Anime Rebirth

Review - Heroic Age

Review by Roriconfan

Value: 3
As the previous reviewer mentioned, this anime is indeed overrated. It has a high average only because most judged it by its pretty cover, the great graphics and the cool battles. Inside it, it is attempting to present itself interesting by incorporating many good scenario ideas. But it fails miserably to make good use of any one of those ideas and ends up being a museum collection of various plagiaristic works of fine art.

Enjoyment: 4 Spoiler alert!
When I watched the first episode, I was simply left with my mouth open. It was very reminiscent of half a dozen other favorite titles of mine (check my Suggestion List). The action scenes and the graphics were top-notch, exciting me to the maximum. And as the previous reviewer, I also thought it would be a great series with awesome production values and in-depth story and characters.

But as soon as the fourth episode began, I started to have less and less interest in it. It quickly debunked into an average shonen adventure with cool mecha, slow pace, pointless action, cheesy teen drama and mediocre characters. Everything felt too fake and stupid and I really didn’t care if someone would die (which by the way, didn’t) or if a plot twist would pop-up out of nowhere (which also didn’t). The reasons are presented below.

Story & Characters: 5 Spoiler alert!
The general story is indeed good. An omnipotent alien race that took care of the universe leaves it in the care of the most advanced younger races. One of those races, the Heroic race, was too powerful and war-like, so the omnipotent race trapped their last members into the bodies of weak individuals, so that they could use their potential wiser and to determine the next race that would replace them. Basically, all the races fight humanity because they are too emotionally driven and are considered too chaotic for becoming the next caretakers. Humanity finds a boy, which was raised alone in an isolated planet and has the strongest Heroic member inside it. It is seen as the savior of their race and their way into becoming the supreme race in the universe.

Well, it was very interesting at first. Being Greek myself, I always like to see and hear Greek names and myths; something the series is full of. But then, the following reasons ruined it (reasoning is a bitch!).

The series follows a prophecy called “The 12 Labors of Humanity”. I on the other hand follow “The 10 Commandments of Why Heroic Age Sucks So Much”.

1) YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER SAVIORS BUT ME!
The main character is the only one who actually does anything. He always defeats the aliens, always saves the good guys, always is the center of attention, always does mischief and is generally always seen as the savior of humanity, spoken by prophecy. Everyone else just hides in his shadow and runs after him. The rest of humanity can just stand still and let him do all the work because everyone is a useless ant before him. I simply hate stories where the fate of the entire world is in the hands of an unreasonably powerful, immature, teenage boy. What are the rest of us good for, then?

2) YOU SHALL NOT BELIEVE IN REASON!
How can an antisocial teenage boy who can’t even count or wear cloths be trusted to do anything right or not turn against its own kind? How does such a boy obey rules in general? Doesn’t anyone think reasonably in this series?

3) YOU SHALL HAVE NO FREE WILL!
Oh, sure, the scriptwriters excused themselves by adding the fact that the boy knew of its destiny to protect the world since it was a baby and couldn’t go against fate. Which means that for a protagonist, he was fatalistic and without free will to chose his future. I loathe fatalism! It makes characters behave like robots. Humanity clearly exploited his ability and the only thing he was saying was “Ok, it’s my destiny to be taken advantage. I have no goals of my own. I am a puppet. I exist to serve. Command me!”

4) YOU SHALL NOT THINK!
Also, the setting of the story takes place in a far away future era, were telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy and fast healing are mundane abilities, achieved with a simple touch (not even machines are required!). You would expect humanity and the rest of the alien races to be more mature and resolve their differences in a more peaceful way. But no, they just throw lasers at each other like they still live in the Stone Age.

5) YOU SHALL NOT PLAN AHEAD!
You would expect the form of war to be more sophisticated and strategic with all this technology roaming around. But no, everyone just shoots at each other, like city gang members. Idiots and cowards for instance, run the entire Earth fleet. What kind of mad men elected them? Humanity is on the verge of extinction and they elect the worst kind of leaders to guide them!

6) YOU SHALL NOT ACT APPROPRIATELY!
You would expect more mature behaviors and realistic actions by so high-advanced races. But no, you will see even adults nagging, yelling and crying like immature 14-year-olds of today. I wanted to strangle those two high-pinched twin girls! And that AI mascot advisor… Yuck! How immature can you be in order to fancy that?

7) HONOR YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER… THE STORK!
You would expect a lot of naughty thoughts and even sex in a society that dresses with such tight cloths. You could practically see them naked! Or at least you would expect the main character to go crazy with girls for being a teenager who was raised alone without manners. But no, everyone acts as if there is no sex anymore and a stork still brings the babies.
YOU SHALL NOT MATURE!
Nobody matures much. The entire galaxy is set ablaze and they still hardly change their initial opinions. 26 episodes and one trillion explosions were not enough for them!

9) YOU SHALL NOT BE INTERESTING!
The plot is really slow. Pointless action scenes and cheesy teen drama were chewing most of the time.

10) YOU SHALL KEEP THE ENDING AS A TIME OF REST!
You could predict the ending from the second episode. Because it was very typical and unimaginary. Fatalism strikes again as the prophecy can’t be avoided, no matter how much the aliens tried to change the future. Where’s the interest in a story with a from-the-get-go predetermined ending? And what about afterwards? What followed after the prophesy was fulfilled? Why keep us in the dark?

Animation & Sound: 7
Well, at least this part was good. High quality CGI, decent music themes and voices dress this ugly series in fancy cloths and fool the ignorant into buying it.

Still, many will probably dislike the way the character faces are drawn. They make them look 10 years younger than what they really are. And no, it’s not some technological trick that keeps them young. The character designer that made Heroic Age always draws faces like that and it always looks stupid.

The 3D models are great but it doesn’t take much to realize that they are just reusing the same model a million times, over and over. All those flashy battle scenes with thousands of mecha and space bugs fighting are just two different models, copy-pasted into infinity. And not to forget to mention that there is plenty of repeating footage going around.

The music themes are very good but tend to change erratically during a turn in the mood of an episode. They fail to boost the atmosphere properly. And the character voices are decent but tend to be undermined into the average high-pinched voicing and squeaky yelling of mainstream series.

Verdict
The accused is found … GUILTY! … of using plagiarism for disguising a mediocre work.