To Be Hero X

Episodes 1-3

To Be Hero X (or at least this first arc of it) is the story of Lin Ling, a worker at an ad agency who always dreamed of being a superhero. One day, he finds himself forced into pretending to be Nice, one of the world's top heroes. It's got lots of lighthearted comedy as Lin Ling deals with trying to act as a hero known 1) for his perfection and 2) for his relationship with the superheroine Moon. But while the tone may be bright and sometimes silly, there's a darkness that permeates everything beneath the surface.

This show is one big thought experiment. In this world, public belief grants superpowers. Moon, for example, was a normal travel vlogger known for going all across the globe. As many people watched her vlogs, they came to believe she could go “anywhere”—and so she gained the power to do exactly that via teleportation.

In Lin Ling's case, people believe that he is Nice. Thus, he not only gets Nice's powers of flight, speed, strength, and coordination—his body starts to look like Nice's—with both his eye and hair color eventually changing into that of the deceased hero's.

But even that's still just the superficial level. The insidious (and darkly fascinating) nature of superpowers in this world is that they even affect heroes in their personal lives. People believe Nice to be “the perfect hero,” and so Lin Ling is developing extreme OCD. The general public comes to want Moon and Nice to always be together, and so her teleport powers now only teleport to him. Firm Man is said to “stand firm” in any situation, so he can't even sit down in the bathroom or lie down to sleep.

Despite these superheroes being their own people, with their own wants and dreams, they are nonetheless enslaved by the whims of the masses. With this in mind, is it any surprise that Firm Man was more than happy to have Nice replace him, or that the original Nice committed suicide?

Then we get the whole PR angle of the show. As belief denotes power, it makes sense for every hero to have a manager and support team. Moreover, we see that things have reached their logical conclusion. The PR companies are, like all companies, a machine to make money. Thus, they don't care about the moral implications of what they do. They'll create villains, force love stories, and anything else if it keeps the money rolling in.

However, as evil as Miss J and her team seem when they replace Nice so easily, they aren't monsters—they're not even mindless cogs either. They seem to be more in tune with the importance of the heroes and the belief people have in them than even the heroes themselves. After all, if people start to fear more than believe—or worse still, believe that the villains will win—that could make for a world-ending threat. As we see in the case with Moon, they're more than willing to help Moon escape her fate of being forever trapped as Nice's girlfriend, as long as doing so doesn't destroy faith in heroes in general and is a net positive for the company profit-wise.

Of course, even with all the interesting things happening in the world-building and the story, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the animation. The 3D animation looks on par with shows like Arcane, and the way that 2D styles are merged in (like how, when Nice does anything super heroic, everything looks like an animated comic book) is amazing. Then we have that backed up by a Hiroyuki Sawano soundtrack… the presentation's heavenly, to say the least.

This is a fantastic show on pretty much every conceivable level. It's got interesting characters, a great world, and a solid thematic foundation. It's a must-watch, and I'm excited to be able to review it each week.

Episode 1 Rating:

Episode 2 Rating:

Episode 3 Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Given that this series is 24 episodes long and we've only covered one hero of the top 10 heroes so far, I have a feeling that next episode might be our final one centering around Nice—especially since he's got himself his first real nemesis and Moon is serving the damsel in distress role.

• I think the dead body tease at the end of the first episode isn't a dream. I think Moon did kill herself (maybe many times in an attempt to escape her life trapped at Nice's side), and people's belief that she and Nice would be together forever brought her back.

• They play it for laughs, but Firm Man's life seems like a living hell.

• I keep thinking about the original concept movie for this series showcasing X. Do people believe that, as the top hero, he can do anything, and so he has the power to control reality? Is that what we're seeing?

To Be Hero X is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.