My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission is going “Plus Ultra” at the box office in Japan. Ten days after its August 6th premiere and despite a worsening situation with regards to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the film earned more than 1.6 Billion Yen (about USD $14.6 Million), according to a report by Mantan [Thanks, Mantan!]
It’s also doing quite a bit better than previous films in the franchise. The first movie, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, first premiered in Japan in 2018, earning about 1.72 billion Yen over its run. The second film, 2019’s My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, made 1.79 billion Yen by the end of its time in theaters. By comparison, World Heroes’ Mission has nearly cleared both previous films’ milestones with several weeks to go in theaters, and in spite of pandemic risks potentially depressing theater turnout overall.
Evangelion 3.0+1.0 was an even bigger hit in March, when it earned 3.3 billion Yen in its opening weekend alone, going on to become creator Hideaki Anno’s highest-grossing work.
My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission follows an original story supervised by creator Kohei Horikoshi. In it, aspiring Pro Hero Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, the students of U.A. High Class 1-A, and other Pro Heroes take on the mysterious organization Humanize. Humanize has planted bombs all over the world to carry out its mission of annihilating the people who hold “Quirk” superpowers. With their Hero Internships taking place in the country of Oseon, Deku and his classmates Katsuki Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki must find the bombs and prevent harm from unfolding on a global scale. Previews of the film suggested that an incident would also send Deku and his friends on the run from the law. It would also debut new “Stealth” costume designs for the principal characters.
My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission is in theaters in Japan. No plans for international release have been confirmed, though the ongoing fifth season is available in localized form via streaming services like Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix in various regions. My Hero One’s Justice, the game adaptation, is immediately available on the PS4, PC, and Xbox One, and Switch, and continues to get new characters and updates.
