Tu Bian Yingxiong X Episode 22 Discussion

RIP Smile. It's like they say, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. Seems like all the real ones (that just so happen to be former Xs) like him, OG E-soul, and Sheng are destined to die by virtue of the evil corporate scumbags manipulating everything from the shadows.

Based on the reactions from everyone around X, it seems clear that when he switches the animation style with a snap that it essentially freezes/pauses time to allow him to complete his maneuver before unfreezing it with another snap. I would guess that he has a time limit on how long he can do this based on his talk about "overtime" and what we have seen from his PV with the watch alarm going off at the end.

Everything about this episode was AWESOME except for 1 very SIGNIFICANT detail... we still have no F'ing clue about Dragon Boy's background, how Rock found him, or really anything at all besides him disclosing his ability. The stuff with being under the ice showed us very little, and seemed purposefully done, which makes me question why only 2 episodes were budgeted for Dragon Boy for the season. Either it somehow bleeds into the last 2 episodes that are supposed to be focused on Ahu and X, or it gets rolled over into season 2, which shows how much they overshot in trying to introduce and develop 10 heroes while simultaneously developing the plot alongside those origin stories within 24 episodes.

This makes me very worried about how much we're going to get for Ahu and X before this season ends. That was my biggest fear going into this series, that the origin stories would be shortchanged for the sake of time, and while it has managed to exceed my expectations by successfully creating surprisingly fleshed out characters for the first 7 heroes shown in only 2 to 4 episodes for each of them, it seems like Dragon Boy is now the first one to get rushed through due to those time constraints. We will see over the next 2 weeks whether that happens with Ahu and X too.

I would bet that the season will end with all 10 heroes showing up at the battlefield for the current top 10 hero tournament. That seems like the ideal way to end the season on a cliffhanger to get everyone hyped for season 2. Who doesn't love a good tournament arc, right?

P.S. This is the "smile incident" mentioned in the beginning of the series. We are almost at the present day from the end of episode 4.

X is top tier hero!! I think this is a amazing character for such very little screen time. Also we have two episodes left and one hero yet to be shown and it's this dog character that I've wanted to see the most. Not to be negative on a fantastic series and episode, but why do we have 2 episodes left if we're not done with this arc and haven't shown the final hero yet? I just hope this ending isn't rushed because we also got to answer the question, who is going to be the next X?

I am glad the CGI animation is back, but I need more episodes with it. I prefer the CGI because it makes it look different compared to other anime!!

so smiles daughter moon will be killed by esoul from the command of uncle rock to mess with x it seems

Holy shit! What an episode it was!
It seems like Rock has figured out something about X. But I don't think he can ever beat X, no matter what he does.
And fuck these stupid peasants. How can they still cheer for Dragon Boy after seeing him being consumed by fear?

@deg How do we know Moon is Smile's daughter?

@deg How do we know Moon is Smile's daughter?

So Dragon Boy was already trained even to withstand fear.
X was a little late to the scene. Goodbye, SMILE ! 💔💔
NICE was saved by X but he's gonna end up taking his own life due to the guilt of being responsible for the death of the hero that he loved and aspired to become.
X's entry was so awesome. Switching things from 2D to 3D and I guess he even made himself sober by getting that beer in cans out of him and made them disappear 😲😲
X just crushed Dragon Boy like a paper and threw the trash lol
There's nothing that X can't do 🫰😭❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥
I guess Rock will spin the story like Nice made Smile become a monster and Dragon Boy took care of it. But when Dragon Boy tried to stop Nice, X intervened and saved him.
Now Rocks found a weakness in X that he could exploit when X was holding on to SMILE's locket.

@Niwaka-Samurai Since X is so powerful why not just kill Rock directly instead of giving him any chances. A good riddance for a villain and also take revenge for his friend Smile in the process.

@LordGrim9987 Killing Rock without any prove will only cause X downfall. X will be consider as a threat rather than a Hero and will ultimately suffer same fath as Zero. This socity works on people's trust so any wrong moves can be fatal.

@ZXEAN But from what we've seen so far, and the major reason why others are investigating X, is that the Trust concept doesn't seem to directly apply on X.

@Niwaka-Samurai Since X is so powerful why not just kill Rock directly instead of giving him any chances. A good riddance for a villain and also take revenge for his friend Smile in the process.

Season 1 of TBHX is all a set up for the tournament that happens in S2.

Dragon Boys story (along with Queen's story) will continue in season 2. Most likely because they are integral to Rock's (Dragon Boy) and Micky's (Queen) plans. Ep 23 will be Ahu's origin story but keep in mind that a big chunk of his story was told in the first To Be Hero X concept trailer (X fighting the phobia clones). Ahu will most likely have a bigger role in the story in S2.

Although X's episode is ep 24, he technically appears in Dragon Boy's and Ahu's episodes. And we already learned bits and pieces about X in the shows concept and character trailers. Most likely ep 24 will be a set up for S2 and S2 is where you will learn more about X.

The director of the show is Li Haoling and he likes to keep things suspenseful until the very end. Look at Link Click, you don't learn about Lu Guang (one of the main characters of the show) until S3.

I feel bad for anyone who’s not watching to be hero x weekly. I can’t believe I used to be sleep on Chinese animation. X, it’s oozing off the screen goat. Finally got to see him in action and this is the most emotion we’ve seen from him as well.

I fucking hate Smile went out over some bullshit like that and the fact he died with a smile on his face… man just wanted to see his daughter and make sure she was ok. Didn’t hurt a fly, did things the right way and by all accounts was the ideal hero everyone strives towards. You know he was one of the good ones when X, who’s shown zero emotion in any of his appearances, is visibly upset and angry about losing his best friend. Congrats, you just made an enemy of the strongest being on the planet.

The choreography for the nice vs dragon boy fight was absolutely incredible as was Smile alter vs Nice. The 2D/3D shifts with X were also dope. I feel like these last few episodes are going to be insane. I can’t wait.