HEROMAN
Originally Written by: Stan Lee (Shock!)
Anime Written by: Akatsuki Yamatoya
Director: Hitoshi Nanba
Production: Studio BONES
Original run: April 1 2010 - September 23 2010
Episodes: 26
On request, I was asked to watch and review Heroman, a half-year anime series from this last spring. The watching part was easy. I'd been following it since it started after all. It's the reviewing part that has my mecha in a twist. There is so much that is both good and bad about this series that I barely know how to start, and even worse is that I'm not too confident enough in my literary finesse to describe the goods and bads without directly spoiling things for those who haven't yet watched the show. So I decided to simply start from the inception and not bother with parsing my words at all.
SPOILER ALERT - This review will contain spoilers, so skip to the last paragraph if you don't want that. - SPOILER ALERT
Orphaned American boy Joey lives with his grandmother, working at a restaurant in the west coast city of Center City, while going to school. Upon hearing of a new toy robot called the Heybo, Joey believes that getting one will make his life better, turning him into a hero to protect his friends and family. However, he cannot afford to buy it on his meager salary. His luck changes when he picks up a broken down Heybo abandoned by a school bully. He tries to fix it, naming it Heroman, but does not have any luck in getting it to work. However, when a bolt of lightning strikes it, it transforms into a giant robot, just in time to save his friend Lina from impending danger. Now, Joey and Heroman are Earth's only defense against the evil insectoid Skrugg aliens, unknowingly summoned to Earth by Joey's science teacher.
That's the official overview of the story. Here is mine;
The Skrugg, an intergalactic race of technologically superior cockroaches, have set their eyes on the destruction of earth. Joey, an average kid from California, comes upon a toy robot that can transform into a super powered giant mech, Giant mechs and alien cockroaches collide and a fight for the survival of the world commences.
No less accurate, but gives off a completely different feel. Right?
My first problem with this series is Heroman himself. Itself. Heroman started out as a Heybo, a common off-the-shelf plastic toy robot, probably made in china. After being run over by a car, a wimpy boy who works part time at a cafe decides to try to fix it himself, since he could never afford one otherwise. The kid's shoddy repair job (including a generous amount of Scotch Tape and lots of left over pieces) combines with a bolt of lighting to somehow manage to turn this plastic toy into a giant robot (that isn't even really that big, maybe Shaq sized), complete with a controller gauntlet for the kid himself. Seriously? That's how Heroman came to be? They could have so easily gone the B-movie route by including some strange alien artifact, unknown chemical, or black box technology in the repair of the toy to provide the catalyst for the super transformation. There was even a bumbling mad scientist type included among the main character list to provide it. Instead they went with this, which is so arbitrary and illogical that I wonder why they even bothered? If they skipped the whole inception thing, played it off as 'he was always here', and used that time for some of the better things, the show would have stated off so much better. Also, right out of the box, so to speak, Heroman has a seemingly large amount of autonomy. How much? They never say. Enough however to be able to do exactly what his controller wants off of the basic command of "Heroman Go!” and the will to go berserk when his precious controller is knocked unconscious by the enemy (not to mention the intelligence needed to recognize the difference between that and say... going to sleep at night), but not enough to ever show a different facial expression, engage himself, anticipate even the most obvious of commands, or any decision making of it's own in general. Thirdly, Heroman is a plastic toy that was struck by lightning. Yet somehow, its standing regular punch seems to pack more concussive force than a 120mm high explosive shell fired from the main cannon of an American M1 Abrams tank. That's before it is empowered by any number of augmentative specials. Finally, I have absolutely no problems with its coloring scheme. Red-white-and-blue is very aesthetically pleasing and very appropriate for an American super hero. The problem I have is that Heroman started out textured after the American flag. I highly doubt that the bolt of lightning was too concerned about what people might think about the coloring of this new robo it's about to create, and I'm pretty darn sure that Joey wasn't thinking especially patriotic thoughts while watching his precious new toy get fried by an act of god, so why the flag?
I'm not entirely disenfranchised by the robot completely. Heroman, by its nature, is neutral. It is a really big toy under the command of its controller. Should someone with less of a moral fabric as Joey become it's controller, Heroman would have blithely followed his commands and been no less powerful for it. Autonomy aside, that makes it believable, but otherwise forgettable as we concentrate more on the moral and caricature development of its Controller. Also, Heroman has some really cool special movies, such as a Misaka Mikoto Mimicry, and a super devilman growth. I'm not sure how the feedback thing operates that gives Joey his superpowers, and I won't beat on a dead horse how illogical it was for him to even get superpowers, but they were really cool. In a contest between Joey and the Flash, Joey would win 25 times out of 10, simply because he is twice as cool at his worst than the Flash was during his prime.
The next issue is the Skrugg. Those alien bug people thingies. As cliche as aliens might be, they do serve as a good antithesis to the newly minted superhero. Physically, technologically, and morally superior to humans, they also have a nice plot device in the form of the zerg-like ability to make any other creature into Skrugg-like versions, making them more powerful and blindly loyal. What I don't like, is that one skrugg learned the English language with little more difficulty than clearing it's throat, then instantly after every single one of them decided to adopt it as their language of choice, including a full set of cultural slang and human character traits, despite already having the much more efficient communications method of telepathy. Over time, it became really really hard to remember that these things were actually Aliens, because of how readily they fell into human mannerisms.
I have to get to the production itself. Heroman takes place in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California. Ok, they call it "Center City", but everything from the skyline of downtown to the location on the map to the weather and living conditions of the residents just SCREAM L.A. Other major cities of the country remain un-name-changed (possible exception of Washington D.C. being referred to as simply Washington), so who did they think they were fooling? Whatever. Aside from the name, the setting itself was perfectly portrayed. Now, I don't know weather to be impressed or shamed of this, but one thing the producers captured perfectly was the sheer level of American arrogance. This is an anime, made in japan, voiced in Japanese, and released (first) for a Japanese audience, but the monikers and overall dialogue lent itself to a decent dub of true American communication. The overall plot took place in America, and (despite being a world threat) was treated as an American problem for us Americans to contend with. The other continents of the world (didn't even bother to mention Country names) were given a bare cursory glance to enhance how American it was of us Americans to save the world from yet another American-only problem. Yaay! Go America!
The NIA (National Intelligence Agency, a sort of in-show combination of the CIA and NSA) were very well portrayed, in both their professionalism and abilities, a good dose a adult logic and mannerisms when everyone else is tripping like kids (for being kids, obviously). That other scientist in contrast was extremely cartoony, and so very difficult to take seriously.
Probably one of the very best features of Heroman was the destruction. Compliments to Madhouse for putting the effort to it. When things broke, they broke. Into pieces, the individual pieces falling this way and that to leave rubble splayed around the area that was broken. Even better was how the destruction persisted. If a house was crushed, and the action took the characters through that same area in a later episode, the same house would be seen in the same pattern of rubble, but from a different angle. This happened all across the city. There was no such thing as a background, either, apparently. Usually there is a noticeable shift in quality between static background images and moving debris, but not here. The destruction on even background scenes occurred seamlessly with the foreground animation, rendering it absolutely beautiful. Also, the background music was wonderfully composed and presented, lending such a heart-wrenching drama to the precisely placed destruction in such a way as to do a good disaster movie proud.
One more thing that did the show well was the addiction level. Mostly instigated by the wonderful destruction, but the first few episodes were extremely “meh” (especially after the first-episode hyper Stan Lee Made This-ness wore off), but 6-8 episodes in the dynamic changed to an "I've got to see more!" feeling during the episode’s cliffhanger scenes. That died off quickly later as the drama tapered off and new story arcs began, but the damage was done and the addiction set in. I was VERY annoyed during those mid-season 'anime' episodes, where they abandoned all pretenses of plot in order to pursue the more anime style cliche's of the misunderstanding laden date episode, and the obligatory trip to the beach.
As much quality as was thrown into the destruction, one might think that the producers could spare the time and expense to maybe vary the outfits a little sometimes. I mean, sure. Long multi-episode quests with the characters constantly fighting for their lives won't present an opportunity to readilly change clothing, but it was seriously disturbing to find out that the big-breasted homeroom teacher taught school in the same outfit that she jogged and swam in! The only time any character ever wore anything different, ever, was their swimsuits (which was their normal outfits sans some fabric). The rest of the time it was cheerleader outfits and yellow hoodies. Where do they get off presenting that kind of animation shortcut? Absolutely nothing else in the animation side of things was significantly skimped on budget or quality (Heroman command recycling being a notable but understandably exception).
(Sigh)... it's hard to structure so many pluses and minuses into a form that flows from one point to the next when they were so convoluted to each other originally. If I sounded bipolar in how I went from super amazed to super disgusted and back again through out all of this, keep in mind that it's exactly how I felt throughout each episode of the show, as they intermingled so many goods and bads together into a convoluted 23 minute package. I did manage to cover all the main points I feel, so I'll leave it to you to sort it all, as you feel fit.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
I like Stan Lee, but I am not the kind of person who sprays hot hug and experiences a manly joygasm over his name, so I am going to rate this show fairly, based on all the goods and bads combined and without a fandom bias. In my opinion, Heroman deserves a 3 out of 5. As a superhero show, it was plussed with mindless action but lacking in any real logic. As a romance show, it utterly failed for even trying. As a disaster show, it excelled further than any other anime I can name to date! A pity that this wasn't a true disaster show than (well) portrayed characterizations with really bad dialogue and cookie-cutter images. Major negative points for a major character who's major hangup is being stubbornly upset over the fact that her super popular super heroic father didn't come home to her one day because the selfish bastard stupidly sacrificed himself to pointlessly save the lives of a worthless couple hundred of his co-workers from a not-at-all dangerous being trapped alive in a cave-in at the mines. Some bonus points for the addiction factor. More bonus points for including real death of real human characters that had real important roles and lines and backstory.
END OF SPOILER!!!!!!!!!
I like Stan Lee, but I am not the kind of person who sprays hot hug and experiences a manly joygasm over his name, so I am going to rate this show fairly, based on all the goods and bads combined and without a fandom bias. In my opinion, Heroman deserves a 3 out of 5. As a superhero show, it was plussed with mindless action but lacking in any real logic. As a romance show, it utterly failed for even trying. As a disaster show, it excelled further than any other anime I can name to date! A pity that this wasn't a true disaster show than (well) portrayed characterizations with really bad dialogue and cookie-cutter images. Major negative points for a major character who's major hangup is being stubbornly upset over the fact that her super popular super heroic father didn't come home to her one day because the selfish bastard stupidly sacrificed himself to pointlessly save the lives of a worthless couple hundred of his co-workers from a not-at-all dangerous being trapped alive in a cave-in at the mines. Some bonus points for the addiction factor. More bonus points for including real death of real human characters that had real important roles and lines and backstory.
END OF SPOILER!!!!!!!!!
-Ben M
Rating: 3 out of 5
