To Be Hero X

Episode 19

While promotional material lists this episode as the third in The Johnnies' arc, it's not. Rather, this episode acts as the ensemble continuation of our three yet-unfinished arcs: Loli, Ghostblade, and The Johnnies—with Loli getting most of the focus.

Despite the emotional airing of grievances during DJ Shindig's attack, Loli and her father can't seem to get on the same page. Luo is a man driven by his scientific obsession and duty to find a way to control Trust and Fear beyond pandering to the whims of the masses. He can see their current system, even with the Commission, is unstable and a tragedy like the one that made the original E-Soul the top hero could still happen. Due to this, he has become an absentee father to Loli—though he would justify his actions by saying that all he is doing and has done is for her protection, along with everyone else's. And in this episode, he continues to try and do that—despite her no longer needing anyone's protection.

Loli, on the other hand, is not the little girl Luo sees her as—and that's always been her issue. She is his daughter, and she is a cute girl who likes cute things—but that's not all she is. Loli is brilliant and driven—and even in a world where appearances mean everything, she refuses to accept that fact. Loli, like Lin Ling, has the soul of a true hero. She knows right from wrong and chooses to stand up for right every time without a second thought—even if that means going head-to-head with a top hero like Ghostblade, or in the case of this episode, Nice.

On the other side of the story, we have the intertwining tales of Ghostblade and Little Johnny. Little Johnny is constantly on the edge of figuring out that Ghostblade killed his father, and it looks like Ghostblade is prepared to put Little Johnny down at the command of Uncle Rock. However, while Ghostblade has never really cared about right or wrong, he does care about his daughter—and he has come to empathize with Little Johnny's father and his dying wish to protect his child.

Moreover, Ghostblade can see that he is being lied to by Uncle Rock—that the whole story about why Little Johnny needs to be killed is BS. Of course, Uncle Rock, being the chessmaster he is, leaves nothing to chance and sends in E-Soul to finish off both Little Johnny and Ghostblade, which brings us to the big action scene of the episode.

My big complaint with this fight is that it takes place in a dark room—and while that makes E-Soul look very cool with his ambient lightning, it makes everything else much harder to see as the muted color palette does the scene no favors. This sucks because the fight choreography is amazing as E-Soul uses his super speed to try and kill Little Johnny while Ghostblade does all he can to keep the younger hero alive.

And then we get to the cliffhanger… and boy is it a doozy. While E-Soul's appearance makes sense given what we know about Uncle Rock, Nice showing up to murder everyone feels out of left field. As he works for Treeman, an agency none of the other assembled heroes work for, why he is here and how he even came to learn about the trip to the UFO is the looming question. We'll have to see if Loli can beat the answers out of him next week.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• I wonder if the next episode will give us some insight into why Nice killed himself two years after these events.

• Objectively speaking, Nice is one of the harder foes for Loli to face off against. Her armor neutralizes external Trust powers, not internal ones like Nice's strength and agility. She'd probably be able to wreck E-Soul.

• Everyone underestimates Loli. In a few moments of spare time, Loli figured out how to create a handheld beacon that bypasses the communications blackout just so she could protect her friend.

• I love the little detail that Little Johnny was aware of Ghostblade's presence the whole time and saw no need to bring attention to it.

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