Heroman

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: ヒーローマン

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 26

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 1, 2010 to Sep 23, 2010

Premiered: Spring 2010

Broadcast: Thursdays at 18:00 (JST)

Producers: TV Tokyo, Dentsu, Square Enix

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Bones

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Sci-Fi

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.81¹ (scored by 15,584 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #4790²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3290

Members: 39,842

Favorites: 79

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Crunchyroll

6.81

Ranked #4790Popularity #3290Members 39,842

Spring 2010TVBones

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Episodes: /26

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Synopsis

In California's Center City, shy but kindhearted Joseph Carter "Joey" Jones lives with his grandmother, working in a coffee shop. Though his family is financially burdened and he is bullied at school, he remains cheerful. A robotics enthusiast, he wants a top-of-the-line toy robot called a Heybo more than anything.

One day Joey and his friend Simon "Psy" Kaina come across a destroyed Heybo discarded by a group of rich kids. He takes it home and repairs it himself, excitedly naming it Heroman. However, one night Heroman is struck by lightning and comes to life, growing several times its size in the process.

That same night Center City is attacked by aliens called Skrugg whose attention was brought to Earth after Joey's acquaintance Professor Matthew Denton made attempts to contact them. Along with Joey, Heroman quickly heads to the scene of the attack, where he finds people in trouble, including his friend Lina Davis and her father. Using an arm-mounted controller, Joey is able to command Heroman to use superpowers to fight off the Skrugg and rescue civilians. As the aliens continue their invasion of Earth, the duo are the only ones separating humanity and destruction.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Heroman
Side story:	Heroman Specials

Matsumoto, Yasunori
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nanba, Hitoshi

Director, Storyboard

Haraguchi, Noboru

Sound Director

Tamura, Koutarou

Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Sueda, Yoshifumi

Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

	1: "Roulette" by Tetsuya (eps 1-12)
	2: "missing" by Kylee (eps 13-26)

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Ending Theme

	1: "CALLING" by FLOW (eps 1-12)
	2: "Boku no Te wa Kimi no Tame ni" by Mass Alert (eps 13-25)

More reviews

Reviews

Sep 23, 2010

Archaeon

Recommended

Over the years there have been several attempts at merging Eastern manga and anime with Western comics and cartoons. Batman had two manga outings (Child of Dreams and Death Mask), while the X-Men saw their manga counterparts run straight into a wall. Spiderman and The Hulk made appearances as early as 1970, and many people already know about the promised anime adaptations of several well known titles (Wolverine, X-Men, Iron Man, etc).

The problem is that all of the attempts thus far have not been as successful as one might hope or expect. One of the reasons for this is because the titles that have been ...

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Dec 24, 2014

ktulu007

Recommended

Heroman is a weird one. I'm not talking about the actual content since I always write these opening paragraphs before watching the series or film. No, I'm referring to the fact that it was written by Smiling Stan Lee. Yes, the same one who was President and CEO of the United States' Marvel Comics back before they lost their damn minds and made a lot of insanely stupid decisions like Jubilee becoming a vampire, Nightcrawler becoming half demon, Polaris being retconned as Magneto's daughter, Speedball becoming Penance and if I keep listing these we'll be here for tens of thousands of words. Anyway, Stan Lee ...

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Jul 15, 2013

SchrodingersMatt

Recommended

How ironic that Stan Lee would have to go to Japan to make a good old-fashioned American style superhero show, but in an era where it's more common to see parodies, dark twists and subversions than the genuine article, it's nice to see a callback to the good old days. The heroes are very heroic, the villains are very evil, and we never question for a moment which side is in the right. The robots are awesome, the monsters are creepy, and the action is a blast to watch. Ordinary teenagers have ordinary teenage problems, nosy adults worry about their kids, and life gets a ... hundred times more complicated when you have to balance out superhero work. They just don't make shows like this anymore, which is a shame. I have nothing against complex or innovative storylines, but I hope people never lose their appreciation for simpler pleasures like this.

Heroman was made by Bones, which means it has some of the best animation on the market. The visuals are fluid and detailed, and also incredibly stylish, with lots of bright (but never garish) colors, expressive faces, and some increasingly cool and imaginative battles. It's also nice to see how much effort went into the design work; it's true that a lot of the character designs and outfits fall into basic stereotypes, but they're at least American stereotypes instead of Japanese stereotypes of Americans. Some of the characters do suffer from anime hair, though. Everything else, from the layout of Joey's hometown to the cars, cafes and even the houses are unmistakably American-looking. We probably have Stan Lee to thank for that authenticity, and it's part of the reason a lot of people, myself included, say the show would do well on American television. This is one of the best-looking kid shows I've ever seen.

The music score consists primarily of loud electric rock. It's intense, fun to listen to, vaguely reminiscent of Soul Eater's score and just as effective in setting the mood for all the series' fun action scenes. The show brings out some softer pieces here and there as needed, but the battle music is what you're going to remember.

I just have one language track to judge this time. As always, I have a hard time judging the voice acting in a language I don't speak, but to my non-fluent ears it sounds like a perfectly comic-booky archetypal cast, which is exactly what the show needs. There's not a lot of subtlety, this isn't a very nuanced show, but the characters that are meant to be over-the-top sound deliciously so. They shout with passion, laugh heartily and even carry the show through its tender moments. Heroman's voice, comprised solely of groans and grunts, is uncredited and possibly synthesized, but man does he sound like a big badass robot. Joey is the only male character voiced by a woman, but he's supposed to be a very wide-eyed and boyish character (he even looks androgynous), and Mikaku Komatsu gets this side of him across fine, so I'm okay with this.

As far as teenage superheroes go, Joey Jones is cut from the same cloth as Peter Parker. He's not particularly popular, but he still has good friends he can count on. He's not particularly intelligent but he does have a clever streak. He's at that age between childhood and adulthood, where he has concerns like whether his love is reciprocated but still retains a boyish heart. It's a decades-old character archetype, but if executed well it can still make for a likable lead, and that's just what Joey is. His friends and relatives all fall into the simple and likable category as well, they can all more or less be summed up in two or three sentences, but when push comes to shove you still find yourself rooting for them. All of them, that is, with the exception of Joey's best friend Psy, who is implied to have once been one of "the cool kids" and possibly a bully himself before a leg injury got him removed from the football team. It's not terribly important to the story, but a little extra effort is always welcome in my book. Joey's brash but caring sister Holly, zany mad scientist Professor Denton and mutual crush Lina have their moments to shine as well, creating an all-around lovable core cast.

As per the title, though, the real star of the show is Heroman himself. This series is a no-holds action spectacle, plain and simple, to dwell on anything else for too long would be completely missing the point. The Skrugg are definitely a viable threat, aptly modeled after cockroaches with strength and weapons humans can't match. They just want to take over the world and kill everyone, and all the other villains have very simple comic book-y motivations for what they do. And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. It is immensely satisfying to see Heroman beating up the arthropod invaders, discovering more powers he can add to his arsenal, all the while showing off his flashy all-American paint job. Occasional use of stock footage notwithstanding (and the stock footage is actually pretty awesome) the crisply animated fight scenes only get more imaginative as Heroman gains new powers and new enemies.

After a little while Joey even gets some powers of his own, thanks to his gauntlet, and actually, I'd say giving him the chance to fight alongside his giant robot was probably the show's biggest stroke of genius. It adds that touch of human involvement to the fights that we just couldn't get from the silent, stoic Heroman, who only occasionally shows signs of sentience. By giving Joey a more direct involvement in the fights, which only increases as the story progresses, we're given a good look at Joey's personal growth, and that's handled quite well. The best part is, it never gets too dark or violent or complicated for children to watch and enjoy right along with you.

Compelling as it is, Heroman has as many problems as any awkward boy in high school. The show is pretty well-written on a whole, but the pacing isn't always up to scratch. I mentioned earlier that this isn't a character-driven show, and while they're all very likable, their development is nothing we haven't seen before. Make no mistake, the show's character drama works really well when it's used sparingly; it's cheesy and often melodramatic, but that's the point. During the lulls between battles when the characters have to carry entire episodes on their own, though... well, it's still pleasant to watch, but it's definitely not the show playing to its greatest strength. Meanwhile, we only get brief snatches of development from Psy, the character that does seem to have some hidden depths.

The series' low point comes in the middle, when Joey finds himself on the run from a government agency and has to hide out in the woods without making too much of a scene. Yeah, the whole "fugitive evading the authorities" story gets old really quickly. You can always be sure the show has something more waiting just around the corner, though, and when it's all cylinders firing, it's an absolute delight. The series concludes with a grand-scale finale that offers a satisfying resolution while still leaving enough openings for a possible second season. Most importantly, even if the characters aren't complex enough to carry the show all on their own, you still find yourself rooting for them all the way through. That's all I ask of an action show: caring about the characters enough to want to see them make it out alright.

That's the heart of what makes this show work, actually. Action and cool-factor are nice, but if there's no emotional investment, what's the point? That might not sound like much, but it's something I see people forgetting far too often. It's such a simple story that while writing this review, I initially found myself grasping at straws to find something, anything to say about it that isn't already obvious. But then I realized that being able to sum this show up in not so many words isn't a bad thing. It's a typical story we've seen dozens of times before, doubly so if you grew up reading American comic books, but it feels so sincere and passionate that it's hard not to cheer for it all the way through. It doesn't have to try too hard to be groundbreaking, all that matters is whether it makes the audience want to keep watching. Bring on the aliens, the mad scientists, the mutant plants, the rogue machines and scary weapons, the cool powers and wacky inventions! It's a lot of fun, dammit! That's all I have to say about Heroman at the end of the day, and it's all anyone ever should have to say about it. Isn't that enough?

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Jones, Joseph Carter

Heroman

Kaina, Simon

Davis, Lina

Lee, Stan

Collins, Vera

Denton, Matthew

Jones, Virginia

Jones, Holly Virginia

Minami, Doctor

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