If you’ve watched the new film My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising and thought that the climax was so epic that it could have even served as the ending to the entire series, you’re not wrong in thinking that. After all, it is how My Hero Academia’s author, Kohei Horikoshi, originally planned to end the manga.
Spoiler Warning: This article contains major spoilers for My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising as well as (potentially) the entire My Hero Academia franchise.
Image source: 僕のヒーローアカデミア “ヒロアカ”アニメ公式 on Twitter
In a Newtype magazine interview with the film’s director, Kenji Nagasaki, he talks about how Horikoshi gave him the greenlight to use major elements originally planned to be used in the manga’s final chapter for the film’s climax instead.
Now, as for these “elements,” it’s easy to understand what he’s referring to just by watching the film. It’s not the specifics of the film’s final battle–i.e., the situation on Nabu island or Nine and his evil plan.
It’s the overall shape of the final battle and how it is resolved:
- Deku and Bakugo face a villain they can’t hope to beat–even after they pull out all the stops.
- Deku passes on One for All to Bakugo.
- For one brief moment in time, there are two people with the power of All Might
- The world is saved but Deku is left quirkless while Bakugo is left the responsibility to carry on in his place.
And as we see in the film, it’s a climax that’s as beautiful as it is tragic–and it’s the perfect ending for both characters’ arcs.
Image source: 僕のヒーローアカデミア “ヒロアカ”アニメ公式 on Twitter
From the start, Deku has always wanted to be a hero. For years he dreamed of being the next All Might and saving people with a smile. Sadly, even as all those around him got their powers, he was left quirkless. By a simple mistake of birth, his dream became unattainable.
Yet, even then, hopeless he pushed on. And at the vital moment, he ran towards danger instead of away from it and inspired earth’s greatest hero to push past his own limits–proving himself to have the soul of a hero and be the perfect successor to All Might.
Since inheriting All Might’s powers, Deku has little by little come to understand what he has been entrusted with–what it truly means to be the “number one hero.” The weight of the future has been squarely placed across his shoulders. Each lesson is hard taught as he learns to balance self-sacrifice with self-care and idealism with pragmatism–creating a list of self-enforced rules in the process.
In the final fight, Deku begins to break these rules one by one–even going so far as to use One for All at full power, shattering his arm bones in the process. But in the end, it’s still not enough. He’s just not good enough.
However, while others may see One for All as Deku’s superpower, he’s always had another: his mind. More often than not, it’s this that sees him through to victory, not his powers. And as he and Bakugo lay broken and defeated in the grasp of the villain, it’s here that Deku sees the path to victory. While one person with One for All is not enough to achieve victory, two just might be.
So he gives One for All to Bakugo and then rekindles the embers inside him for one last fight–just as he had once seen All Might do. And for one brief moment, there are two “number one heroes” in the world. By giving up the thing he most cared about–being a hero–he saves the world and in the process becomes the greatest hero of his generation. It’s a bittersweet end to his arc but a truly satisfying one.
Image source: 僕のヒーローアカデミア “ヒロアカ”アニメ公式 on Twitter
This climax also brings Bakugo’s arc to a strong conclusion. Bakugo has always been full of potential. With top-tier powers and a drive to be the best of the best, there’s only ever been one thing getting in his way–himself. He’s always seen being a superhero as a solitary venture; that to be the best, you shouldn’t rely on anyone else.
However, bit by bit over the story, we see him begin to overcome his own ego–accepting help from those he considers friends and even fighting alongside those he sees as rivals. After both he and Deku fail spectacularly when facing the big bad one-on-one, he works with all the other teenage heroes to use strategy and home-field advantage to make up for the staggering difference in power between them and the villain.
One by one, Bakugo’s fellow heroes isolate the villain’s followers and at the same time attempt to wear the villain down. It’s only then that Bakugo, alongside the person he hates most, enters the battle to double-team the last boss. But even this is not enough.
And when Deku extends his bloody hand to pass on One for All, Bakugo knows exactly what this means. He knows that by accepting, he will be admitting he was not strong enough–that he had to rely on the power of his most hated rival to win. A year before, he would never have done it–his ego never would have allowed it. But now, after all he has gone through at UA, he does it with hardly a second thought.
On a personal level, there is even more meaning to this. Just as Deku dreamed of being All Might, so did Bakugo. With this, Bakugo is left with not only his original powers but those of his personal hero. The weight of the world is on his shoulders now.
Yet, how he receives these powers is what will forever change him. Most will never know of Deku’s sacrifice (due to the secrecy behind All for One and how it’s passed on) but Bakugo will. He’ll be forced to secretly live in the shadow of a man who gave up what was most important to him in order to save the world. In his own heart, Bakugo won’t truly stand at the top until he does the same as Deku did and passes on the powers to the next generation. It is what, in the end, will make him an even better hero.
Image source: 僕のヒーローアカデミア “ヒロアカ”アニメ公式 on Twitter
All in all, it is a fantastic ending that brings our heroic pair full circle. Though perhaps it’s a finale that’s a bit too tragic for most fans–hence why it was used in Heroes Rising and is immediately followed by its own magic reset button so that the story can continue on as normal for many more years. Still, the film grants a captivating peek into the ending that could have been. Now, all that’s left is to see if Kohei Horikoshi can live up to his boast and “create a better ending anyway.”
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising was released in Japanese theaters on December 20, 2019. It will hit US theaters on February 26, 2020.
Top image source: 東宝MOVIEチャンネル on YouTube
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