Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

First and foremost, I’ve never been partial to the notion that 3D animation or the strict and exclusive usage of it (like Beastars or Hoseki no Kuni) lessens an anime or strips it of its status as anime. Animation and their techniques evolve over time. It’s like certain parties who proclaim that artists who use exclusively drawing software and such aren’t artists. I know a few of those types just like I know a few (very, unfortunately for me, vocal) anime enjoyers who decry CGI anime. It makes no sense to me really. With that out of the way, To Be Hero X! It’s technically not even quote unquote anime if you use the Wikipedia definition of “animation originating or produced in Japan” since To Be Hero is a Chinese multimedia franchise that I had no awareness of prior to X’s topping of the MyAnimeList charts. If MyAnimeList thinks it’s good then it’s probably tolerable, yeah? At least as long as this isn’t another SPAM GOOD SCORES SO FULL METAL ALCHEMIST CAN BE NUMBER ONE FOREVER kind of incident.

The premise is a tired one for sure. It’s essentially My Hero Academia with some of The Boys tossed in as the world of X involves hero rankings, hero power level dictated by Trust Points, and lots and lots of brand sponsorship between heroes and the grand media empires that wish to exploit them to distract the masses. At five episodes in as of writing, To Be Hero X seems to want to operate on a grander scale as the promo art depicts many many heroes (including many that have only been seen in the OP and ED) all who seem to be vying for attention. Our seemingly main character of the show, Lin Ling who takes over the hero persona of Nice, doesn’t even have a huge feature on a lot of the promo material which sincerely excites me. Is X going to be more about the hero world at large over the story of Ling? I kind of really hope so as episode 5 features a complete POV shift with more of the world begging to open up. It’s not exactly a revolutionary form of storytelling but it’s a welcome shake up to my expectations.

As you may have expected by my intro to this sampling, To Be Hero X primarily uses a stylized form of CGI as its main form of animation. What separates this from what you may be expecting though is that X is not content to stay 3D and usually shifts to 2D during the bigger and more intense moments of action. It’s kind of like opposite day in anime land as you would expect a show to shift over to 3D for trickier stuff but To Be Hero instead shifts into 2D with the onset of intense action. There’s also a little bit here and a little bit there of 2D effects that are superimposed over the 3D bits which can be noticeable but I actually really enjoy this mix and match styling of animation. It means that To Be Hero X is a little unpredictable with the performances onscreen which is grand because it feels like To Be Hero X wants to be anything but. The first five episodes are filled with last minute twists (including a really honestly stupid “it was all a dream” one) that would beg for you to cram another episode in one after the other.

It also doesn’t hurt that X has some really satisfying action sequences in the first few episodes as well. It almost borders the Solo Leveling, um, level of absurd with how hectic the action can be but obviously in a good way. The fervent energy of the final few minutes of the first episode alone had be hooked in all the way to the gills and I wanted more more more now now now as soon as the credits rolled. The obvious concern, for me at least, is this: is this going to be a front loaded series? The first four episodes contained a full character arc for the character Ling and then shifted to another character who had less than engaging character motivations and action set pieces. The new POV character of episode five drags his feet only to trip over himself with meandering melancholy that didn’t endear me to him in any meaningful way. You only get to not ask out your crush two times in an episode before it’s just you playing with yourself so you can cry later. Don’t get me wrong; I’m enthused with the shift but I wish it was a change for the better. I only have an episode of experience with the guy so this may just be me judging him when he’s barely gotten through the preamble of his character arc but it was already obnoxious at the word go so the deck is stacked against him.

All that said, To Be Hero is shaping up to be an exciting watch in this new season for me. I’m getting a tad bit more burned out with more and more superhero anime but To Be Hero X may shake it up enough to warrant growing a tolerance. With how each episode is leaving me, I may just wait for X to wrap up but that doesn’t stop me from proclaiming that you should maybe give it a chance. Just don’t let the name and X trick you; you don’t need to see or know anything about the other entries in the To Be Hero franchise to get into this.