To be Hero X

Hi Charlie! 

I wish to give a fair warning before we start. This is the least serious and least professional review you'll see out there so, just be prepared.

To be hero X is an animation series by Li Haoling following several main characters in an universe where (drum roll) heroes exist (who could've guessed ? It's not like it's written in the title).

That is the boring and cliche part of it. Heroes ? Again ? How unoriginal.

The original stuff is not the heroes. But how they aquire that position. In short, the magic system.

It is one of the most well thought and realistic systems I have ever seen. Since it is our world but in a hyperbolic fantastic nutshell.

Why would I say that ? Well the system relies on trust ! Trust is well the belief of an individual that another will come to their aid if they are in danger. More people trust them, the more powerful they are, they gain abilities, sometimes they become more attractive, their voice changes etc.

After heroes gain enough trust companies from the Commission will try to recruit them. Of course, the Commission is absolutely corrupt and manipulating everyone and everything for their own benefit but hey, isn't that another common point with our world?

Now, there's a more obvious (yet hidden by the Commission) downside to this hero status. 

A hero's image. 

After becoming famous heroes will inevitably be associated with an image. There seems to be no problem with that right? Well you're dead wrong. Once a hero has an image to uphold they physically cannot act out of said image.

For example, let's imagine there's a hero who's persona is a strong brute and doesn't display much thought behind. Well, a side effect from that could be the inability to read after gaining trust. 

There are still ways to escape their image. They can either change their entire identity, twist their own words and actions to modify your image (there's a high chance that won't work), stop being famous (less appearances for example) or die. 

Another incredible thing about this show besides it's closeness to reality is the animation styles.

Yes, you saw that right. There are several styles of animation which change throughout the show. Sometimes it looks more cartoony, sometimes,it is in 3D sometimes,it is more anime like. And there is a plot reason behind that which I won't spoil !

The music is also full of bangers which immerse you entirely in the show ! My personal favorites are Jeopardy, Paragon and Kontinum.

As mentioned before, the show follows different characters through their character arcs yet most (besides Lin Ling) share a lot of common characters.

Thus : MEMORIZE THE CHARACTER NAMES. 

Even if they seem to be rather background you need to memorize the names to understand the story better.  

Now, for the funny stuff. 

Here are the main characters in nutshell (none of them are in order and none of the character names are attached to it, so you will have to find out who is who after watching it). Also, these are only about the main characters. (None of the nicknames are here for a discriminatory matter, they're all purely comedic).

Average boi. 

God magician. 

Qween. 

Hatsune Miku + religious trauma

Ahu the dog (read as Perry the Platypus)

Red tribal boom and their friendly (universe destroyer) alien kid.

Autistic emo divorced father.

OCD twink. (And his black haired bf/j)

That one unoriginal angry character.

Batman.

Iron Man but Pink.

In short, I sincerely beg of you. Watch it. It's incredible and underrated. It isn't especially sad nor comedic but watching the litteral allegory of perfection have a breakdown is always fun isn't it ?