My Hero Academia Star Daiki Yamashita Thanks Fans at Heroes Rising Premiere

My Hero Academia will be debuting its second feature film effort in just a couple of weeks in Japan, but a lucky few were able to catch My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising early as part of a special preview screening. Some of the cast behind the film were in attendance, and this includes the voice behind Izuku Midoriya, Daiki Yamashita. Yamashita is in very small company when it comes to seeing the franchise through a star’s perspective, and the star shared some of that perspective with those in attendance while thanking fans who’ve stuck with the anime.

As reported by Eigaland (and translated by @aitaikimochi on Twitter), Yamashita opened up about the build up from the first to the second film, “I was totally blown away! The first movie showcased the teacher-disciple team up battle, and it was super awesome! However, there probably are expectations to surpass the first movie.”

Elaborating further, Yamashita said, “I think that this movie will probably meet everyone’s expectations. We put our efforts into making the best movie we could that went beyond the first one, so we had that in mind as we recorded our scenes. I hope that everyone will be surprised! I cried four times watching this!”

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is set to officially premiere December 20th in Japan, but there’s currently no English language release announced as of this writing. This makes some of Yamashita’s teases a little tougher to hear. This especially includes the fact that he “cried four times” throughout his time with Heroes Rising, so now the expectations are through the roof. It’s as Yamashita says, but it seems like the film is ready to meet these expectations.

The film is currently described as such, “A must-see story full of passion!! In this movie, Deku, Bakugo, Ochaco, Todoroki, and all the other members of Class A will make an appearance! Even though All Might was admired by [many] all around the world, it was with a sad heart that he had to give up his hero role as the Symbol of Peace. Because of this, a dark force who was moving behind the scenes, a villain named Nine who can be considered the greatest villain thus far.”

The film will be directed by Kenji Nagasaki, who has directed the four seasons of the anime and first movie, with character designs from Yoshihiko Umakoshi, Yosuke Kuroda will be providing the script, Yuki Hayashi will be composing the music for the new film, and like the first film, series creator Kohei Horikoshi will be contributing new character designs and acting as creative supervisor.