To Be Hero X

Episode 13

We've known from back in the first arc that the mixture of belief and perception affects people in the world of To Be Hero X—not just in their powers but their physical appearance. After all, when Lin Ling became Nice, his muscle mass and coordination changed along with his eye and hair color, and reverted when he rejected the Nice identity. Now, with Loli's arc, we dive headlong into this aspect of the trust system once again.

Loli is too cute for her own good. She wants to become a hero, but everyone views her as a romantic option instead. Even when she gives her all to train in the gym—and gains the Trust and admiration of her fellow gym goers—the moment they see her face and long hair, that evaporates along with her (Trust-created) muscles.

Of course, as her appearance is something at least partially under her control, there are things she could do to make herself less stereotypically cute. She could cut her hair into a pixie cut or stop wearing pink. But the thing about Loli is that she doesn't want to compromise herself to become a hero, and she likes traditionally feminine things. She wants to be both herself and a superhero, helping people, not one or the other.

Luckily, she finally stumbles upon a way to get the best of both worlds (considering the new E-Soul is in the top 10 at this time, I'm surprised it didn't cross her mind earlier). If she wears a mask when doing her superheroics, no one will have any way to know if she's cute or not. Thus, Loli builds a robotic super suit and goes out to fight crime, and at least holds her own until her mask comes off.

While much of the episode is about confronting sexism—bringing to light how people tend to judge a book by its cover when it comes to women instead of looking at the complex person underneath—this episode also brings up an interesting question when it comes to world-building.

Loli's trust score is incredibly low—in the low double digits at maximum. However, in her prototype suit, she can contend with a person with superhuman powers (be they Fear-based or Trust-based). So this begs the question, how would a high Trust value affect Loli? Would she, the woman inside the suit, just get stronger or smarter? Or would the Trust affect her suit, making the machinery more powerful or more complex? We've never seen the Trust effect inanimate objects directly, so Loli's arc should give us a peek into how technological heroes fit within the superhero community. We'll have to see how things turn out when she fights her first superhero-turned-villain next week.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Loli's dad can be both an absent father and a person who thinks sexism is stupid. People aren't simply good or bad—they're a mixture of both.

• It says something about Loli's mom that we see her with a phone or pad in hand for 90% of her screen time.

• I have a creeping suspicion that Nuonuo won't be making it beyond next week's episode.

• How does a creepy stalker dude get superpowers anyway? Is he the champion of an online stalker community or something? Or is he just drawing off the fear people have of being stalked?

To Be Hero X is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.