To Be Hero X

[neflight86]

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"In a world of brilliant heroes, it's the trust of their fans that makes them into superheroes. If the people believe that a man can fly, he will fly. If a hero loses the people's trust, he loses his special abilities. Trust Value is collected and quantified and used to determine a hero's ranking. Every two years, a tournament is held to choose the top heroes. Their performance in the tournament determines their new Trust Values and their rankings.
The absolute hero with the highest ranking... His name is X.

source Anidb"

Genre(s): SuperHeroes

Research

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1-2

A very ritzy production. Shaded CG ala Arcane mostly with some keyframed impact scenes, I daresay this is overanimated much of the time. SO much vibrancy and color fill the screen that the eyes can struggle settling on important areas of the screen quickly enough to catch the attractive posing. I'm sure I'll get used to it, if I keep watching.

Story wise, this reminds me of a modern take on 'Tiger and Bunny' without the buddy cop vibes. Commodified super heroes are as much about their brand as... whatever heroics they do, which we haven't seen any as of episode 2. The end of the first episode really had a chance to intrigue me with the shot reveal of Moon's head bloodied on the pillow- that could have stamped my ticket then, but immediately after (start of ep2), it was more or less undone by a cheap dream sequence/recap. Boo. Even if the show circles around to that plot thread again eventually, I was put off by the lazy cliffhanger bait with no payoff- and after completing episode 2, I have no confidence in it's storytelling.

Very pretty, but not enough substance for me and generally waffles between cynicism and empty heroic platitudes; may give it one more episode.

[MFauli]

Okay, this is actually great. Gave it another chance due to someone's recommendation.

While I have issues with some rushed character development, the overall show really is exciting and fun to watch and it keeps bringing these twists that want you to find out what's gonna happen next. The use of 3d-animation and anime-animation works great, too.

The overall style and music also evoke a very "Solo Leveling"-feeling.

Imo the only true must-see of the season (unless someone found something else? Certainly not Lazarus, lol).

[shinta|hikari]

My real wife and I have been loving this show. The final headshot was heartbreaking though.

[MFauli]

My real wife and I have been loving this show. The final headshot was heartbreaking though.

Unless it's ANOTHER fake-death ...

[MFauli]

Episde 5:

Ok, a complete new-start, huh?

I didn't dislike this, but this anime really is "beautiful people - the anime". It's super conspicuous how ugly people aren't allowed to be heroes in this one. Kinda makes it feel very shallow.

Anyway, hope we find out what happened with Lin Ling soon.

[MFauli]

Episode 6:

So this is all a flashback, since Enlighter is still a good guy in this "new" story, huh. I guess this will end with Yang Chen becoming a villain, otherwise I don't see the relevance to have made a hard-cut from Lin Ling to this guy.

Also kinda refreshing, especially in light of the bad tropes-thread: The love rival isn't some bad guy, nah, turns out he was just honestly friendly towards Yang Chen, until his tragic end. I would have liked to see how they resolve the love triangle, but no more, I guess.

Yang Chen using "E-Soul" for a name is weird, though. Is this chinese propaganda, a la "copying things is okay"? He could have juse used a new name and that would have been it, no more obvious clash with the original E-Soul.

[Death BOO Z]

watched up to episode six.

I really like the idea of the show, but I hate how so one-dimensional and shallow everyone is, it's the cliche' after cliche' and everything is surface level. I understand that maybe this is what you need to have for a story about super heroes being born from para-social relationships, but i hate it. it's like every trope i hate coming together for a party.

anyway, for the episodes.
episode 3 (standman/firmman) - this is the kind of stories you write about superman and suddenly it's a new age of "contemplating comic". amazing concept, amazing art for the "propaganda". everything is forgiven.
episode 4 - the shows concept carries it so hard. it works despite all the flaws. I really wish they wouldn't do those cliffhanger stunts at the last 20 seconds of each episode. by that time, I'm already checked out.
episode 5 - fuck it, I agree with whoever said that it's stupid to translate the female super hero name. if I have to sacrifice the great name "moon" and never read "little pomelo" for yuzu-chan, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. also that girl is too good for this guy, she's an angel. I think i should feel some sympathy for the guy with the batman-like parents, but the world building is so cartoonish that I can't. were those two assholes violent criminals before? or just really bad at delivery jobs and maybe also "mules" for some drug drop-offs?
episode 6 - I didn't watch past this, I have some guesses for who the mastermind behind the kidnapping might be, but I hate all of them. she's an angel, top ten, complete waifu material.


I need a new frame of mind for this show. maybe like Commoditization of social media "personalities" into being corporate assets? that doesn't work because I don't have a positive word to describe social media "influencers". it's all varying degrees of disrespect that must be accompanied by air quotes, the most positive is "content creator" and that's still a value judgement. it's too honest and naive to be about pop idols and the entertainment industry. i know the ingredients for the statement, but I can't string them together into a concrete sentence of what the show is about.

still, weird bullshit that's hard to watch is better than zero-substance nothing-shows,

[neflight86]

I think I agree with a majority of what you said about TBH (and social media), in that it just felt to forced into a positive light when the actual subject matter and characters are nothing praiseworthy. Very superficial and uninspired is where I left watching after episode 3/4.

[MFauli]

Episode 8:

It wasn't bad, but I'm like "okay, can we now find out what happened to Nice?"

And I agree with Death Boo, it's a very shallow show, especially in terms of characters designs, too. You can feel this was made by a very "elite chinese" mindset. Which is similar to the superficial mindset of South Korea, hence why it feels so similar to Solo Leveling for me. Everybody in this anime is a super model.

[shinta|hikari]

I think the show is using mini-stories to show how a society with approval-based powers would work and how humans will exploit the system. I am not even sure if they will ever come back to the previous characters.

[Death BOO Z]

watched 7 & 8.

7 is more of the same, the girl is great, the mastermind was who I thought it would be, I don't why he did all those things, and why did he spend the time pretending, but since he was the only character without a defined role, it had to be him.

8 is actually a good episode, carried by having a main character which isn't a total drag down edgelord moody teenager. it also helps that the wishes were mostly human scale. did she really not have a name for a few years? or was she rescued at a much older age than how it first appeared?

and yes, it seems that everyone is rich actually, an orphanage in a Victorian house can't be cheap, not with all that church glass windows. was that girl making the speech on the radio the daughter of the journalist? what's the timeline here?

[MFauli]

I think the show is using mini-stories to show how a society with approval-based powers would work and how humans will exploit the system. I am not even sure if they will ever come back to the previous characters.

They left Nice on a total cliffhanger, would make me rate this anime 1/10 if that just isn't told any further :/

[shinta|hikari]

The second story also ended in a cliffhanger. We aren't even sure which E-Soul survived. He didn't have an arm, so it could be the original, but the kid could've also simply lost an arm in the duel.

I don't expect to see a real conclusion to this idol story either.

[MFauli]

The second story also ended in a cliffhanger. We aren't even sure which E-Soul survived. He didn't have an arm, so it could be the original, but the kid could've also simply lost an arm in the duel.

I don't expect to see a real conclusion to this idol story either.

I assumed E-Soul is the villain, that's why it ends at a good point. But Nice is a total cliffhanger in the middle of some shit going down and we're left without any information. Not following that up would be crass.