Sentenced to Be a Hero

Episodes 1-2

Episode 1 of Sentenced to Be a Hero is a bombastic opening salvo that lands most of the shots it aims for to considerable effect.

This show pulls the ripcord right from the jump and challenges the viewer to hang on for the ride. It manages to be exciting from start to finish. Despite some of my misgivings with the overt exposition at the start, it clearly has a strong set of fundamentals and gorgeous presentation. The premise is sound and, I have to admit some of my bias here, one I think works great due to my own experience with it. We have heroes who have to face horrifying fantasy creatures and can be revived, but with some logistics and at a terrible cost: the more they are revived, the more of themselves they lose to madness. This premise is actually one I've used in some of my own tabletop roleplaying campaigns to explain why fragile adventurers would face off against monsters. It is also strikingly similar to other fantasy works I've encountered (Stormcast Eternals from Warhammer Age of Sigmar, for example). It's a great way to have a hero who can be in mortal danger but still take big risks, as they can respawn more or less, allowing for heroism and tension at the same time.

And boy, is there a lot of both in this first episode. Xylo and Teoritta face off against a massive horde of demons in a beautifully bloody battle. There are gibbering hordes and clouds of celestial swords while laser-beam catapults flare and poor hapless soldiers spray viscera all about. The team at Studio KAI delivers incredible action sequences featuring highly active characters, a strong sense of weight and impact, and the kind of cinematic touches that immerse the viewer in the scene. It has gruesome first-person shots of soldiers being eaten by bugs, and claustrophobic moments like Dotta in the burrow, trying to keep a monster at bay with his foot. But the team just as deftly manages the scale of the conflict, from the sweep of the army of knights to the giant bug beast final boss getting a sword to the stomach and exploding. It's all top-shelf, can't-believe-all-I'm-seeing quality animation and direction.

I have some qualms, but they are mostly minor issues. Teoritta's “please praise me and pat my head” shtick is repetitive and takes me out of the scene every time it happens. I also think the relentless scale of over-the-top violence lessens some of the impact of said violence. You can only see a dozen soldiers get ripped to shreds by an exploding pulsing flesh bomb full of chittering demon beasts so many times before it all just washes over you, and you feel nothing. In fact, there's a comment at one point about how over twenty-five years of fighting the demonblight humanity has lost half of its habitable land, but watching just this one battle's constant violence makes you wonder, “How have they lasted twenty-five weeks of this, let alone twenty-five years?”

Overall, though, it's a powerful start that is as lovely as it is brutal.

Episode 2 of Sentenced to Be a Hero dials the scope down considerably from the first entry and is all the stronger for it.

This episode takes place in a far more intimate locale. Xylo and company journey through a town to visit a small mine shaft that has been overrun with demons. Here, they encounter corrupted humans as well, people from the nearby village with no hope of redemption - only the peace of the grave. In contrast to the full-scale war in episode 1, this is a far more localized battle.

These are smaller confines, smaller stakes, and yet that is precisely why I think it works better in terms of emotional impact. We know that a little girl is waiting for her father to come home, and the sight of these corrupted humans being torn to pieces means that even victory can come at too high a price. There's also a huge tonal shift as Patausche has gone from “I will die for honor, and this entire army of my men will die along with me” to “How many of my knights do you think I'll lose if we try to save those civilians?” when doing a head count in the dozens. Teoritta also worries about the people who have been harmed and wonders whether there is truly no hope for them to return. This close in, the humanity at risk is more evident, and the brutality seems greater despite the lower number of combatants.

There's a bit less bombast here than there was in the first episode, but I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff for a more meaningful sense of human loss. It makes Xylo's heroism mean more. Oh, and the additional goofball heroes add a sort of Dirty Dozen vibe to the whole affair, which is an added dimension I really like juxtaposed against the more traditional military stylings of the knights.

This season is looking really bright, and I can't wait to see what else Sentenced to Be a Hero has in store.

Episode 1: Rating:

Episode 2: Rating:

Sentenced to Be a Hero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.