Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia is one of the longest-running mangas in Shōnen history. First published in 2014, it now possesses 38 volumes with another about to release this November. The anime has been divided into six seasons with come of its conclusion being in animated films of about 90 minutes each.
One of the most popular films is My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. The second of the franchise, it was announced in March 2019 and was released in Japan in December while the English-dubbed version hit the theaters in February 2020 before arriving on the Netflix OTT platform. The movie grossed over $29 million worldwide.
Before Heroes Rising was released, Kohei Horikoshi revealed that the movie’s ending was meant to be the original ending for the manga but he changed it for the better.
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising’s director got “the green light” to implement the original ending
A canon movie, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is about the villainous Nine’s quest to gain multiple Quirks after successfully replicating a copy of the All For One Quirk. However, he needed a special Cell Activation Quirk to cure himself of a terminal disease that has worsened because of constant modifications by All For One.
During the final few moments, Nine is successfully separated from his army by the academic students. However, the villain soloes them after they are done with his group. In one last desperate attempt, Midoriya Izuku passes the One for All to Bakugo, whose power increases tenfold due to the synergy. Together, Midoriya and Bakugo defeat Nine and he is later killed by Tomura Shigaraki.
While speaking to Newtype magazine, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising’s director, Kenji Nagasaki, revealed that Horikoshi originally planned to conclude his manga similarly but changed his mind. Transcription of the interview was given by Aitai Kimochi on the messaging platform, X.
“When we discussed the ending elements of the story, we asked Horikoshi-sensei, “Isn’t this element what you had originally planned to use in the manga?” However, Horikoshi-sensei gave us the green light to use it… Besides, Horikoshi-sensei told us, “I’ll create an even better ending anyway, so it’s all good!”
Midoriya’s sacrifice of his powers made him a true hero. Meanwhile, Bakugo was able to be a team player to defeat a villain despite initially being a solo act. This could have been a good ending to the arcs of both characters but Kohei Horikoshi chose to lengthen the story.
The original name for My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising was something else
Heroes Rising occurs in the midst of Chapter 257 in the manga while taking place after the events of Season 4 in the anime. Kenji Nagasaki revealed that Kohei Horikoshi wanted the movie to be released in winter. Another interesting fact was that the name Heroes Rising replaced the originally intended suffix All for One, as can be seen on Reddit.
“Actually, we initially wanted to call the movie “ONE FOR ALL” since we were going to show each individual character fighting together, but this isn’t a story about the quirk “One for All.” This story focuses on the entire Class 1A members, so we decided on the word “Rising.””
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising has a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes with an Audience Score of 97%, thanks to the story-telling, action sequences, nuances, and callbacks incorporated from the long-running manga.
