Sentenced to Be a Hero

For a show like this, normally I would have watched that long first episode and promptly dropped it but it seemed to be reasonably popular and wasn’t outwardly repellant so I figured I would push through. This is written more as criticism than a product review, so it has spoilers throughout. I included a brief summary at the bottom, where you likely already have scrolled to see the score and pass judgement by almighty thumb. I appreciate any time you spend reading this, thank you for your time.

Early on we are given the premise. Heroes are sentenced to fight the vast swarm of monsters encroaching on the kingdom and will be resurrected each time they die to fight again. Each time a hero is resurrected they lose part of who they are, they lose their grip on reality, and if a hero disobeys orders, their head will explode. This should be a lovely opportunity to do a bit of showing instead of just telling but it simply never happens. The driving motivator of the show is something that never occurs. The closest we get is Xylo probably dying at the end of the castle defense but that was left ambiguous.

The lack of execution on the premise fundamentally hurts the show. From an audience perspective, the characters are acting upon a vague, looming threat that they treat with the utmost sincerity but lacks any visceral reality. If this hero status is a threat to the characters, that threat should be made real to the audience and give weight to it looming over their heads. If that is coming later, the first five hours has been wasted and at that point it can hardly be seen as showing the severity of the situation. They formulated a premise that allows characters to be killed without having to get actually get rid of them and proceed to never kill any of them. It is an utter lack of conviction.

Since we never actually see these consequences, the perceived power of the kingdom is fundamentally undermined. Then further undermined by the characters’ defiance of the kingdom’s authority. The characters are in perpetual defiance of the kingdom that allegedly enslaves them. Forcing the orders that have been given to them to change and making demands of their masters. Theoretically this should be an act of bravery against a kingdom that can kill them at any moment but without the threat of actual consequences on the characters it is meaningless and further undermines the kingdom as an antagonist of actual threat to the characters.

Further undermining any perceived threat, the heroes are always one step ahead of everyone and never face any actual setbacks. There is nothing that ever defeats or even hinders them; they just detonate screen filling explosions on row after row of same-y animals with neon goo on them. The heroes are presented with some situation with impossible odds, they work their magic, whether it be weapons manufacturing, politicking, or unadulterated monster slaughter, and then everything works out in their favor. We are told that they are under the thumb of a kingdom that is conspiring with an unstoppable horde of monsters, but the heroes can just run roughshod over the orders they are given, doing whatever they please to this allegedly unbeatable horde. The central premise is fundamentally undermined by an utter lack of real threat against the heroes.

Xylo and his band of merry men have all apparently caught on to a grand conspiracy and been given the hero sentence. A crucial step in this grand conspiracy is to make sure that anyone who catches wind of the conspiracy, or even happens into vague opposition to it, becomes an immortal warrior. It is nonsense. Another major issue with the conspiracy is that there is only one possible conclusion; that there is someone on the inside doing this hero thing as a plan to fight the monsters. Without something to that effect the grand conspiracy is that they are keeping anyone that catches on to their conspiracy alive forever to resist and challenge them forever. It would be fundamentally nonsensical.

Xylo, our main character is a fairly standard dark fantasy shonen protagonist. There is not much to say about him beyond that, its fine; his arc of becoming vaguely more accepting of Teoritta is fine. Teoritta has only three characteristics: she has the appearance of a child, she does very powerful magic, and she seeks approval like a dog. It isn’t charming, there is no comedy, there is no tragedy, there is no character arc, there is nothing. It is just a magical child that wants approval like a dog. Dreadful. The relationship between two main characters should be interesting in some way. But that relationship is that of a default dark fantasy protagonist and a child that acts like a dog. There is little to enjoy.

Outside of the main two, the other hero party characters range from mildly interesting to mildly annoying. None have much interesting going on. As for antagonists, Boojum was visually compelling (as a human, not during his transition into a mono-color biped that does not move and attacks with big purple swirls) and offered unique charm as a monster interested in humans. The guild master, Marlen, and Spriggan were mostly unexplored, only making an initial appearance that introduced their gimmick and being dealt without much further exploration.

Sentenced to Be a Hero takes all the trite makings of a mediocre dark fantasy show and puts a nice sheen on it with some slick animation to create a completely mediocre experience. This show hinges on the contrived victimization of its protagonists to garner cheap sympathy and justify its power fantasy. It is explicitly unwilling to let any of the protagonists face the harm that would justify its central premise. Overall, Sentenced to Be a Hero fails for being unable or unwilling to commit to seeing through the expectations it set for itself in the first episode.