lured Pro Heroes from all over the world, including Class 1-A, to places with Humarise agents and gas bombs, before announcing his intent to detonate them. He knows that no Pro Hero worth their salt wouldn't risk and even give their lives to try to protect as many people as they can, and indeed, heroes like Endeavor, Uravity, and Froppy are prepared to take the full brunt of the bombs as the timers start to run out. However, the heroes were the real targets all along, as their deaths would allow him to collapse society.
- Big Bad: Flect Turn, the head of an anti-Quirk movement known as Humarise, is behind the movie's conflict.
- Boomerang Bigot: Despite trying to cull Quirks from the population, enough Humarise members have Quirks to give the heroes considerable trouble. Some, like Flect himself, truly believe that the Quirk Doomsday Theory could come true and are trying to prevent that. Others are simply craven enough to fight for Humarise so they can be among the chosen few who survive the genocide they would enact.
- Broken Pedestal: Rody's father was said to have joined Humarise, leaving him and his siblings behind. The news led to many of their friends and neighbors ostracizing them for years and preventing Rody from landing a decent job, forcing him to be a courier for fenced items. Rody gets over his resentment in order to focus on his siblings, but the pedestal for his dad is rebuilt when he learns that the man was actually strongarmed into joining to protect them all, and later sacrificed his life to create a countermeasure for the Trigger Bombs.
- Call-Forward: Several character moments foreshadow similar ones that will happen during and after the Paranormal Liberation War:
- Humarise's Beros, a Long-Range Fighter whose Quirk allows her to create a bow, acts as one for Lady Nagant, who appeared around the time the movie came out in the manga. Midoriya's fight with both involves fighting a Cold Sniper who pressures Midoriya by using attacks from a long distance, forcing him to work around this issue as he tries to close the gap to win.
- During his fight against the Serpenter twins, Bakugou gets stabbed multiple times in a similar way to how he would be injured by Shigaraki when taking one of his attacks to protect Deku.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- A flashback shows Rody's family playing with a puzzle belonging to his father, which is used to store small objects like his photo pendant. When Deku, Bakugo, Shoto, and Rody discover a similar puzzle hidden under the suitcase, Rody easily unlocks it to reveal the true contents inside.
- Rody's bird Pino may start as a comic relief at first, but it would soon be revealed in the end that she is a manifestation of his Quirk. Specifically, she can express Rody's true emotions whenever he tries to hide them, which Rody claimed to Deku that he considered this embarrassing for him. During the third act, it proves useful when he pretends to betray Deku again, while allowing Pino to communicate his real plan. The bird's physical form also allows her to use the key that deactivates all of the bombs when Rody passes out from blood loss.
- Continuity Nod: A few plot points are mentioned from the main story in the manga/anime:
- The "Quirk Singularity Theory" is mentioned once more, where it talks of generations of Quirk eventually mixing to the point of becoming unstable and dooming the world. Humarise views this more as a Quirk Doomsday Theory.
- Midoriya recalls to Rody that he has a long way to go in becoming a better hero, as he still needs help from his friends to get the job done and train harder. This includes controlling his new Blackwhip ability, a Mid-Season Upgrade for One For All.
- Midoriya beating Flect Turn by punching him with so much force and so quickly that his Quirk becomes overloaded and can't reflect it anymore, eventually breaking straight through his otherwise impenetrable defences, is almost exactly like how All Might defeated the Nomu in the USJ arc. Both scenes also feature "You Say Run" playing triumphantly.
- Creator Cameo: The sideways-v-shaped logo of Studio Bones appears on the front of the rusty old van that Rody steals to get himself and Midoriya to Klayd.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to past MHA movie installments, this entry is noticeably darker and more intense in scope. Whereas the past movies took place in one location, the plot and villain scheme of this film spans the entire world and requires all heroes on deck. The main villain's goal also involves a global genocide of heroes and people with Quirks. Midoriya also finds himself in the role of being a fugitive from the law for the very first time. Compared to the previous two films, the amount of blood being spilled is also greater here than before. And even some of the elite minions of the Big Bad like Serpenter and Leviathan are so dangerous and tough that Bakugo and Todoroki take massive amounts of damage and pass out after narrowly winning.
- Data Drive MacGuffin: Humarise is after a suitcase Rody accidentally grab during a mix up, but neither he nor Deku is able to figure out why. But after fighting Beros for the last time, the heroes discover a secret compartment in the bottom of the suitcase that contains a puzzle. When solved, the puzzle reveals a data drive acting as a permanent shutdown key for all of the Trigger Bombs that Humarise has placed throughout the world.
- Demoted to Extra: Only a few of U.A. High's Class 1-A remain on campus while the rest take part in the WHA mission: Mina Ashido, Koji Koda, Toru Hagakure, Yuga Aoyama, and Tenya Iida. In terms of faculty, their teacher, Shota Aizawa, takes a back seat while Cementoss and Present Mic join the mission themselves. Mirio "Lemillion" Togata of U.A's "Big Three" remains Quirkless at the time of this film and does not join Tamaki and Nejire.
- Determinator: In the third act of the movie, even as the three heroes refuse to give up, the strongest members of Humarise give Deku, Bakugo, and Todoroki the hardest fights out of the three movies, with Deku's initial Smashes against Flect Turn critically wounding his arms and legs, the Trigger-enhanced Serpenter twins nearly succeeding in killing Bakugo via Death by a Thousand Cuts, and Todoroki nearly drowning when a similarly Trigger-enhanced Leviathan takes his battle into an underwater passageway and repeatedly restrains him with twister-tentacles.]]
- Downer Beginning: Flect Turn activates the first Trigger Bomb at a random city to demonstrate Humarise's power and goal to "save humanity". Many people lose control of their quirk and die and the city is in ruins, while only the Quirkless people survive (though with the implication that several of them also died during the event indirectly) and are greeted by the cult members. The Heroes of the world, including UA High's Hero Courses, respond and raid the global facilities of Humarise, but they fail to spot the leader, and are put on standby.
- Easily Forgiven: When Rody tries to return the suitcase to Humarise in hopes of getting them off of his and Deku's back, he learns the hard way that they will kill them both regardless because of what they saw as Deku warned. After Deku saves it and him before getting away, Rody asked why he saved him after the betrayal. Deku happily responds that it's his job to save those in need, bearing no grudge for the thief's reckless act. However, Rody is clearly touched by this act and he from that point onward is far more cooperative working with Deku.
- Evil Gloating: Flect Turn absolutely loves these, dishing them out to both Rody and Deku like they're going out of style. Justified, as he believes himself completely impervious thanks to his quirk, and thus in no danger from talking while the heroes are trying to smash him into paste. His tune changes once Deku starts to push his quirk to its limits...
- Fictional Country: 2, in fact: Otheon and Klayd, both located somewhere in Europe.
- Frame-Up: Humarise, once they realize Deku has the case, has their police infiltrators in Otheon frame Deku for killing twelve people and give the police orders to shoot to kill. Unsurprisingly, literally everyone that knows Deku well enough refuse to believe this news and Endeavor confronts the police commissioner about the ridiculous charges. But said commissioner uses his authority to stone wall Endeavor's investigation.
- Fugitive Arc: During the first half of the movie, Deku is framed as a suspect for murder after pursuing Rody. Believing the suitcase he is carrying is somehow related to the incident, as well as Humarise, they both head to the Klayd border to escape the Otheon police force, and the villains, before trying to get answers. Once Flect moves on to his plan, this storyline ends to make way for the final battle.
- Logical Weakness: Flect's Quirk perpetually repels anyone or anything that comes close to him with an strange energy force, allowing him to bounce back any attack Deku throws at him during their battle. Deku soon discovers that said force has a limit, so he continues to attack the cult leader until it finally gives way.
- MacGuffin: The suitcase Midoriya and Rody find contains documents that may relate to Humarise, and the cult sends out their Quirk powered members to get it back. When Bakugo and Todoroki arrive to help defeat them, they all discover that the documents are a Red Herring, and the real prize is in a compartment under the case: a puzzle container holding a chip with information of the Trigger Bombs, and a device revealed to shut down a generator that controls them.
- Magic Countdown: During the fight between Midoriya and Flect, the countdown on the timer for the bombs are only a few minutes, but their fight lasts way longer than that and they are somehow able to disarm all the bombs with less than a second to spare. However, this is justified when Deku reaches the control room and finds that Rody and Pino managed to deactivate the bombs in time. A smaller-case example occurs when All Might is told they have "less than 30 minutes on the clock" for the trigger bomb's activation. The clock hits 10 seconds and runs out roughly 30 minutes
from that point in the movie's running time. - Mission Control: All Might is part of this, contacting everyone in the WHA and wishing them luck on the mission.
- Motive Rant: Flect tells Midoriya that he hated his Quirk because it prevents him from making physical contact with everyone he cared about, including his parents, friends, and potential loved ones. He was even unable to kill himself because any suicide attempt would bounce off of him. Since his inability to turn off his Quirk left him nothing but misery, he started viewing all Quirks as curses and becomes a fervent believer of the Quirk Doomsday Theory, which he started preparing to prevent by any means necessary. These events inspired him to form Humarise in an effort to wipe out all Metahuman and rebuild a world for the Quirkless, as well as any remaining Metahumans who claim to want to "redeem" themselves.
- Muggle Power: Humarise are a classic example of the trope, being a group that reveres the Quirkless as "true" humans and which demonizes those who have Quirks as damned beings who are stealing the world from "true humanity". Their ultimate goal is to genocide all Quirked humans as part of this belief. Ironically, because Quirkless are so comparatively rare, many of Humarise's own members are Metahumans, who have joined up either out of self-loathing or in hopes that they can earn survival by pledging allegiance.
- Never Trust a Trailer:
- The "Stealth Suits" worn by the main 3 are a major example of this. Despite being played up as default outfits for Izuku and friends for the film and being involved in a huge amount of marketing for the film, from the initial teaser up to even physical merchandise due to large amounts of positive reception, Izuku, Bakugo, and Todoroki only wear those costumes for roughly 8 minutes in the beginning of the film before switching back to their standard costumes.
- Right from the first teaser, several scenes involving other UA students and their Pro Hero mentors have been consistently featured. However, they in truth take a minimal part of the movie; the whole eponymous "world mission" ends up playing background to Izuku and Rody's plot.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Flect and Humarise claim they want to save humanity by preventing a much-debated Quirk Doomsday Theory. This theory has little scientific proof. As Midoryia points out, Flect is simply pushing his own misery onto others while villains like the Serpenters are cowardly trying to avoid the Quirk genocide as Bakugo calls out. Not to mention, their plan is to exterminate most of the powered population with bombs that can fatally trigger their powers, uncaring their actions likely indirectly killing thousands of non-quirk humans in the process as a result of the destruction going around them (and they don't remotely care for the ones tramautized by the attacks in the opening scene).
- Flect even goes so far as to kidnap scientists and threaten their families (regardless if they have a Quirk or not) so they trigger bombs can be produced.
- Power Trio: While many other members of Class 1-A and 1-B and various pro heroes are given brief moments in the spotlight, the focus is very much on Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugo who each have massive fight scenes in Humarise's main base at the end. A teaser poster regarded them as "The Three Musketeers", even though the movie doesn't.
- Puzzle Box: Rody reminisces about the puzzles his father, an engineer who was famous for his work, used to make to entertain Rody. In the present, Rody recognizes a strange puzzle as his father's handiwork, allowing Rody to open the delicate puzzle to reveal the shutdown key for all of the Trigger Bombs that Humarise placed around the globe hidden inside.
- Race Against the Clock:
- Double Subverted. The first minutes into the movie has the heroes all over the world attempt to shut down Humarise's Trigger Bomb operation, by simultaneously raiding their headquarters. When the bombs aren't found, they are put on standby until they get a clearer location. When the time comes for Flect to finally reveal himself, he activates the bombs, leaving the united force to disable them, seal them, move them away, or minimize casualties in two hours. When Midoriya's group is closest to an HQ holding the generator that remotely controls the bombs, they head there to stop it.
- Revealing Cover-Up: The lengths that Humarise goes to in retrieving the case that Rody accidentally picked up reveal the importance of the briefcase in relation to their plans and the false murder charge against Deku tells anyone who knows him even slightly that Humarise's influence has spread into Otheon's police force.
- Satchel Switcheroo: Rody's briefcase of stolen jewels he was to deliver gets switched with the briefcase Humarise's agents were after that hid the device with the kill code to shut down the Trigger Bombs. The result is Rody and Deku, who were chasing each other over Otheon for the former case, have to go on the run for most of the movie.
- Saving the World: From the title alone, the movie is about saving the world from Humarise's ambition. For the first time ever, we get to see heroes outside of Japan, and U.A. High's Hero Courses are spread out to join different groups. Justified as Humarise plans to attack multiple countries at once.
- Secret Compartment: Humarise chases after Rody for possessing a suitcase they need. But Rody and Midoriya can't find anything particularly shocking or interesting about the contents. The heroes don't realize what's inside until their last fight with Beros breaks open a hidden compartment in the bottom of the suitcase that holds a puzzle. Said puzzle hides the shutdown key for all the Trigger Bombs that Humarise placed across the globe.
- The Oner: The final battle against Beros, an archery villain and member of Humarise, serves as this.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Deku harshly answers Flect's above Motive Rant that if the villain had tried to find ways to properly control and harness his reflection Quirk instead of simply giving up, he would have never resorted to forming Humarise and attempt genocide on the Quirk-powered populace.
- Running Gag: Every time Todoroki tells Bakugo what to do, he says to stop giving him orders.
- The Singularity: The Quirk Doomsday Theory that Humarise is dedicated to preventing, where Quirks grow so powerful and complex that their wielders cause irreparable damage to the world.
- This Cannot Be!: During his fight with Deku, Flect finds out that his reflection Quirk is slowly wearing off, something that he didn't know was possible in his life.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Between the movie villains, it's both played with and played straight in some cases. The threat level Flect Turn presents in this movie far surpasses both Wolfram and Nine. Additionally, the danger he and Humarise presented was a global one whereas Wolfram and Nine were far more localized.note However, he might not be as powerful as Nine, as Nine was able to bulldoze his way through multiple Class 1-A students and it required the combined might of both Deku and Bakugo with One For All to defeat him but Flect only fought against Deku alone and eventually got his Quirk overwhelmed in a sole one-on-one. On the other hand, while Flect may not be as strong as the previous movie villain, his elite minions are far more powerful than both Wolfram and Nine's minions, especially considering how badly they messed up Bakugo and Todoroki.
- Spanner in the Works: Rody mixing up his intended briefcase with the case belonging to the runaway Humarise scientist prevents Humarise from retrieving the case with the key to deactivate the Trigger Bombs and their following attempts to retrieve it only alerts the heroes how important it is.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Early in the movie, Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki chase after a pair of jewel thieves despite not having clearance to operate in Otheon without supervision from a pro. Bakugo and Todoroki are reprimanded for it but don't regret it at all, while Midoriya gets tied up chasing after Rody before being targeted by Humarise.
- We Are Everywhere: Humarise has active cells in cities all around the world. This is especially true in Otheon, where they control the police force.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: In a two-fold way, when Rody and Beros realize that during the chase through Otheon, they each grabbed the wrong briefcase.
- You Killed My Father: Humarise kidnapped Rody's father, forced him to make the Trigger Bombs, and eventually killed him when he helped create a kill code to shut down the whole operation.
