Some time ago I decided that I was going to be watching Heroman that’s airing later this year. It’s being animated by BONES, an obviously high quality studio, which pretty much assures that it will have some decent production values. I wasn’t too sold on the “boy with a robot” premise at first but something I couldn’t put my finger on kept me attracted to it. Surprisingly enough I happened upon the manga adaptation that has a few chapters out and decided to give it a read.

CHAPTER 1

I can safely say that Heroman is definitely worth the read and is going to be an awesome show. The first chapter starts out at a relaxing pace introducing the main character, Joey Jones, his love interest, Lina, and his best friend, Sai. Looking over him once he’s the kind you expect to be hardworking and an overall good guy. That’s exactly what he is. Of course he isn’t popular since he isn’t a “rich kid” and Lina’s brother and his friends, all idiots of different calibers, rub it in his face every chance they get.

Despite all of his circumstances Joey still has his dreams. He wants to be worth something more to his friends and everyone else. Along with that he wants a new toy that’s pretty expensive. Obviously he can’t afford it but he’s lucky enough to acquire a broken one and fix it up. This is the very “toy” that becomes Heroman when he encounters a demon-possessed guy trying to kill Lina and her father. She ends up being taken as ransom and Joey is left in despair. This is where things begin to turn around for him when suddenly Heroman is struck with lightning, a controller forms around Joey’s entire left arm, and Heroman stands before Joey as a giant.

Together they go off to save Lina. They end up fighting with the demon, Grudge. Heroman completely overwhelms Grudge to the point where the demon self-destructs in an attempt to take out Heroman, Joey, and Lina. Of course he fails miserably and the Joey-Heroman duo stands victorious. Interestingly enough, the chapter ends with the appearance of what seems to be the series antagonists: aliens.

CHAPTER 2

The second chapter has Joey telling his best friend, Sai, about Heroman. He also meets up with Lina again much to her brother’s annoyance. Before anything else could happen though, the aliens introduced at the very end of the first chapter decide to invade earth. They attempt to abduct Joey and the others but he ends up summoning Heroman and reveals it to Lina, Sai, the professor, and even Will.

JOey and Heroman proceed to take on the aliens that came to abduct them and again displays Heroman’s overwhelming strength. Together they send the aliens running back to their mothership and everyone, particularly Lina, proclaims them to be heroes. Will sees it otherwise, of course. Now that the aliens and their apparent leader, Gogol, know about Heroman’s existence they decide to pull out a few trump cards and there are at least nine of them.

CHAPTER 3

A few weeks have passed since the initial alien attack but the world isn’t quite aware of what happened at all. Happy times end quickly however when another alien shows up. This one appears to be one of the trump cards revealed at the end of the second chapter and reveals his name to be Ezzui. After some brief idiocy from Will, Ezzui promptly attacks Heroman who is given no chance to counterattack. When Heroman does try to fight back his right arm is slashed off and he and Joey are soundly beaten. Ezzui attempts to kill them but is interrupted by Gogol. He tells them that they will eventually meet again and the chapter comes to a close with Joey and Heroman just sitting in defeat.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

I ended up liking Heroman more than I thought I would. When I first saw it I immediately began to think of things like Gigantor, The Iron Giant, and, oddly enough, Big O. The latter is a show I’ve always liked but I never really clicked with the former two. I suppose one thing that charmed me about Heroman is the art style. It’s a mixture of old-school meets new-school that doesn’t come off as “odd” when both comedic and serious events occur. The cast may be cliché but for some reason I really like the core characters. Minus Will of course because he’s a moron. The premise also seems like it won’t always be “monster of the week/month” style and that Heroman won’t always be totally destroying enemies as evidenced in the third chapter. Those general-esque aliens will be challenging and it seems that Joey and Heroman have a ways to go if they are ever going to beat them.

All in all I’m looking forward to more of Heroman. Fans of old-school anime will feel at home here as will those of the new-school. I think that by the time the fourth chapter is out though the anime may have started already and rest assured I’ll be watching that. Blogging it? Perhaps.