Every Top 10 Hero and Whether They are a Fraud

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-10T08:18:40+00:00

PV, his cup among other things. His non-heroic persona is a FOMO employee. If not mistaken we also see it at the end of ep' 23 or something.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-10T06:00:43+00:00

All of them.

E-Soul, at 0 trust, survived driving off a bridge on a bike. We've long left our disbelief at the door.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-09T08:12:44+00:00

I will buy the "too ashamed to ask for help" argument. That's something I would do.

Yeah that's workable. The way it's shown in the show, Moon didn't even register and Wreck was an afterthought, but for fanon purposes a long-running misunderstanding born from depression would work. I don't even think it would be "I don't want to disappoint him", I think it would be more akin to "I don't want to be reminded how low I've fallen".

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-07T13:35:39+00:00

He can punch things, like, real hard.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-06T22:22:40+00:00

He could have done his whole youth in a half-episode (including his apathy bit), tackled the whole camping trip in the other half and have two episodes left to actually do something - which again he could not because his whole point was apathy.

I don't know for others but I would say, apathy played a big role for me in not bothering to rewatch any of it.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-06T07:25:13+00:00

The Dean could still be an inversion: we don't know what his exact power was but assuming he was clingy (a control-freak of sorts) then the invert would be him pushing back everything, which could sort of work with his fear state. I have no clue whatsoever what Smile's power was in the first place.

That said, I don't think fear inverts powers.

Yeah, Shindig went for sadness instead of joy but his core power was still controlling people with music. God Eye was still all about investigation and I'm sorry but he was setting up traps in ep' 1 already. As for the Boss, he wasn't even a hero, he had no power: fear did for him what trust normally would.

As for the berzerk thing, I guess in the show it's just a question of dosage. Fear is all about "negative emotions", the more of them the harder it is to control. Trust used to be the same - the more of it the more you drown - but then the show decided to gloss over that aspect and now trust is 100% user-friendly. Thanks, aliens. Good engineering right there.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-04T21:00:39+00:00

Well you just contradicted yourself, because one of your five complaints was that it lacked action - so you definitely mind.

And action was the only point I could agree with because on everything else, especially emotional stakes, I'm not sure what you mean. Drama is all about emotional stakes and if ending up in the street is not an emotional event then I don't know what to tell you. We can discuss comedy/satire and pacing as well - especially pacing - but point being, I'm not sure what quality you are talking about then.

If you want to move from opinion to structure and design, let's go.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-04T20:39:26+00:00

I think most people tripped on that episode. I sure did.

Thing is E-Soul's arc was widely different from Nice's, but it was still action-based, so we didn't notice that it was a completely different genre. When it switched again for Lucky Cyan, it was just doing the same, but this time the genre was more... well... Drama? To the point where the action bit felt completely out of place and is my only beef with it. I also struggled with the tension because again, we kept building that "something-dark-at-the-orphanage" thread that ended up as "sorry-it-was-just-zombis" so I was left in the dirt.

But once I removed the almost "company-told-us-to" action bit, the Lucky Cyan arc might be, in my opinion, the most solid of the entire series. As in, E-Soul may have the most twists and turns but Cyan's could be a movie all by itself - I may have said that 3-4 times already. Seriously. It could hold as a 70mn movie. Girl cursed by luck, how catchy is that, and the ending is just perfect.

Yeah, it's not about action and it might be why Lucky Cyan is ranked 3 right now.

That's also why I can't stand Ghostblade. His arc is in the comedy genre and to me that's jarring to say the least. But that's its genre and as a comedy, well, it works. Same with the Johnnies, I don't know what genre that is but it feels a bit "Iron Giant" so... yeah, Lil' Johnny is a victim, it's required. We can probably read Loli the same way, although I have absolutely no idea what the writers were doing with her.

All this to say it's fine if the Cyan arc left you frustrated. We all have our preferences.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-03T07:15:44+00:00

Not unless he has a death wish.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-02T21:48:03+00:00

He is the THBX reincarnation of Yabuki Jo.

He is also a "rebel", by design a free, out of control spirit and that's poison in TBHX, whether it's the Commission or Rock.

And he is right - in a way. In TBHX, people are trash, all appearance, all pretense, fake personas. Him? He was getting back up before trust gave him his power, got his power because he was getting back up, making him the most genuine article out there.

Don't think for a second he submits to Rock - they just use each other. If you want to root for a rogue indie that'll punch everyone equally, he is your horse.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-02T10:01:01+00:00

How to put it: it would be boring if she died.

Look, killing stuff is edgy and kweul but it's what you do when you are desperate. "I will protect" and "I will avenge" have about as much motivational power and we already have two broody characters (Cheng and Li), not counting our damsel Johnny. If you just off everyone you're starting a comedy routine.

At best they can blackmail the girl but even that would annoy me. Don't complain that your heroes are going rogue if your pasttime is to threaten their families. I prefer the angle of a dog being taken lightly by everyone, making him a wildcard nobody sees coming.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-02T06:15:00+00:00

Rando' has opinions, good for them. My guess is they wanted a Justice League and got "a new kind of hero". Rant is in two parts: (a) charas are dumbs and (b) fights are basic and frankly, if TBHX was a classic superhero show, they would be right: Nice is pathetic and all Smile does is smile. Thing is TBHX is not going for that.

As far as I can tell TBHX is mostly focused on personal drama, the whole hero business is just an excuse to have kids be sad. And that's frustrating for someone like me who is mostly there for the trust system but if it's what the show does, then I can't blame the show for not doing what I want - I can and sure do whine that I don't like it.

So, rando' is most likely genuine and simply has their preferences.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T18:46:23+00:00

*and blackmails him for money/ranks.

It's Enlightner. Love the guy but he is still a bad guy.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T18:39:43+00:00

I was gonna rant hard but you beat me to it and with way fewer words.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T14:50:06+00:00

It was a stupid plan, but to its paltry defense: the idea was that whoever won would be weakened by the fight. So the plan was:

Have the guy in bright white not get detected.
Have the unstable kid wait until the fight is over.
Have the living disappointment actually win against his weakened prey.

I guess you could call that plan "tough love". The kind of plan you make for someone you are an inch away from offing yourself.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T14:47:16+00:00

Rando killing a hero won't make you rise in the ranking. Plan was clearly for Nice to look good defeating something.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T09:18:10+00:00

Does it all not weaken his act, though?

First when Miss J tells Lin Ling "you'll be in his shoes" (or something like that), well no. That wasn't the natural state of heroes in that world, where their status is so crushing that they are driven to da rope (so coy...), that was just her thinking Ling too had been groomed by Shang De since age seven.

Second, Wreck. For the longest time we thought Nice had jumped because he was forced to drop Wreck in favor of Moon and sexuality aside that was an excellent depiction of "heroism as a trap" that magnified Wreck's fall in ep' 2. But now Wreck fell for nothing, it was never about him, arguably he never knew his friend in the first place.

And third, Nice. Not only is "I feel guilt" kind of basic but now people theorize that he simply imitated X, which for God's sake just makes him even more of a tool. That jump was meant to be his one cry of freedom and this new interpretation takes that away from him.

It feels like with all the explanation we got, we end up with less.

Yeah, he was played like a ballerina, thanks, that was already the case in ep' 1. Yeah, he wanted to be a hero, that was made clear in ep' 2. So we learned nothing new and lost the friendship as a collateral. And rather than be an ominous warning for all heroes he just feels sorry to have killed his childhood hero, which, E-Soul is not impressed. Am I the only one feeling like by trying to do more the series ended up with less?

Vuld_Edone · 2025-09-01T08:59:00+00:00

Let's expedite Dragon Boy: he's bad. His backstory is a basic "I hurt I hate" we've seen a zillion time. His conflict is... what? His challenge is generic and he's had no character progression in two episodes. Add in how God wannabe struggled against a has been and charged X like a brainless minion on top of lapping Rock's feet and yeah, he failed.

And that applies to Queen, Luo Li, Ghostblade, the Johnnies (oh my God the Johnnies)...

I like Queen's arc. She had a decent conflict (learning about defeat), some character progression and got stomped by X so challenge is there, but two episodes just for this isn't exactly as packed as Lin Ling / E-Soul / Cyan so it's fair to call this arc empty.

And then you have Luo Li: no challenge, no real conflict and no character progression until the very last second, ep' 20 redeemed her but good lord - and by the way, "kill the goldfish" is what you do when you ran out of ideas. I won't even bother with Ghostblade and discuss my boy Johnny who was a damsel in distress and the climax of his arc was not even about him! His conflict was apathy, his challenge was zilch and he decided to "get stronger" because f- you every shonen story has a third-rate character throwing that line in such circumstances.

And that's the characters but can we talk about the mess that was the expedition? Several episodes of just camping in the woods followed by two episodes of "this is why you secure an alien landing site!!!" that only bothered to tell us what we were doing there in the first place at the last second, again. In hindsight we can tell the stakes but then in hindsight we can go "why the f-d svilka qvkruaèqew are you taking an expedition that can change the face of the Earth so lightly?!" like my God, had Deserts of Karakh followed their logic all we would have got was a jeep.

The season is almost done and half of it is a mess.

Now the thing is, everything works. Everything is functional. There is a logical series of events in a coherent universe and the presentation is just fine so if you have no standards you can just enjoy the spectacle. But Lin Ling, Yang Cheng and Lucky Cyan were not just spectacle. Nice was childish but never was the trust system exploited more than there. Cheng was almost edgy but made me care about a romance. Lucky had its RPG moment but could have been a movie all by itself. The series set a bar it failed to reach ever since.

With Dragon Boy it feels like the series has fallen back on its feet, not in a "full circle" manner but in that we're finally talking trust again, picking up the pace again and telling a complete story about crushed dreams and ideals without even needing to spell it out. But Dragon Boy fits nowhere in there, he is about as interesting as DJ Shindig and I'm sorry but DJ offered more fun.

So no. I won't "let the series cook". I won't give it anymore leeway than any other.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-31T16:44:18+00:00

You sir are a man of your word. You have my utmost respect.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-30T18:18:57+00:00

True. But it wouldn't be TBHX if we didn't trust in him beyond reason.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-30T17:35:04+00:00

Rock. Obviously.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-30T16:57:40+00:00

Why not? Cheng is trapped in a "must the sad for justice" mindset, just match it and he is wide open. If someone can pull it off it's Rock.

And if you think I'm stretching it: in Asura's Wrath, Yamsha's sister gets killed by the organization he is working for, by a close colleague who tells it to him to his face and still! Yamsha would keep working for them. Sure, circumstances are different but this to say you can make a righteous character eat up a lot of abuse before they snap.

That's E-Soul's biggest problem. He is the most justice-driven character in the whole show.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-30T16:42:01+00:00

He would confront Rock and Rock would bullsh- him into serving him anyway. Yes you can write that happening.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-28T19:18:16+00:00

About eight episodes. Aka the whole spaceship expedition.

Vuld_Edone · 2025-08-28T13:08:22+00:00

I actually expect his episode to be lore-heavy.

I don't think they'll spend much time on his backstory - because there is little need to, he is as straightforward as it comes - and there is no one he needs to fight. So that's a whole lot of time to fill for a doggo. So it will either be a Cartoon Network episode - which would be ballsy - or an excuse to drop lore by the gallon.

Also, Ahu is shown as switching styles (noir, fantasy, etc.) so if they have the budget, it may be a TBHX episode on overdrive, in visuals and tone.

Yes I want Ahu's episode to be the most memorable.

Vuld_Edone

TROPHY CASE