Michael B. Jordan Credits This Anime as Key Inspiration for ‘Creed III’

Michael B. Jordan has revealed that his directorial debut, Creed III, drew a lot of inspiration from anime.

In a recent Vanity Fair video interview with actors Paul Mescal and Austin Butler, Jordan talked about his love for the genre, especially My Hero Academia.

He highlighted a scene from the seventh season of the show, where Bakugo faces a life-threatening fight against Shigaraki and the League of Villains, as an example of the kind of intense, visually striking moments that inspired him.

“There was a lot of fight moments that I’ve seen throughout anime that I was like, ‘okay, cool, it’d be great if I could actually incorporate or get this feeling of this sequence or how do you achieve this in animation that feels so supernatural?’ How can you put that in a different media?” Jordan said.

Creed III, released in 2023, stars Jordan as Adonis Creed, a retired boxer who comes face-to-face with his childhood friend and former boxing prodigy Damian Anderson, played by Jonathan Majors.

The film also features Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Mila Davis-Kent, Florian Munteanu, and Phylicia Rashad. The film was written by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin, based on a story co-written with Ryan Coogler, and was produced by a team including Sylvester Stallone, Irwin Winkler, and Jordan himself.

Critics praised the film for its story, performances, fight choreography, and Jordan’s direction. The movie became the highest-grossing film in the Creed series, earning over $276 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film in the Rocky franchise.

Jordan credited several anime series for influencing the fight choreography, including Megalobox, Naruto Shippuden, Hajime No Ippo, and Dragon Ball Z. His approach aimed to bring the dynamic, larger-than-life energy of anime fights into live-action boxing sequences.

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