Early Thoughts on Sentenced to Be a Hero(episodes 1 & 2)
Disclaimer: If you’re enjoying the show, I am happy for you and I hope you can continue to enjoy the show to the fullest. Second, this is purely my thoughts and opinions about the show, and does not reflect how others may view it, thank you.
This won’t be an in depth review of both episodes, but rather my general thoughts about the anime, which have led me to my current position on it: story wise, the anime is terrible so far, and people seem to be hyping it up solely because of the art and animation. To get the obvious out of the way, I agree that the art and animation are amazing, they are the only saving grace that has kept me watching, but they can only go so far.
The idea of people being “sentenced to be a hero” and thrown into the most terrible battlegrounds without any regard for their lives is a very interesting concept and a shake up to the formula. However, the way it is being depicted makes it feel to me as though the author is really trying to force the idea into our heads that they’re not necessarily heroes in the eyes of the people of the world, they’re criminals meant to be hated. We see how they are treated, but I think the author is having a hard time not showing them as heroes. It’s to the point where the people in the world seem to be acting as though they hate them just because.
Hero could just be another way to say martyr, but if so, why the hate? You may argue that everyone knows the mark means you’ve done something terrible. Yes, I can understand that, but that should lead to distrust, not hatred, especially since everyone feels differently about certain crimes (at least not hatred the whole time).
Lastly, the goddess, and this is a personal nitpick from me. I find characters who can’t fight or help in any meaningful way to be a drag on the story(anime dependent). Yes, she has this wonderful power she can call on… if she has permission to do so. If she doesn’t, she’s just in the way, especially since it looks like she can’t quite keep up with his pace and he has to carry her, like in episode 1, which was incredibly stupid to me.
Overall, the hero title being this thing to be hated for is hard to justify in the anime and the goddess is ultimately useless until they need a deus ex machina.
This won’t be an in depth review of both episodes, but rather my general thoughts about the anime, which have led me to my current position on it: story wise, the anime is terrible so far, and people seem to be hyping it up solely because of the art and animation. To get the obvious out of the way, I agree that the art and animation are amazing, they are the only saving grace that has kept me watching, but they can only go so far.
The idea of people being “sentenced to be a hero” and thrown into the most terrible battlegrounds without any regard for their lives is a very interesting concept and a shake up to the formula. However, the way it is being depicted makes it feel to me as though the author is really trying to force the idea into our heads that they’re not necessarily heroes in the eyes of the people of the world, they’re criminals meant to be hated. We see how they are treated, but I think the author is having a hard time not showing them as heroes. It’s to the point where the people in the world seem to be acting as though they hate them just because.
Hero could just be another way to say martyr, but if so, why the hate? You may argue that everyone knows the mark means you’ve done something terrible. Yes, I can understand that, but that should lead to distrust, not hatred, especially since everyone feels differently about certain crimes (at least not hatred the whole time).
Lastly, the goddess, and this is a personal nitpick from me. I find characters who can’t fight or help in any meaningful way to be a drag on the story(anime dependent). Yes, she has this wonderful power she can call on… if she has permission to do so. If she doesn’t, she’s just in the way, especially since it looks like she can’t quite keep up with his pace and he has to carry her, like in episode 1, which was incredibly stupid to me.
Overall, the hero title being this thing to be hated for is hard to justify in the anime and the goddess is ultimately useless until they need a deus ex machina.
Commentaires
As for the goddess, yes she is useless in this instance, but that is mainly because the main character refuses to use her due to his own trauma. I imagine any other unit would be actively using thier goddess in all fights, especially considering the fact that she keeps demanding that they use her powers at all times for even the simplest of tasks.
Because literally any fighting class hero is going to mop the floor with a Holy Knight. Pure jealousy.
But also, second ep makes it pretty clear some heroes are quite strange and definitely wild cards in a combat situation.
Lawful vs. Chaotic dynamics in play.
The Holy Knights warm up to Xylo because he acts relatively normal compared to the rest of them.
I'm pretty forgiving of anything that has lots of over-the-top fight scenes but I'm hoping for some interesting world building. I see that the screen writers are already improving the narrative over the light novel and they're doing some good visual storytelling which are both good signs.
The holy knights were getting slaughtered by the demons and our main character destroys a whole army including the big bad without breaking a sweat.
Don't know why it's getting so much hype.
That said, I don't want to dismiss it this soon. To dismiss anime from the beginning would make my petty hatred towards other anime seem much more superficial (heaven forbid).
Hatred and pettiness are only truly real when you give shows a fair chance!
Though it seems like the author had 2 anime adaptations this season... and they are both Yuusha/Maou based...
It's looking grim for these 2 shows. I'll wait till the end of the season before I form an opinion.
From what I can see, this show literally just swaps the word villain for hero, and all the rest is a standard slightly-above-par power fantasy medieval magic anime. Crazy that it has 4.9 rating on crunchyroll. Are people that easily fooled?
"Whoa it uses a different word for showing the exact same thing we've seen a billion times, so original!??"
Not an amaing show but a cool enough premise and great animation to keep me watching