One aspect I’ve been noticing lately is that every year, a lot—if not almost every—anime airing in the spring season ends up being pretty damn good. This year too brought some original and new shows that are getting a lot of praise and attention. But one anime that’s not made in Japan, nor has the traditional anime art style, managed to stick out among the rest of its contemporaries: To Be Hero X tells a story in a way that’s fun, exciting, and emotionally resonant, with visuals that rival Arcane.
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A Bit of History on To Be Hero X
To Be Hero X (Tu Bian Yingxiong X) is the third season of the To Be Hero anthology series, with the first being To Be Hero and the second, To Be Heroine. It originally started as an experimental action-comedy drama produced by Emon and animated by Studio LAN (known for Link Click), and was supervised by Shinichi Watanabe (creator of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Lazarus). It was released in 2016. At the time, it pretty much flew under the radar—along with its sequel, To Be Heroine (2018), directed by Li Haoling and animated by Studio LAN and Haoliners Animation League.
After that, there was radio silence—nothing was heard about the series until 2022 when Bilibili teased the first trailer for To Be Hero X. A lot of big names are involved, and it’s been in the making for quite a while. It’s adapted from the donghua series of the same title, co-produced by Aniplex and Bilibili, with Crunchyroll even licensing it. All three studios from the previous seasons—Pb Animation Co. Ltd., Studio LAN, and Paper Plane Animation Studio—joined forces, with Li Haoling directing and Hiroyuki Sawano composing the music alongside Kohta Yamamoto, Hidefumi Kenmochi, Daiki (AWSM.), Shuhei Mutsuki, Hideyuki Fukasawa, Misaki Umase, and Ryuichi Takada (MONACA).
The opening song “INERTIA” is performed by Newspeak’s vocalist Rei, with Sawano on the orchestra. The ending theme “KONTINUUM” is performed by Senna Ren.
To Be Hero X Initial Review
Now aside from all the amazing spectacle and music—the story is really great. It’s not exactly groundbreaking: it’s your typical “capitalist pigs monopolizing heroes for profit” kind of story. We’ve seen something similar in My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, Go! Go! Loser Ranger!—but the twist here is refreshing. It’s set in a world where the more people believe in a hero, the stronger they become. If everyone believes a hero can fly, then the hero gains the ability to fly. If people stop believing, the hero loses their power.
In contrast, fear fuels villains—the more fear they generate, the stronger they become, but at the cost of their humanity. Faith, on the other hand, empowers heroes. That’s why monopolizing heroes makes sense: the more popular they are, the stronger they become, and more responsibility falls on their shoulder as a result. At the top is the hero known as X. Despite the harsh realities, our MC still aspires to be a true hero who helps others—and gets his chance in an unexpected way. It’s a world that looks bright on the surface but is dark underneath. Taking on the mantle of Nice, he aims to cut through that darkness and rise to the top.
The story is solid with decent world-building that doesn’t rely on heavy exposition. We’re shown the world bit by bit through Ling’s perspective. As the story progresses, the world opens up naturally. We get rivalries between hero agencies, villains with complex agendas, and connections to the previous Nice—everything unfolds without feeling forced. It’s not all edgy and overdramatic either—the show is easy to get into thanks to its lighthearted and slapstick comedy, which sometimes feels like a normal Chinese TV drama. No wonder it got popular so quickly.
But there’s more to its popularity. The trailers showcased beautifully animated scenes that switch between 2D and 3D animation styles. The 2D segments are among the most visually stunning and creative I’ve seen in recent anime. Then there’s the execution—camera work, choreographed action—it all sells the experience. Action fans were already hyped from the PVs. Then it subverts everything shown in those trailers. The trailers feel like flashy gacha game promos with hero lineups. The show even starts with an in-universe ad before dropping us into the story with some random dude working on that ad. The hero we saw in the trailers offs himself—and we’re left with this “rando” named Lin Ling.
The dazzling hero world shown in the trailers? Just a facade to milk profit and popularity to keep the heroes strong. Three episodes in, and we haven’t even seen the number one hero, X. But, instead of relying on flashiness, the show focuses on characters and storytelling. We get to explore more of the world teased in the trailers. It’s amazing how well it all comes together, supported by insane marketing and top-tier execution, which helped it blow up in such a short time.
Watch To Be Hero X Episode 1 Full
Follow that channel for more episodes.
Afterthought
To Be Hero X… How it handles the story from here—whether it’ll flop or live up to the hype—we’ll just have to wait and see.
China is really starting to pop off in the entertainment space lately—with games like Black Myth: Wukong and Marvel Rivals, and now in anime. It might not be long before they surpass Korea in terms of quality.
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