‘People are attracted to strength. Power is entertainment,” proclaims wannabe world saviour Dark Might (voiced by Kenta Miyake) in this fourth film spin-off from the daffy Japanese X-Men knock-off. It’s a statement within touching distance of Watchmen-style auto-critique of the superhero genre, especially as this preening tycoon bears a passing resemblance to Alan Moore’s ne plus ultra supervillain Ozymandias.
Dark Might has designs on succeeding All Might, one-time paragon and now out-to-pasture teacher in “foundational hero studies” at Japan’s top hero academy. But the overzealous violence with which he dispatches a wrongdoer rings alarm bells for star pupil Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita) – which are apparently justified when Dark Might tractor-beams him and a bunch of other bystanders into his giant flying fortress. This sprawling wonderland is where the big bad is forcing his slave Anna (Meru Nukumi) to transform compatible victims into augmented superfolk who will join his side.
If power is entertainment, director Tensai Okamura – who has worked on Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop – isn’t about to bite the hand that feeds. Not when there’s a bevy of sick moves to deploy, invariably announced beforehand (like Austin Powers saying “Judo chop!”): the “Manchester Smash” is the highlight (sadly, there’s no Glasgow Kiss). But if this instalment is as battle-fixated and narratively garbled as previous ones, it also adds a softer surrealistic bent in the shape of Dark Might’s Euro-baroque eyrie, the hyper-pretty fugue states induced by his minion, and his soigné mafia accomplices (there’s even a Godfather parody, in which Dark Might’s previous self is the dead spit of Fredo Corleone).
It’s a welcome shift, seeding a little uncertainty and mystery between the pummellings and even persisting in the protean crescendoes of the final fight scenes; utilising rough-drawn animation cells and spasmodic frame rates, Okamura drums up a raw and elemental rhythm. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but the hybrid of old-style battle manga with a more modern oneiric sensibility feels a little different from standard superhero loudhailing.
• My Hero Academia: You’re Next is in UK and Irish cinemas from 18 October.
