A new world of heroes has blossomed with the newest series from director Haolin and the collaborative efforts of bilibili, Aniplex, and BeDream, introducing a thought-provoking twist on the superhero genre. In this third installation of the To Be Hero franchise, superheroes come into being if they gain enough trust from the people. This “trust value” provides them with powers, and the more trust they gain, the more powerful they become. The same goes for the opposite: when heroes lose trust, their powers similarly wane. The hero with the highest trust value is given the title of “X,” and every two years the highest-ranking heroes partake in a competition to challenge X’s position.
The first episode introduces this kaleidoscopic world through Nice, a popular hero who also acts as the face of the Treeman Corporation, and Lin Ling, an advertisement creator who takes clients like Treeman to help promote their heroes to the public. Lin Ling has aspirations of becoming a hero himself, but working behind the scenes to maintain heroes’ personas only serves to remind him of his relative banality.
When the show was first teased in 2022, it featured a variety of mesmerizing art styles that drew a lot of attention, but also scrutiny if it could be maintained throughout. Thankfully, the premiere episode did not disappoint. The story starts with a blend of 3D and 2D animation, and through flashback scenes and the introduction of new characters, more art styles take up the canvas of the screen. Some of the art styles introduced in To Be Hero X draw parallels to those found in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Arcane. While these comparisons may be low-hanging fruit, I think they’re still worth highlighting, not only because of their stylistic similarities but because To Be Hero X similarly dares to push the boundaries of animation as a storytelling medium.
In terms of storyline, the first episode does its necessary job of world-building, exploring the celebrity culture of heroes and emphasizing the importance of social media in boosting or tanking a hero’s trust value. The plot is nothing avant-garde, and this feels intentional — a strategic move to ease viewers in before diving into more complicated lore. By introducing heroes as popular figures dependent on their parasocial relationships with the public, the show makes this fantastical world feel a little bit more familiar. It’s even more helpful that they showcase this with a regular citizen like Lin Ling, who’s shown to idolize Nice’s girlfriend, Moon.
By making the plot of the first episode relatively standard, the show allows the animation to take center stage, acclimating viewers to the art’s creative parameters before the story takes its inevitable twists and turns. My favorite detail so far is how the animation visualizes the key emotions of trust and fear as they spread from one person to another. In one scene with Nice and his fans, the trust that the fans possess materializes as sparkly streaks of light that seep out from their fingers, travel up Nice’s arm, and diffuse into his chest. The opposing emotion of fear also takes on a tangible form, not as streaks of light but as dark, flowing ink. The main antagonist of this episode absorbs the inky fear of his victims and literally weaponizes it against them, crafting new tools out of the substance and using them to attack. Through these visual depictions, the animation shows how easily these two emotions can pass between people and, for better or for worse, make certain people stronger than others.
Another detail I love is how different art styles are used when illustrating different characters’ inner monologues. Lin Ling’s inner monologue is characterized by a luminescent color scheme and dotted “screentones,” reminiscent of the light from our phones and the pop-art comic style. In combination, these two elements capture Lin Ling’s deep-seated longing to be like the heroes he sees on his screens. On the other hand, the animation of the main antagonist’s inner monologue takes on a black-and-white, pen-drawn illustration style through which the metaphor of fear-as-ink reprises its role. It’s these intricate choices in the animation that carry the brilliance of this first episode.
With the growing concerns about the future of creative industries in the face of generative technology, it’s shows like this that keep me hopeful. Watching these creators’ uninhibited magnificence dance across the screen was nothing short of exhilarating, and I feel lucky to have been able to witness the outcome of their intensive dedication! With several heroes still left to be introduced, it looks like To Be Hero X has much more brilliance in store.
The first episode of To Be Hero X streams on Crunchyroll on April 5 at 5:30 p.m. PST.
