To Be Hero X streams its first episode on Crunchyroll on April 5, 2025.
Synopsis
A world where outstanding heroes are applauded. Here, “trust” creates superheroes. If people believe “he can fly,” he will gain the ability to fly. Conversely, even if a hero has special powers, if he loses trust, he will also lose his powers. Trust is collected as data, and the ranking of heroes changes depending on the value. Once every two years, the top heroes gather to compete in a hero tournament. Their performance there updates their “trust value,” and the ranking is reconstructed. The absolute hero who stands at the top of the rankings, people call him “X”…
Review
To Be Hero X is as intriguing as it is confusing! Prior to watching the episode, I had only seen a beautifully edited scene where a character fought off thugs by seamlessly transitioning between 3D and 2D animation. This alone sold me, and I was eager to jump on board for the visuals alone.
Now, after watching the first episode, I was blindsided by its swift pace and mystery. This is both good and bad, as I will explain.
I would attempt to explain the premise of this world, but the official synopsis covers it fairly clearly, so to quote: “A world where outstanding heroes are applauded. Here, ‘trust’ creates superheroes. If people believe ‘he can fly,’ he will gain the ability to fly. Conversely, even if a hero has special powers, if he loses trust, he will also lose his powers. Trust is collected as data, and the ranking of heroes changes depending on the value.”
Focusing on the good for now, the 3D animation is very decent, offering a cleaner version of the Netflix series “Arcane,” albeit without the additional hand-drawn flair. However, when we delve into the action set pieces and some flashbacks, we shift to entirely new animation styles. I counted at least three other styles being utilized, all of which were gorgeous in their own right. This certainly kept things interesting!
The fight we witnessed was awesomely choreographed and showcased the powers of the first character we’re introduced to, a hero called Nice.
We’re guided through the story of Nice and his social relationship, powers and standard day to day. He has quite the reputation with the female fanbase and rocks what you could call a K-Pop aesthetic (ironic as this is a Chinese-Japanese animation project). The impression I get is that we’ll be introduced to all the biggest Heroes in this world as the story progresses rather than simply having Nice be the lead protagonist but time will tell!
Now for the bad: for a standard-length opening episode, it throws a lot at you. It’s a very fast-paced story with striking visuals, but at times, it felt incredibly overwhelming to keep up. I had to watch the episode twice just to ensure I grasped everything. While there’s something to be said for slow pace versus fast pace, for a world with a deeply ingrained set of rules that these characters follow, I think we could have benefited from a gentler introduction rather than being thrust into the chaos within five minutes.
Verdict
I will 100% be returning weekly for this story, however. The striking visuals, intriguing story with its rules governing how people’s powers operate, and what appear to be strongly choreographed fights gave me enough goodwill to see how it plays out. But I just hope the pacing irons itself out as we become better acquainted with the world.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
