‘To Be Hero X’ premiere review: “Nice”

Over the years, Donghua (Chinese animation) has amassed mounting popularity. Series such as Link Click and Heaven’s Official Blessing have ardent fans, and the former, in particular, soars with dynamic animation and emotional, intensive plotting. Due to this consistent upswing in attention, it’s only a matter of time before a series dominates the conversation. Enter, To Be Hero X.

Created and directed by Li Haolin (Link Click), the series uses a mix of animation styles and is looking for blockbuster status. Episode 1, “Nice,” wastes little time, throwing us headfirst into this world with a barrage of visuals and musicality. Jointly produced by Bilibili, Aniplex, and BeDream, To Be Hero X delivers an explosive premiere that sets the tone for the incoming story.

What is To Be Hero X About?

Set in a world where heroes are created by people’s trust — aka, a person’s faith in someone’s ability to fly grants them the ability for flight — To Be Hero X turns superheroes into idols. Trust is a commodified, calculated data reflecting these values on people’s wrists. Ordinary people can be heroes as long as they earn enough trust, enabling them to become super-powered beings who can save the world. However, due to the instability of the wills of the masses, a hero’s journey is shaky, based on public perception and judgment.

The hero who receives the most trust is known as X. The first hero we meet, Nice (Natsuki Hanae, Dandadan), is actually Lin Ling. Once the assistant to a media relationships company CEO where he was tasked with packaging ads for the ranking heroes, an unfortunate and deadly interaction led to him masquerading as the popular hero. However, that mask becomes increasingly accurate due to the public’s perception of him and how their belief and trust in him grants him the powers of the real Nice.

From the start, it’s an interesting conceit, asking us to root for a character who is deceiving the very public whose trust his life is based on. As Episode 1 progresses, we realize there’s much more to this world and the mechanisms keeping it afloat than meets the eye.

Initial thoughts.

Admittedly, the first two minutes almost threw me. The 3D animation style is jarring, especially when there’s no action. As simply Lin Ling, it nearly pulls the focus away from the actual storyline. But the longer the episode progresses, the easier it is to acclimate to this specific, heightened animation.

However, the series shines in its mix of 2D and 3D, offering dynamic and electric action sequences. The depth and color stories gorgeously capture the superhero setting with flashes of neon vibrancy. The action, in particular, a closing fight, demonstrates all that marrying these two styles is capable of. The direction takes a ground-level approach, watching these larger-than-life figures duke it out.

The character animation is a little flat when, again, it’s not superhero-related. Nice is the best-designed so far, with his girlfriend, fellow hero Moon, lacking in substance. Nice is at his best when the two versions of himself—Lin Ling and Nice—converge to create someone grittier and angrier than the simple, pretty face of the hero.

Tonally, it’s a little all over the place. The premiere explores heavy topics Heavy, such as suicide, and glosses over it with silly sound effects and physical comedy. When the series returns to the darker elements, there’s a bit of tonal whiplash. However, it seems that, by the end of Episode 1, the writing gets most of its rudimentary humor out of the way as it sets up a greater mystery and addresses the suicide with a necessary grievous introspection.

Continue or quit?

To Be Hero X Episode 1 hooks you. What it lacks initially in grounded visuals, it makes up for in sheer spectacle. The series is swinging big when it comes to animated landscapes and narrative scopes, and Nice is easy to root for. While there’s a certain stiffness to the opening moments, when the series hits its highs, it takes off with an explosive, attention-grabbing determination. It wants to be the next big thing, and it might achieve it.

To Be Hero X Episode 1 is out now on Crunchyroll.

Images courtesy of Crunchyroll/BeDream

Allyson Johnson

Based in New England, Allyson is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of InBetweenDrafts. Former Editor-in-Chief at TheYoungFolks, she is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and the Boston Online Film Critics Association. Her writing has also appeared at CambridgeDay, ThePlaylist, Pajiba, VagueVisages, RogerEbert, TheBostonGlobe, Inverse, Bustle, her Substack, and every scrap of paper within her reach.