Story : (5) Concept is outstanding, taking American Superhero theme into anime format, but still needs much improvement, each characters’ backstory are common and clichéd(guy who had his parents killed and is seeking revenge, big boss guy turned bad, troubled teenage girl, etc)
Role distribution among supporting characters are poor. They each get 1ep to star on their story and that’s about it, their significance is simply done at that point. The story struggles to put in transitions between major events as many episodes appear to start a minor conflict to resolve by the end of that very ep and seldom have any effect on the story after then. Simpler said is how you can skip 70% of the episodes and watch the bigger events that take more than 3eps, and still would not feel like you missed anything.
I disliked how Karina fell in love with Kotetsu, not only that I am totally against the 10+ years age difference, along with how Kotetsu is married and already have a child.(Though exact age unknown, estimated age for Karina and Kotetsu are 17-18 and 32-40 respectively). How the development happen is very weak. Kotetsu have never personally save Karina from any danger and act nice in the same way he did to everyone else, and she is well aware of that. The reason for this romantic development is simply the same old “most attractive female in the same character category as the protagonist must fell for him, ignoring any logic that may get in the way”.
The plot villains made are pure stupid, Maverick’s “scenario” that everyone loathe wouldn’t make any benefits to himself even if he succeeded. He’s trying to dispose of his own faithful heroes that are at the point still loyal to him and had made him billionaire he is now, then replace them with powered soda cans that can’t even talk, expecting the media will be stupid enough to see their beloved heroes all turning lifeless at the same time. Indeed realistic voice synthesis seemed to be possible at that age, but as demonstrated by Cis the gynoid in earlier ep, the programming of anything else apart from battle is poor, the bots seem to have a totally absurd amount of memory storage available for vocal capability, and if they are going to replace the heroes without anybody noticing, interviews on the heroes will still be made regularly, try manage that Mr. Mav. (Also I’m wondering how creating bots with aerokinesis, cryokinesis, or transformation power is possible, if they’ve achieved that then I don’t see any need to try kill the heroes, just make a bot that can create a black hole and kick the heroes normally into unemployment would be enough)
Maverick’s plots are not only non-beneficial, but gives a lot of risks to himself. As how he cannot delete corporal objects, Kotetsu could have simply point out his innocence by showing material objects(such as photo) he took with the other heroes. Which unlike Emperor Charles in Code Geass, Maverick have no records of the heroes daily life so it is nigh impossible to send in Ouroboros henchmen in the heroes or anyone who have any relation to Kotetsu’s houses, cars or whatever place a photo or physical evidence may be and destroy all of those countless things without anyone noticing.
How Barnaby suddenly remembers Kotetsu’s identity when he heard “Bunny-chan” is absurd, it’s like Fairy Tail which is saying “friendship can break any barrier, heck it can do anything anyway”, it is certainly not what I was expecting, I know people would not want Barnaby to act all Sasuke much longer anyway but there certainly are better solutions to it.
Countless plotholes, too many to even point out but for an example is how an Ouroboros henchman have Lunatic's flamethrower when Lunatic isn't in their organization, or how Lunatic, thinking that he should kill all evil, kill prisoners only in 1 cell rather than burning the whole block, indeed he might have been concerned about the innocent guards or those whose sin isn't really severe(such as stealing something small), still he got the chance to kill more guilty men but just didn't use it.
Art: (7) The art is nice, I personally do not mind the CGIs and think they have all the rights to use it in this era anyway, though certain designs seem to be just to blend with the character theme and not for their maximum usability in their superhero job(I did not mean Blue Rose’s extremely short skirt that reveal much of her ass, but most of the heroes seem to be able to fight indifferently anyway, with suit on or not, making the superhero suit pretty much just for show otherwise pointless) Some facial expressions can be better, such as the point where Barnaby is slowly losing his consciousness as Maverick brainwash him, his face doesn’t contain as much agony from being blinded and betrayed for years, anger, sadness, and hatred as he’s supposed to have, but he did more of like “damn I’m sleepy” face and that’s it.
Sound: (6) Average, the songs are not very memorable(honestly a bit annoying for the first few times I listened to it), the BGM are pretty bland but will get the job done anyway, and the sound effects are just fine, nothing good but nothing bad either. The voice acting of the show is nice, though often time more impact should have been put into the voices, Sky High and raging Barnaby’s voices are fine anyway but I felt Jake could have been better.(It is not Fujiwara-san’s fault, he did fine with Ladd Russo and Kihara Amata, its more with the director who should have control how the voice is done)
Character: (3) Most characters lacks depth by far, so far only Yuri Petrov manage to show some logical depth(which still could’ve been deeper), the remaining characters act according to their clichéd roles, Kotetsu as the immature adult and typical protagonist who wish to save everyone and might as well say “People die if they are killed” like some other random guy who had similar philosophy to him. Barnaby is the Sasuke of the show(with some maturity) calm and cool guy who would go berserk against a man he hate, abandoning all his calm he had earlier.
The rest of the supporting heroes and characters are also typical, Blue Rose as mentioned earlier as the troubled teenage girl who fell for the protagonist for whoknowwhat reason. Rock Bison should have gotten more roles as Kotetsu’s best friend, but is inevitably beaten up on every major battle he had engaged despite his power that should have rendered him nigh-immortal and invulnerable upon activation, even with that he will be knocked unconscious against an enemy with only physical means of attack anyway. Sky High as the typical dutiful and always positive guy which only concern would ALWAYS be his fear of losing authority. Dragon Kid as the youngest member of the group, which though can vary greatly in personality, a young girl is almost always there to be found in most Japanese action media anyway(present in almost very JRPG there is), so even if she is not girlish, her status did not make her interesting to me either. Origami Cyclone is lastly, the troubled teenager, guy version which lacks confidence in his duty and would often consider himself the weakest of the group.
Each of the superpower given out to every characters in this show is rather boring and none are really unique. Conjuring elements can be found in 4 of the heroes(though I would actually praise the writer if these elemental manipulation ability can be utilized uniquely the way rarely used before, including further extra points for scientific accuracy), and its not like superstrenght, invulnerability and transformation are not mundane anyway. Memory alternation had become a common ability since Code Geass and blue flame are still just flames. Indeed the ability to smell stuffs the kidnapper sisters have are unique, but I don’t see any charm in the power as they are near-useless plotwise. Jake’s usage of force field projection is by far the best usage the story had presented(but still far from perfect), his mind-reading power though, did make him look much weaker as an actual fighter since he would require much less experience to become strong that way.
The supporting heroes are too absurdingly weak, they are barely using their powers correctly and are always defeated by the major enemy presented at the moment, I mean 6 heroes up against a single bot that should only have high physical capabilities and no other flashy powers(indeed we have not seen the bot fight in its full glory yet but as a bot designated to replace Wild Tiger, no further power should have been included if they did want to fool the media, not to mention the bot got easily thrown over by Kotetsu and could not escape from Lunatic's flame circle when its program should have been prioritized in capturing Kotetsu, so I'm assuming that's the best it can do) and lose? That is simply too lame, and no one did even try to escape from the bot to meet up with Kotetsu and Barnaby.
Enjoyment: (5) Clichéd usage of clichéd plot with clichéd characters and clichéd powers, so I’m thinking the clichéd enjoyment it gives should be also given a clichéd score, don’t worry, being clichéd mean there are many other media out there who share the same cliché
