My Hero Academia: You’re Next – A familiar, flashy symbol of heroic excess.
We should all know by now that the My Hero Academia movies are energetic shows in the same heroic style as the One Piece and Dragon Ball movies. They’re sweet treats where beloved characters show off all their special skills in stories that rarely go against the norm.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next is the fourth movie in the MHA world. It was made by Studio Bones, the same group that has been animating the series since the beginning. Bones is known for its smooth fight choreography and emotionally charged animation. This time, it offers another audiovisual feast made for big-screen spectacle.
Manga artist Kōhei Horikoshi had hinted that future movies might have trouble fitting in with the story, but You’re Next finds a clever way to fit in between important plot points of the seventh season of the anime. It takes place during the short break between the Paranormal Liberation War and the Stars & Stripes plot.
During this unstable break, heroes are healing from their wounds, society is on the verge of falling apart, and students at U.A. High take on tasks that were once only for professionals. It’s not a new take on the shōnen genre, but Studio Bones shows off their technical skill while exploring an epic and ironic idea: what if someone else took All Might’s “You’re Next” statement literally?
In a world where heroes and villains are always at odds with each other, Izuku Midoriya and his friends have to catch prisoners who got away during Japan’s villain resurgence. This task, for some free time, quickly goes out of hand when a mysterious criminal drags along a hostage.
The hostage is a young woman named Anna Scervino, who has a special ability that makes other people stronger. When a classy, smooth-talking shooter named Giulio Gandini shows up, the situation gets worse. He is determined to kill Anna before she gets into the wrong hands. But the real shock comes when a man who looks like All Might shows up and says he is the “true successor” and the new “Symbol of Peace.”
This fake “superhero”, who later went by the name Dark Might, is in charge of the Gollini Family, a group that acts like the mafia.
Within minutes, his quirk turns the city into a huge flying fortress made of twisted metal, statues of All Might, and fake environments. It’s like an airborne maze of battles that range from jungles to neon-lit cities.
A lot of citizens and Class 1A are sucked inside and trapped as “specimens” for Dark Might’s horrifying idea of what it means to be a hero. After that, You’re Next is a never-ending string of set pieces that get scarier as Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, and the rest of U.A. fight Dark Might’s team of lieutenants with special abilities.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next smartly copies the format of the ones that came before it: Two Heroes was about a smaller group of students, Heroes Rising was about the whole class, and World Heroes Mission was about the three main characters again.
You’re Next finds a middle ground by splitting Class 1A into three different teams that can work together again even though things are crazy. Because of this, the pace is quick and frantic, sometimes too fast, and there is almost never any downtime for explanation. In the third act, answers to important mysteries like Anna’s real potential and Dark Might’s beginnings are finally revealed. The ending is a mix of opera, absurdity, and pure electricity.
You’re Next is just anime music video fodder—a show turned into a symphony.
Even though the story moves quickly, there is a central theme that connects all of the chaos. While Midoriya is a selfless hero, Dark Might’s distorted worship of All Might is a strong contrast. “You’re next” by All Might was a call to daring.
Dark Might turns it into a manifesto for power, showing that symbols can become corrupt when people worship them without understanding them. Giulio’s story as Anna’s hesitant protector adds a more realistic emotional thread to the show. His sharpshooter style and cybernetic arms make him a great contrast to Deku’s close-quarters fighting, and his relationship with Anna is a lot like the protective bond between Deku and Eri in earlier stories.
In reality, You’re Next doesn’t take the franchise into new philosophical ground. It’s happy to celebrate the values that made My Hero Academia a cultural phenomenon: kindness, bravery, and always trying to get better. But what it lacks in new ideas for the story, it makes up for with energy and style.
The animation studio Bones once again shows why it is one of the best in Japan. My Hero Academia: You’re Next shines with confidence in every shot. The movie makes the most of its big budget: the lines are sharper, the effects are more complex, and the action scenes are more explosively stacked than ever before.
Combining 2D hand-drawn art with CGI flourishes can be a double-edged sword—some mechanical moves and environments can look a little stiff—but the end result makes the movie seem bigger. For example, Dark Might’s fortress is a beautiful sight to behold. It’s a strange mix of sci-fi and gothic glory that’s brimming with energy and ambition.
The camera often swoops through the halls, following the chaos as the students act out their weirdos at the same time. During the main fight, Bones really shows off all of its power: Midoriya’s “One for All” attacks move through the air with kinetic energy, and Bakugo’s explosions light up the screen like fireworks.
Studio Bones really stepped up their game; it’s the height of anime spectacle.
It’s amazing how clear My Hero Academia: You’re Next stays despite all the chaos. There is always enough space to see who is fighting where, even in the busiest scenes, and the artists never lose sight of how the characters are feeling. Todoroki’s ice walls break apart with fine precision, Uraraka’s gravity manipulation dances smoothly through the fight, and micro-animations give even background heroes moments of personality.
The film’s style, which is a mix of post-apocalyptic and techno-heroic, fits the anime’s overall mood perfectly. As My Hero Academia’s world gets darker, You’re Next reacts with bright colors and explosive compositions, as if to fight hopelessness with pure color.
Of course, an MHA movie would not be complete without “You Say Run,” the band’s most famous sound effect. The famous song comes back with an orchestra, and it plays as a punctuation mark in the last act, just before Deku’s big fight with Dark Might. When that familiar tune plays, it’s difficult not to feel a rush of adrenaline. It reminds us of years of heroic victories and emotional peaks.
The music by Yuki Hayashi strikes a balance between big and small emotions, giving even the most solemn scenes a pulsing hope. On the other hand, Dark Might’s theme has a haunting grandeur, with electric guitars and ominous choirs mixed together to fit his dramatic style. Your Next is a sensory overload thanks to its sound design, which gives every punch, explosion, and clash of quirks a dramatic weight.
I also think the English version was good. Christopher Sabat usually voices the good guy All Might, but he loves playing Dark Might; his acting is both charming and scary. Justin Briner (Midoriya) gives another emotionally charged lead performance, capturing both the sincerity of a young person and the weight of a family tradition. Every scream, “SMASH!” and shake in Deku’s voice makes the stakes clear.
When You Say Run comes on, you can’t help but cheer—the music acts as the hero.
Little things, like Bakugo’s wild laughing or Todoroki’s witty comments, add to the realness of the story. You can really feel how well the voice actors get along, which makes me think of how much these characters have grown on-screen and in fans’ hearts.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next doesn’t do anything completely new, but it gives fans exactly what they want: an exciting, beautiful celebration of heroes. There are times when the story doesn’t make sense and the pace feels rushed, but there’s an undeniable sincerity running through every frame. Like the movies that came before it, this one is based on the joy of seeing these young heroes overcome impossible challenges. The music in the movie can also make anyone believe in the power of kindness.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next’s themes support what MHA has always stood for: how important symbols are, how fragile history is, and how much responsibility comes with passing on power. Even though Dark Might is a silly bad guy, the way he twists All Might’s ideas makes him a compelling contrast to Midoriya’s unwavering faith in hope. The movie goes off the rails with flying castles, quirks that bend reality, and bad guys who talk like Shakespearean rock stars, but it never loses its heart.
