It feels like it's been a lifetime since Legendary announced they're set to film an adaptation of My Hero Academia, one of the most popular shonen anime in the world right now. Knowing Hollywood's track record when it comes to adapting anime and manga for western tastes, fans of the series weren't exactly filled with anticipation over it. But maybe some of those fears will be relieved now that the director has been confirmed.
The movie will be helmed by Shinsuke Sato, a Japanese director with a history of bringing anime and manga to the big screen with generally pretty decent results. His previous works include the live-action movie adaptations of Bleach, Kingdom, Inuyashiki, Gantz, I Am a Hero and the Alice in Borderland series on Netflix, the last of which I really enjoyed. While I haven't personally seen any of his other movies the more recent ones have fairly good scores on Rotten Tomatoes for what it's worth. Surely that's a good sign if any.
With all that said, this is his first foray into Hollywood, and western filmgoers have markedly different tastes and expectations compared to Japanese audiences. For starters, My Hero Academia is a Japanese story about Japanese teenagers at a Japanese school for superheroes, and anime fans in the west are much more likely to get behind this premise than mainstream audiences. Most likely the story will be rewritten with a US setting to better appeal to western viewers. Then there's the matter of the cast; chances are Deku will be played by a young actor of Asian descent, and maybe some of the other main characters too, but racewashing is to be expected and people will inevitably get pissed off no matter which character gets altered. Hell, some characters probably won't even make the cut. I don't imagine Mineta will get away with any kind of sexual harrassment-as-fanservice assuming he's even in the movie, and Midnight's whole horny teacher gimmick probably won't fly these days.
As long as those scummy studio execs let Sato do his thing without interfering too much it might turn out to be an enjoyable movie that makes the most of its source material, but for now I'm still staying skeptical. The last thing I want is another messy superhero movie ruined by the studio trying too hard to make it fit in with current trends. I can't deal with millions of MHA fans clamoring to #ReleaseTheSatoCut years from now.
What about you guys? Have you seen any of Sato's movies before? Do you think he could do a good job with My Hero Academia? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
