Tu Bian Yingxiong X

My two criticisms are that it keeps the bad voice acting quirks of anime despite not needing to, combined with weak portrayals of anxiety disorders and OCD.

Anyways, this is the kind of power system that I always hoped heroaca would have, and also the level of violence that I hoped heroaca would devolve into... Etc. This is what I have wanted from hero media.

The two most common complaints seem to be about the "pacing issues" and about something thematic not resonating with the viewer.

To address the pacing, I really don't understand the issue. It's skipping through time in a way that makes sense ... and is easy to digest thanks to the use of different art styles. I don't think it's reasonable to blame the pacing if one enjoyed Stein's Gate or anything similar.

As for the themes... Listen. I know it's Chinese, and I know there is just a liiittle bit of anti-westernism that leaks out very subtly. But if it's enough to be off-putting to you, I think it says more about you than it does about the show. Keep in mind, this is a season of a larger Chinese series that was designed specifically for international audiences. I get that it wasn't engineered to be proverbial cheeseburgers and fries as a series, but you should probably be able to stomach a slightly different perspective once in a while, especially if it's watered down for the international palette. (Seriously, some of these other reviews make me concerned for the critical thinking ability of my fellow Americans. Read some history instead of watching the news for a little, it might do you good.)

Not trying to be cryptic about any of this; you'll know what I'm talking about if you watch it.

Heres my opinion :
This anime has an interesting premist with a really well done introduction for the beginning also a really good detail and animation. Oh I almost forgot that the music is very" good, sometimes it made me shed a tear. but as the ep goes by the introduction of so many characters actually doesn't make the sympathetic feeling for the character ( for me its better to introduce character like in the To Your Eternity or Takopi Original Sins). to much character to introduce and so many forgotten, the backstory didn't make the plot stronger but instead its making it confusing. If the ... character introduction is for season 2 for me it should goes as the lin ling journey, learning about other and what should he do next also i hope that lin ling have the charisma to change people's way of defining what is "heroes".

Overall for this anime is : 8.32 / 10

-🟢Spring 2025
Oh irony, an anime that tells the story of superheroes treated as a product, itself seems to be a product.

Hungry for a good superhero anime, I had high hopes for this series, unfortunately it didn't last long because it quickly turned out that this anime in the structure it chose, is not able to tell the story of its characters in a convincing way, and the most telling fact is that the most liked of them is the one who so far had about 2 minutes of screen time and didn't say a word.
This anime definitely doesn't inspire trust when it comes to ... being decent.......





Plot:
“In a world where superheroes are created and gain powers thanks to people's trust, a tournament will be held between them for the title of X, the most popular hero.”

The plot presents the world of celebrities but it's a superhero, something like The Boys but polite, a deconstruction of the classic superhero "oh, what if heroes really existed" nothing new, however, thanks to the power system, this anime somehow stands out from the others.
The heroes in this world are like celebrities, created through the trust/expectations of their fans.
In general, we get a lot of standard plots for this type of series, the heroes try to meet expectations and be themselves, they have to deal with hate, jealousy, opinions of fans and brutal competition with other heroes who also dream of becoming more and more popular.
All these things through the power system of this series have real supernatural effects, trust gives power, expectations are literally imposed curse that forces you to follow them and fears and hatred turn you into a monster, it's obvious/simple but interesting and universal, perfect for building a superhero universe on this.

However, this anime is really average/bad

It consists of 2-4 (more often 2) episodes of plots that are the origin story of the character.
They represent different levels but mostly they have the same problems and the biggest one is the terrible pacing that is too fast and prevents any real involvement in the story.
In just 2-4 episodes we get a whole character arc where nothing resonates because the characters establish deep bonds and change significantly in the span of a few minutes, this anime doesn't have time for a more subtle storytelling, especially in these 2-episode plots where this anime rushes even more and has to explain to us in a boring way all the things related to a given character.

-The character is a typical good-natured Izuku Midoriya *snap* one event and without a moment's hesitation it becomes edgy lord with a subplot that only included a few quick and short mentions.

-The character is a stereotypical perfect girl who does everything by herself, suddenly something goes wrong and she falls into depression (which lasted on screen for about 3 minutes xD) she listens to a cringe song and *snap* suddenly the depression disappears and a big transformation "oh, I won't do anything by myself anymore"

The ideas for all these characters/their origin stories seem to be too similar to each other and despite some quite interesting elements, ultimately not very creative. All of these origin stories of characters are driven by the fact that each of them (in most cases without a good boost of their motivation) dreams of becoming a hero and there is always some romantic thread at the center, they are always beautiful teenagers who often (at least at the beginning) do not differ from each other in a significant way and the pool of topics that these stories touch on is limited to those typical for a series that is an allegory of the celebrity world, in this anime it seems really artificial "oh, keep all these known and loved topics, we will quickly skim over their surface and hope that it is enough for you" and all this without... I don't know... a real desire to tell something real, as if telling the story of these characters was doing boring homework, you want to do it as soon as possible and go play CS, the creators want to create an army of characters as soon as possible and have a huge functioning universe in which they can make a typical tournament thread, filled to the brim with epic action that will attract viewers and money.
As someone who grew up on Marvel and DC cartoons, I really admire how the creators of these universes managed to create so many unique and charismatic characters that have forever been written into history.

Unfortunately, To be Hero X has no such ambitions and is a cheap product that does not want or can do anything more original, from the powers to the character designs to the origin story, the superheroes in this anime seem bland and too similar to each other, calculated to look nice on the shelf as a figure, because yes, the designs are nice but boring for a superhero series.

Even compared to another superhero anime such as MHA where the character designs and their powers seemed to be created with much more passion.

As I said, the plot focuses on the origin story of the character where we get a story consistent with the previously established rules, it always concerns the desire to become a hero and the obstacles that are related to the power system that is an allegory of the rules of the world of show business in general and it is OK, BUT not for a series that resets our involvement in the story every 2-3 episodes by exchanging all the characters and starting everything over.
It is simply boring to watch these 2-3 very similar stories that are (to a significant extent) detached from the rest of what we have seen.
There is also the fact that this anime likes to leave cliffhangers for several dozen episodes so that "you will find out in your own time" it seems like a cheap trick to prolong interest.
In addition to the origin story, in the meantime we get scraps that build some broader picture, some intrigue, of course it is needed and it is good that this anime does it, although it seems that it will have a greater significance only in the second season.

As I said, it's a deconstruction of the classic superhero, so it tries to be more mature/realistic and often succeeds, we have suicides, murders, a hypocritical and pathological system, and generally the characters aren't spared here... OK, this is the part of The Boys in this anime, but ultimately it comes off too often as really naive, where in a stereotypical way, with good intentions, everything ends well, naive and fairy-tale nonsense is mixed with something more serious and real, it's inconsistent and irritating.

-The hero has no way out, he lost his power because of the rules of this world, people hated him, he's broken but at the last moment NO, he won't give up, he'll fight and with his strong will prove his worth to everyone and defeat the villains, and all those people who hated him will love him for who he is..bruh

-The heroine again, is deeply hated by everyone and blamed for all the misfortunes, what's the solution? One magic thing that pretends that people shouldn't hate it and well... it works, they stop hating it and everything goes back to normal... bruh

And finally we come to the animation, something that was really captivating at first with its unique mix of styles but at some point it abandoned it and focused on standard but still good 2D animation.....



I don't know what else I can write, I was really disappointed with this anime, I was excited about the previews, I even watched the two previous series which for some reason are related to TBHX (on the sidelines, To be Hero is a really good, absurd comedy, I recommend it)
And well.. there was a void left XD

This anime definitely has some advantages but they are not important to me and as always at the end of each of my negative reviews I don't feel like thinking about an anime that didn't captivate me at all so I'll end it here.

Thanks for reading, any reactions are welcome, even insults under the profile haha

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐❌❌❌❌❌❌