First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「Roulette」 by TETSUYA
Watch the OP!: Download, Streaming ▼

「ビギニング」 (Biginingu)
“BEGINNING”

The spring anime season officially started today with the premiere of Stan Lee and BONES studio‘s collaboration project, HEROMAN. Much like I described in the Spring 2010 Preview, the story here follows an orphan boy named Joey Jones, who works part-time at a diner to support himself and his grandmother. Before heading off to school one morning, Joey sees a commercial for a new toy robot called Heybo and wants one, but it’s way out of his budget. On his way to school, a wealthy girl named Lina tries to invite him to the cheerleaders’ dance party, but Joey is clueless and turns her down as usual, thinking there are better guys out there for her. Despite not getting involved with Lina, the mere sight of them together pisses off her older brother Will and his friends, so they take it out on Joey until his friend Psy steps in to chase them off. After school, the same rich bullies wreck a newly bought Heybo and toss it out, so Joey decides to pick it up and spends several days piecing it back together, eventually naming it Heroman.

While working one night, Joey notices that it’s starting to rain and he rushes home because he left the sunroof window open. Just as he arrives, Heroman is struck by lightning and transforms into a giant self-aware version with a push of a button on the remote control that attached itself to Joey’s arm. Off in the distance, Heroman notices an explosion and with a another push of a button from Joey, takes off running in that direction and teleporting onto the freeway, where Lina and her father have gotten into a car accident with a fuel truck. Using his controller, Joey orders Heroman to rescue them and he does just that, even protecting them from the gas explosion that followed suit. Meanwhile, aliens known as the Skrugg are orbiting Earth and ready to invade it, having received a spacial transmission from an overzealous professor named Matthew Danton, who was only trying to make first contact with extraterrestrials.

 

Despite having the BONES effect in full force here, this first episode didn’t really change my impression of the series much. It was pretty much straight out of the manga for the first half, while the latter half was changed up a fair bit, switching in a car accident in favor of a vengeful samurai spirit possessing a disgruntled employee. The end result was the same however, with Heroman saving Lina and protecting her from a gas explosion, and a barrier from Joey’s controller shielding him from harm. Don’t take this as a knock on the series though. I merely knew what to expect coming into this premiere episode, so it just didn’t really surprise me one way or another.

On the plus side, BONES doesn’t disappoint and everything is simply better animated with voice-overs. The character designs have a refreshing westernized touch to them (e.g. Stan Lee‘s recurring cameo), with idol/actress Komatsu Mikako (Joey) and new seiyuu Obata Mayu (Lina) providing believable performances in their respective roles. The extended scenes of Joey fixing the Heybo were also a nice touch. On the slightly negative side, it comes off as an Americanized shounen series, which the subtitled OP/ED songs and 6:00pm JST airtime reaffirm. I’m not too concerned about that just yet, but I’m still not completely sold on the whole “boy turned super hero/alien invasion” premise either.

There’s no questioning that this series looks nice though, so hopefully I’ll get a better idea if the story’s for me in the upcoming weeks. I do recommend checking out the first episode regardless, as this is an original East meets West piece of work you don’t see very often. Plus it’s Stan Lee’s creation no less.

Note: This is one of CrunchyRoll‘s new simulcasts for the spring season.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「CALLING」 by FLOW
Watch the ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

98 Comments

  7. Well, here goes the new RC. I don’t expect Divine to pull 7 series a week, not including spring preview week (which is what, 14-21 series in a week? o_0) but it’d be nice to at least keep up with a couple shows.

    Vsin
    Reply

  10. I couldn’t decide if I liked this or not. Definately liking the production, but completely unsure of the concept……plus Heroman itself kind of freaks me out a bit 😐 Giving it a few more episodes before deciding.

    Caraniel
    Reply

  12. Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by the new site. I’ll try to cover some shows for the premiere week as a follow-up to my thoughts in the Season Preview. I may continue with a few shows after that, but we’ll see.

    As we’re in a bit of a transition period, let me know if you encounter any issues with the site and I’ll look into it. (I only noticed an IE-specific issue yesterday since I don’t use IE.) For those wondering on how to get a picture next to your name in the comments, you simply need to sign up for a free Gravatar account and it will be tied to the e-mail address you comment with.

    Happy commenting!

    divine
    Reply

    3. Thanks for the summary Divine. And take your time with the site.

      Whether you blog many shows or even just one, your work is greatly appreciated and I hope to read more from you.

      Exia
      Reply

    4. Im liking the new layout… especially the “MY SITE” thing that link me to people’s sites.. some of their sites are actually quite good ^-^ … anyway, its great to know RC isnt completely gone, as Exia stated, whether u blog 1 show or 10, i will still come and check this site everyday ^-^

      brianleung8912
      Reply

    5. Ahh just leave it be. It’s only IE 😉

      Thanks for being awesome divine! I know a lot of people who visit randomc, and even more who rely on seasonal previews. I hope that you can find some way to keep it alive! Keep up the good work 😀

      Bigbiggs
      Reply

  13. This is the show I’m most interested in because of Stan Lee’s involvement. Sounds good, I’m not aware of the manga, so I’m not going to know the difference on what’s changed or not. Sounds like classic Stan Lee, right down to the character name.

    Sol Fury
    Reply

  15. Hmm I’m going to suspend my judgment after a few more episodes of Heroman. I have no problems with its animation at all. It’s the characters that kind of…annoy me for some odd reason. Joey’s “Heroman” lines are irritating too.

    pierce
    Reply

  16. Glad to see you are at least making some attempt to continue with RC divine ^^

    Also, I think I am going to have to rethink this series… I am not too much into this kind of genre, but maybe if I try it out I may like it. I don’t have high hopes for it though.

    Noobiesnack
    Reply

  18. the only reason i may check this anime out will be, because of the ED by flow… ;D
    but as i did not even know of this one before, i guess i won’t completly watch it.

    Nightflame
    Reply

  19. judging solely on the screen shots, one can definitely see that it is made by “Bones”. Reminds me much of Eureka 7 and Xam’d Lost Memories. Looks like it will be a “love it or hate it” kind of anime.

    Phil. H
    Reply

  23. This has flop wrote all over it. It just doesnt have that x-factor. Stan Lee should of tried to do something new for the japanese viewers. Why is he even trying to get in the anime scene anyways? One good thing the show has going for it is the animation but I dont expect much less from Bones. I really will miss your blogs Divine and good luck with your future. LONG LIVE RC!!!!

    Infinite
    Reply

  25. Welcome to RCs new home. I’m glad Divine giving this some sort of a go. I did hear 1 good thing today. If you like Seikrei then you will be happy to know season 2 on the way. Saw a trailer for it earlier.

    Splash
    Reply

  26. I came into this show expecting a better-than-decent shounen series, I now stand gob-smacked. Its got “Americanised” all over it. Hell, the constant reference to the American flag with the colour choices, the ‘Heroman’ robot who has an American flag design (Stars / Colours)… and the insect aliens… (To pre-empt flame, I’m an American.)

    I was hoping that with both East and West collaborating on this project we’d get a burst of fresh creativity, instead this hugely disappoints. I’ll follow through with the 2nd episode, but as it stands this show does not impress.

    P.S. Thank you Divine for your insight on the show, I’ll be visiting the site routinely for possible posts on the other shows of this season. 🙂

    Ashan
    Reply

  35. I like how Heroman practically destroys his house, and he’s apparently extremely poor… but doesn’t seem to care. We’ll just ignore the elephant in the room for now and hope they comment on it in the next episode.

    At any rate, i liked it myself, but the fact that they cut off literally a full volumes worth of precursor material leading to the point really doesn’t sit well with me on a series longevity POV… i feel like this will be a short one if that doesn’t change.

    DSSeraph
    Reply

  43. I geniunely enjoy this series, although the whole “left my toy under the open window in a storm, and then gets hit by lightning” is kinda unbelievable. So many blue, white, and red.

    Pw3age
    Reply

  44. It’s great random curiosity will still be around. I’m going to give it a shot to this series, after all I heard Stan Lee was involved in its creation. Also, could you upload the op and ed to mediafire or megaupload, please.

    haseo0408
    Reply

  46. Not bad at all. I enjoyed this episode, sold VA’s, splendid animation and great art.

    Despite it being all behind this kid’s perspective, hopefully we’ll see some development so that he can backhand that stereotypical american ‘jock’ asshole without the help of a giant robot– really, that would win it for me, but I have a feeling it could turn out more of a ‘kids’ show, which correct me if I’m wrong, might be what its aimed for anyways.

    I enjoyed it, and it was interesting to see them bring the ol’ american culture to life, in anime.

    Dawn
    Reply

  47. And the RC Legend lives on…

    Haven’t watched the ep yet but my only disappointment so far is that the English song in the sneak-peak trailer was neither the opening or ending theme as I had anticipated.

    FX102A
    Reply

  51. Im gonna like this show a lot i feel, but Joey not only looks too much like an american girl but sounds too much like a girl too. Lol’d at stan lee at the bar though.

    dustandechoes91
    Reply

  59. Excellent new site !!!

    as for the show, i’ll give it 5 out of 10 for now…
    i’m guessing stan lee decided on the design for heroman, as it just does not appeal to me -or i’m just used to seeing gundam like designs-…
    the ‘To be continued’ message at the end reminded me of Back to the Future…
    need to see the rest of the show to see how it goes…

    Hagiri
    Reply

  60. hmm stan lee is getting into the manga industry now. Guess he got tired of all the retcons in american comics. Manga and Anime like to keep a somewhat linear storyline. I will check Heroman out. Thanks Divine for posting this. You have no idea how much this means to all of us.

    abe
    Reply

  61. @ Ashan

    My guess is that they are driving home that this show isn’t set in Japan, and honestly the American flags everywhere isn’t unusual, if you look around a major city you will see them everywhere, you just don’t notice. I live in Seattle and one of our skyscrapers has a monster of a flag on it, not to mention every hotel downtown has a few. I don’t know about you but the environment seemed believable, which impressed me, reminded me of Fresno. Well see if the series is any good in the long haul, but given what I saw with the setting and how the studio did its research I am willing to watch it, and that is saying something because I usually won’t watch shows of this genre.

    k2000k
    Reply

  73. I like the songs they used for the OP and ED. Just don’t like the generic story.. I wished they didn’t begin the story in the “superhero changed by lightning” plot…

    sweetvanilla
    Reply

    1. article:
      > BONES doesn’t disappoint and everything is simply better animated with voice-overs.

      The animation’s great, but story wise … two to three episodes more to try and see like Shiz wrote.

      Porcelain
      Reply

  80. And the alien at the end of the episode kind of reminds me of the aliens in the ben 10 series ahahaha, although im not saying that I dont like the series since im a huge fan of bones plus this is a collaboration with stan lee and im really interested as what would happen next.

    Decoy
    Reply

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