Michael B. Jordan made Jonathan Majors watch his favorite anime for ‘Creed 3’

We’re just days away from the premiere of ‘Creed 3’ hitting theaters worldwide, and that means seeing what Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut will look like. For this he had to prepare in many ways, even forcing Jonathan Majors to watch several of the anime series that marked him throughout his life, and those that influenced the fight scenes.

In a recent interview, Jonathan Majors reveals Michael B. Jordan forced him to watch some of his favorite anime in preparation for ‘Creed III’. The “Loki” actor on Disney+ talked about what the director’s influences were and said that Jordan always quoted some Japanese animation to prepare some of the fight scenes in the film.

“He’s a huge anime fan. He’s always talking about the intricacies of friendships in those stories with rivalries and everything,” the actor revealed. Jonathan Majors described a scene from Naruto that served as a reference for ‘believe 3’: “He showed me one of his favorite fights between two friends where they reach a point in their fights where everything else seems to fall apart. There is the idea that the struggle is happening externally and then the internal struggle and maybe another struggle more is more meta or spiritual.

The scene that Michael B. Jordan showed Jonathan Majors the fight between Kakashi and Obitowhich represents, like many of Naruto’s themes, a conflict between two great friends, as also happens in the storyline of ‘Creed 3’, with Adonis and his old childhood partner, Damian.

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Michael B. Jordan’s great love for anime in ‘Creed 3’

Michael B. Jordan has never hidden his love for anime and has spoken on several occasions about how works like ‘One Punch Man’ influenced his film directorial debut. And in a recent interview for Collider, he revealed that ‘Dragon Ball’ and ‘Naruto’ were his main references when he was constructing the fight scenes in his film.

“It was a gift and a curse. There were eight other films before me and we shot them – you can film a boxing match in many ways. I think because I was cornered it forced me to be more creative and really think outside the box about how to make the fights different. And I had a big influence from Japanese anime on a lot of my fighters,” says Jordan.

Some of the anime, other than those already mentioned, that influenced Michael B. Jordan were “Hajime no Ippo”, “Megalobox” and “My Hero Academia”. It’s clear that the franchise has had a clear influence from Japanese animations, but now we have to wait until March 2 to find out how MJB has taken it to another level with ‘Creed 3’.