Hero Mask

[Spoilers]

In a world where every normo wears a guy fawkes-like mask and whenever anything happens, there is a zoom-in into character's eyeball, we follow a squad of cops who quite literally suck at their job. Just so happens to be, one of the guy fawkes dudes bumps into this cop woman in a busy street and then she dies. Another cop sees this shit happening and concludes that it was a murder but oh such a mysterious murder indeed. And now we have the setup ready for this mystery cop show anime filled with action and cliches so lousily executed that they become the sole ... selling point of the entire thing. Great.

Let's start with the villain terroristo-kun's and their amazing skills because it is so amazing. These quite-literally-baddies fold some paper/bandage thingies all over their faces and then the bandage can basically turn into anyone's face because sci-fi is listed in the genres. This is apparently very new, advanced hightech shite which is not a common thing to occur in the series universe, so many cops and other people who witness this lose all their shit and get terrified just by looking at the face-metamorph action. The whole baddie side of the anime is not even laughable, but rather: pathetic. Baddie persons can basically beat 50 gun-wielding cops with your everyday bushcraft knife. Epic swords skills are not even required since the cops just like stand there waiting for the baddies to come and slit their throats open. The baddies also make some sort of sicko facial expression and laugh very evily when doing this just to demonstrate how insane and evilzz they are. Oh, and did I mention they are practically immortal? Well, now you know. We also have other equally great stuff like villains who are too kewl to even look at the explosions or destruction they spread because apparently, someone thought it would be real badass thing to not do. There is also a scene in the series where dude shoots four times, but manages to headshot 6 cops while doing so [rewatched the scene to make sure that it really did happen]. Random car-chase sequences, endless amount of bullets and lots of bang bang sounds, Mexican standoffs, too, because aren't those just lovely western thingies to put in an anime. The actions of the villains and cops make exactly as much sense as they are believable.

The next thing I want to talk about is the title of the show, Hero Mask, which is actually written with a font/logo that makes it appear to be written rather like: Hero=Mask or Hero≠Mask. Hero equals Mask, Hero does not equal Mask. When I saw this, I thought maybe it's some type of witty, subtle wow thingie regarding the plot line or characters of this series. Spoilers: Nope. Apparently it just looked really cool way to design the thing so there's that. I am not going to go much further into detail with the writing of this show. Half of it is basically cheap-as-hell blockbuster flick that is now an anime and contains some mystery, cops vs. crime and sci-fi elements you typically see in movies that focus on these subjects and which mean score starts with a 5 on IMDb, except this one seems to be made with zero self-awareness/respect towards the audience, and contains some feels. Later on the series takes some sort of weird training arc route centering around the sci-fi bandages while also focusing on some bizarre relationship drama, and further introduces some "it's bigger than us" epicness when the 'mystery' --erm -- *starts to unfold* with the help of "Oh wait! Now I remember this important plot related thing, me and my silly memory, hehe." and literally dogs working as plot devices in the narrative. I also facepalmed for realz when the "big mystery scheme" was eventually structured on a blackboard with post-it notes and some thread like they do CSI and other hyper realistic 'detective' series. The terrific thing is that the 2nd half of this show is still vast improvement from the first one. What I really want to say here is: Thanks Netflix.

"Jamesuuu, Jamesuu." So this anime has this character dude called James who is some type of "unfit to follow the typical cop codes" archetype, and this side of his character is practically the only side of his character. The cop squad contains other equally well-planned dudes like an old guy who wears hipster classes an acts like some type of thug-life connoisseur. Then there is this hacker dude who is like really quick with keyboards and stuff, and some very hot looking females who kinda just are there for the sake of it but still appear to be real important, plot-wise. Like Sarah whose name is Sarah and she is hot and can even use the gun occasionally as long as it includes shooting an inanimate objects such as floors. She literally can't miss. As a whole, I found the cast to be highly irrelevant. There are quite a lot of other characters, too, from lawyers and business owners to mad geniusses, and pretty much none of them are interesting to follow or even worth of talking about. I cared about no one and saw no reason to do so either.

The dialogue and feels side of this series are almost as lively and fresh as the action scenes, and I can't even decide if I want to blame the writers, the execution or the seiyuu work. The woman who got killed was apparently real interesting person and loved by all, so naturally, Jamesuu talks about her importance by saying "She was like a mother to me." He sounds like a middle-aged man reading out loud a tv guide. "The Bold and The Beautiful Episode 8744 today at 5:30 PM on channel four just like has happened for the past 27 years, great." Of course, the music choice during this scene is so successful they could have as well played Skrillex and the effect would have been the same. I don't understand why such basic things are so hard to do correctly or at least in moderately acceptable manner. If this was just one scene and rarity in the series, this would be nitpicking, naturally, but that's how the entire thing works. Executed and acted without actually trying to achieve the things that it is supposed to achieve. Quickly put together without even considering to polish the thing to some degree, or even place a fitting BGM to play while the scene plays out.

The series is not all pure bad, but finding good sides from it hasn't been the easiest thing. Scenes that made me laugh or momentarily excited/feel anything/get any type of expression out of me, were scarce. One of the best ones was this romantic no-teasing-without-pleasing occurrence where dude pinched his woman's cheek (Eve or whatever she was called) and told her she is getting fat. Pretty funny, yo. One other was this childhood scene with kids and one of the kids fell in highly adorable way, almost made me :3, but these type of small details were pretty much the only praise-worthy content I saw. The stuff that was actually supposed to matter, didn't really matter to me.

In terms of art, Studio Pierrot hasn't been at their best recently, but I guess Netflix did some decent-ish funding this time around, and major problems don't exist, but the thing is still far from impressive from the animation department. Some CGI is used with character movements, the action sequences suffer quite terribly when it comes to the scale and dimension of things. Like some "fight" scenes with multiple people don't really feel like they are taking place inside a spacious room (even when they literally are), but rather it looks like the characters are just in a 2 -dimensional row in relatively tight space. It can look pretty damn weird at times. One more thing I need to mention is the mouth movements and placement that can be pretty lol-worthy at times, like in this one scene with May (or Mey, didn't use subs, too lazy to check how her name is spelled), her mouth was placed to where her nose was supposed to be, yet she was speaking and the thing was fully animated. Real weird err. The art style itself it fairly decent and perhaps deserves some praise too, and in generally, the production is easily passable from the arts department. Surely the thing could be much more fun/entertaining to watch if it contained more of those well-made/memorable animation sequences or artwork, but as it is, the art kinda just is there, much like the female characters. The biggest exception from this quality level is pretty much the entirety of episode 6 which was the easily the best thing from the entire series and in some sense made watching this series not feel like a complete waste of time. But even when I say this, ep 6 was still highly based on coincidences and continuity errors; events that were highly unlikely to occur as they did, but at least it managed to be entertaining and showed that occasionally some extra effort is being put in the making of this series, too.

The score is completely dull and boring. It has nothing to say and nothing to offer -- outside one song in episode 13 that lasted like 10 seconds. The song variety is also highly limited. Similar thing can be said about the voice acting which is just weird. PG13 anime with adult characters, no adult-feel coming out from any character in terms of behavior or speech. Many of the characters sound pretty much as empty as they feel. For example, out of the many crying scenes none seemed genuine.

Enjoyment-wise, my expectations were not met. I thought average action series could keep me entertained for the day, but eventually, it wasn't very fun to watch, it felt irrelevant, unimportant, and at the same time, was not so bad nor over the top in a way that could have offered high entertainment value with ironic viewing either. As a bottom line: If Hero Mask tried to be stupid in the most boring way imaginable, then it did its job. I don't typically write reviews this long, but I was, at times, so bored I had to do something while watching it just to refrain from falling in coma.

Numbers and quick sum up for the wicked,

Story 4/10, more eh and meh than downright awful, but still too sucky and messy to be called average
Characters 3/10, about as interesting as a lesson regarding the history of spaghetti
Character design 6/10, some are too anime, few dudes look pretty badass I guess, milfs are hot
Animation 5/10, weird and inconsistent at times, can be good when it really wants to
Backdrop/other art 7/10, some great scenery here and there, impressive trees and buildings and VOLVO
Sounds 4/10, this OST and level of voice acting stands out because it lacks
Enjoyment 3-6/10, quality differences, and boredom is there, that ep 6 tho
+Favorite character: that cat named Wolf from ep 8-11 or sumtin who purred real loudly and broke vases like the motherfucker she is
Overall 4/10, not the worst anime Netflix has ever 'done' AKA called their original

Netflix has done it again. Licensing another original show that has all the worst aspects of Japanese anime and Hollywood cinema rolled into one objectionable package. Money might buy happiness, but it sure as shit doesn’t produce a quality anime. Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, is probably sitting on a yacht in the Pacific like, “you think I give a f—k about quality, shut your non-yacht owning face up before I Molly-wop your bitch-ass.”

…….(yes sir)

James Bond (I mean, Blood) embodies the typical action hero archetype of being a reckless, “shoot first, ask questions later” protagonist. As expected of the archetypal qualities ... of his character, he exudes pure “cool” and a suave, confident demeanor to confront hazardous situations without a moments hesitation. Unfortunately for Mr. Blood, this is all his character has to offer in terms of substance, neglecting a quintessential element that would allow the viewer to discern the “person” behind the “mask.” Regardless of the stories intent (i.e. an action packed crime investigation) it is imperative to construct believable characters; or, at the very minimum, characters that have a personality beyond their hackneyed quarks and conventional platitudes. And no, pummeling an old man with glasses and shooting a bunch of evil villains does not qualify as proper characterization.

Sarah Sinclair, an ordinary civilian who becomes entangled in the “mask” case when Monica auspiciously perishes from a “heart attack,” plays the role of prosaic side character. Similar to James Blood, her character is vacuous, simply existing for the sole purpose of……….you know, I’m not even sure; thus, proving how unavailing she is as a prominent character in the series. Episode 12 highlights this shortcoming when she uses the whiteboard to determine the nexus between Steve Martland and his business associates, because rather than sharing insight on her cognitive considerations, she merely works in silence, offering no insight into her thought process (i.e. her personality).

The man simply known as Grimm acts as a foil to James Blood, not in the sense that he is explored with any noticeable detail, but because he is an unhinged lunatic with no regard for human life (including his own). Hence why he walked into a fully-armed, federal building to fight a cluster of incompetent cops — the odds were only 30:1 — to show James his new mask and titillate him with ideas of bizarre, venereal adventures (don’t tell me this thought didn’t cross your mind when his face turned into a girl, you sick pervert). In truth, Grimm is deployed as a pawn to establish the presence of “masks,” provoking James Blood to embark on a mission to unveil the web of secrets surrounding the mysterious object in question.

While “Hero Mask” entertained the notion of a compelling crime investigation, it far too often descended into pointless action sequences — usual via a car chase — that were fairly jejune, not to mention cliched. It felt reminiscent of a 007 movie with its use of hi-tech gadgetry, elaborate combat scenes, and tension-filled atmosphere; of course, this is not meant to be a compliment, as these attributes disguised the numerous deficiencies in the overarching narrative. But who cares about the implementation of a weak narrative when you can have a UFC street fight in the middle of a busy intersection — with guns! Someone get Dana White on the phone, I want to see this happen at their next event.

“Hero Mask”, for the most part, plays out like a daytime tv drama, employing a rudimentary, black-and-white framework with dreadful voice acting and enough action sequences to put Bruce Willis to shame. It gives the vibe of a never ending police drama that will persist long past its shelf life for purpose of………….you know, I’m not sure about this one either. But with a season two on the horizon, you’d best brace yourself for additional narrative monotony and stodgy characters, as the ingredients in this irrational composition are flawed, unexplored, and encumbered with quotidian detail. “Hero Mask,” to its detriment, forgets to remove its own proverbial “mask,” limiting its scope and effectiveness as an engaging anime.

I don't really know what I watched here.
If you ask me "what happens in Hero Mask", I can't explain. I remember the beginning, the girl diying and the mask stuff, but that's all.

I can't see any progression here.
I can't understand any of the characters motivations.
I can't even recognize the caracters of it and what they are.

That happens mostly because nothing happens in the course of the series. Yea, there's some things I can remember in the middle of it and in the end, but the plot doesn't make any sense and the show doesn't even have a premise.

Yea, the mask from the title is ... there and we learn its properties in from the start of the series, but we are fooled by it because Hero Mask isn't about it and we even forgot about its existence sometimes.

The sound is dumb. The animation is Naruto-tier, with character designs that are beautifully generic.

It's a waste of time. 15 episodes of nothing happening and pure boredom.

HERO MASK is the second Netflix original that attempts to merge elements of Western action/crime thrillers with sci-fi shenanigans after B: THE BEGINNING face-planted itself into a bizarre cliche-ridden mess of disconnected ideas and hollow characters. The best and worst thing you can say about this bit of double dipping is that I now appreciate B just a little more for at least making an entertaining albeit drunken stumble of it. By contrast, HERO MASK is joylessly sober in almost every moment.

The possible clandestine offing of a prosecutor in quasi-futuristic London gets the inquiries of her colleague Sarah Sinclair and elite Special Service of ... Crime officer James Blood (yes, that's right) up and running. It's a typical corporate conspiracy setup. But the show is already so disinterested in whatever minute intrigue this premise brings that it quickly introduces another mystery in the form of strange paper masks that grant their users extraordinary abilities and then proceeds to scrap this idea for the straight conspiracy stuff again. Just like B: THE BEGINNING, there's no through line and even trying to come up with a comprehensive synopsis is a toil in futility. Let's just say it's a story with shootouts, chases, assassinations, investigations, interrogations, revelations, and whatever other -ations you can probably imagine based on what I've described.

HERO MASK’s lack commitment to its ideas matches that to its characters. The history both leads share with the deceased prosecutor, a relationship that is never explored in any detail, is their sole drive and character trait. The show occasionally posits James as some kind of loose cannon who is quick to shoot, but really he is a completely competent professional without any flaws, internal conflict, or character arc to speak of. The supporting cast is comparably stodgy and one-dimensional, although a couple get some oddly timed backstories involving their fridged lovers. The only interesting characters are the two mask users. Grimm’s scenery-chewing is ridiculous and dumb, but at least he stands out in a sea of dullness. Theo is the only character with any sort of relatable plight. Neither last very long.

If the plot points and character descriptions didn’t key you in on the affinity HERO MASK has for the worst of American action thrillers, then the stylistic preferences certainly will. Newbie writer/director Hiroyasu Aoki bungles the action with extreme rapid-fire cutting and disorientingly close angles reminiscent of directors like Paul Greengrass, Christopher Nolan, and the late Tony Scott. Unlike their work, the action scenes in HERO MASK lack the frenetic camera movements and are at least properly storyboarded. But certain information is often lacking. Sometimes we get a character rearing up for a punch only for the next shot to show the adversary reeling post-impact, skipping the point of contact. Other times, it’s a car coming out of nowhere. The weak sound design doesn’t carry the necessary weight to make up for the absence of perspective either. Overall, the action is either incomprehensible or simply not appreciable, all happening within a spatial and locational vacuum. And no amount of choppy editing can hide just how implausible every chase and tussle is. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a lot, but the action here is full of howlers. In the animated form without real actors, props, sets, or need for stunt work, these kinds of stagings are purely inexcusable aesthetic choices.

Formal duffs apply to the non-action scenes as well with overuse of close-ups and reaction shots. Surely someone will make a supercut of every sigh, sip of coffee, and nervous lip bite that must be endured to reach the end. The amount of excelsior HERO MASK stuffs into every scene results in a slog, especially in the show’s second half. There are some truly pointless scenes and cutaways that have absolutely no bearing on the story. Why must we cut from a tense scene of James snooping around a house, gun in hand and checking his corners (which ultimately goes nowhere BTW), to Sarah at home, comfy, drinking tea and staring disapprovingly at her cat? Is this supposed to be some kind of tension deflator? I seriously can’t figure this one out.

HERO MASK crawls in this manner all the way to its strangely dissipated conclusion. There’s not much in the way of proper resolution or catharsis with plenty of loose threads for season 2. It’s a fitting end to such a dull and unfocused production. What’s nice to say about HERO MASK? I guess the art and animation are alright. Even a studio like Pierrot can make something look nice when given a decent budget. But it’s not like there’s much to show, and even then, everything seems overlit and the character designs have glassy doll-like eyes that reflect their empty personalities. Netflix has proven itself capable of delivering quality original content, but it has a long way to go convince anyone that they are a player in the anime sphere as well.

The premise is interesting, the art is pleasant enough, so what went wrong? Typically i will give a genre credit according to whether it takes itself seriously or not and the judge it accordingly.

Hero Mask is a case of mediocrity within a title that attempts to take itself seriously. How professional bureau agents go lone-wolf, breaking the law and endangering the public is beyond me. Somehow trained security guards have zero concept of cover and literally flag each with thier handguns in the most amateur and pathetic display of armed guardsmanship i have ever seen.

A cornerstone is even basic writing is to follow your ... own rules, whereas in Hero Mask, everything seems to be committed to pandering into a "cool" factor. Before they even wrote this, did they attempt to speak with any intelligence/spy/investigative bureau? I doubt it, or otherwise if they did, they must've missed everything that was said.

Hero Mask started out OK until we get to episode 2 and the moment that completely ruined this anime for me.

**** Spoilers Below ****

You have Grimm (the ridiculously cliched madman antagonist) literally slitting someone's throat right in the Policy HQ lobby and the police just don't seem to think that he constitutes an imminent, credible threat to the other people there and go in guns blazing?

What. The. Actual. F*ck?!?

I couldn't get over how ridiculously incompetent the police performed. Most of these "highly trained" police "officers" literally just stood around stupidly, patiently waiting for their turn to be gunned down, one by one. Not once did ... they use any of the tactics they should have been taught in training: things like using cover effectively (or at all), setting up supporting lines of cover-fire, re-evaluating the situation after several of them were killed or not charging in blindly, etc. Even after about 30 police officers were brutally killed by Grimm in the lobby, they still just stood around minutes later on the SSC floor and did not try to shoot him on sight?!?

Sorry, I'm out. No watch 3 episodes first for this one.

I have a really low tolerance for stupid garbage and this is just that, utter, idiotic garbage!

This show looked interesting. But two minutes in I noticed something was off. I looked up it's Wiki and it is made in Japan. But, the artwork is trash. This is not anime. There are many animes I want to watch and I don't have time for one that looks like this.

The art looks bland and flat. There was very minimal shading and the eyes just looked strange. It reminded me of Chinese or Korean art which just isn't anime. After reading some of the other reviews I would have to agree that netflix was just trying to westernize the show making it turn out ... like... that. I didn't even finish the first episode it was such a dumpster fire.

Story? I dunno didn't care to find out. Sound? Sounded pretty good. Character? Didn't care. Enjoyment? I would pick zero if that was an option. Overall? One sounds fine, maybe some would like this but I didn't and it isn't anime.