Heroman – Episode 1

Heroman is a fantastically crafted piece of hokum. As long as you aren’t some sort of po-faced nincompoop who mistakes a lot of writing for “depth”, you’ll likely have a lot of fun with the show. Not all entertainment has to be art, and highly skilled craft is a far more valuable commodity than bad art.

The craft in Heroman lies in two places. The first and most obvious is in the animation. Not only does it have a great set of character designs, full of variety and fun, but the first episode blows most other television animation out the water in terms of actual movement. It may not have the best direction or storyboarding, but what there is on screen is incredibly slick in execution and aesthetically pleasing. Denton, the scientist who accidentally dooms humanity through his well meaning attempts to contact extraterrestrials, is an especially fun design, that is echoed in all the character his movement has. Also look at how fat rich kid Nick and his gang of hangers on move around each other, there’s a character work going on with them in the actual animation, not just what they say. It is those touches that set this apart from other shows that will get taken more seriously, it’s a cartoon that’s a cartoon, not just the cheapest delivery medium for a story.

The second place the craft lies is in how it ties classic Stan Lee ideas and concepts to the ideas and concepts of classic robot manga, namely those originated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. It’s rare enough nowadays that a manga or anime will channel Yokoyama directly, let alone one that’s got Stan Lee involved at the same time. Not only is the core concept pure Yokoyama – a young boy who controls a robot via a device on his wrist, but Heroman also has this stoic, almost sad face that has echoes of Giant Robo‘s face.

With the various Stan Lee-isms (orphan raised by elderly relative, having to do a part time job, name alliteration, bullied at school, hots for blondes) mixed in, it feels like Peter Parker cast in the role of a Yokoyama hero. While that means that most, if not all, the story elements will be incredibly familiar to most people due to Spider-Man and Tetsujin 28-go/Gigantor being such a part of the global pop culture consciousness, you probably haven’t seen them combined before. And certainly not with such skill.

If you like either classic Stan Lee or Mitsuteru Yokoyama it’s worth your time checking it out. If you like both, like I do, then you’ll probably love it.