Sentenced To Be A Damn Good Time!

[00:02] show, a damn fine show. It's a show that started off extremely strong having the second best intro episode of the whole season. Yes, I said second, fight me. Oh, but why is it the second best? Because Shibuya Yugi I liked more as a

[00:15] first episode. Why is that? Well, probably because Sentenced to be a hero was a lot more action-focused and while action is great, it is not always my forte. So, they are both stellar intro episodes, but of course if you put a gun

[00:27] is better, I was going to go put Shibuya Yugi ahead of it, but they're still both great and it's amazing. Having finished both series now though, man, Sentenced to be a hero just so much better. I mean, that's an easy enough thing to

[00:40] watching it and I'm not utterly pissed off like I was with Shibuya Yugi previously. So, Sentenced to be a hero is a light novel adaptation and it is stuff. And I want to be serious about that. Like when a bigger when a bigger

[00:56] franchise comes along and has stellar animation, right? If Jujutsu Kaisen has stellar animation, we love it. We're very thankful for it, but it's also kind of expected to a degree. Like when Sakamoto Days came along and didn't have

[01:09] lot of people because there was an expectation of high animation, but for Sentenced to be a hero, like like I'm sure light novel people will disagree, but I don't think there was a uh a built-in expectation that this was

[01:22] going to have some of the best animation of the season all throughout this entire 12-episode show. And it is stellar, but we'll get back to that. So, what is Sentenced to be a hero? Sentenced to be a hero is a fantasy action series where

[01:36] this fantasy society has decided that for um the absolute worst of the worst, one of the things that they can do instead of executing them is forcing them into some weird magical contract agreement thing that turns them into a

[01:50] hero, which basically means is that they are an indentured servant that can't die because if they do die, they will just use magic and resurrect them constantly. And so being a hero is kind of looked down upon, but they're still called

[02:04] heroes because they are kind of forced to do heroic things. They are forced into situations that they're probably not going to survive from, and so they need to be heroic and they need to do the heroic action of oh, I'm going to go

[02:18] do all of this for my life except it's not in sacrificing their life cuz they're going to get brought back afterwards. There's just problems with cuz you kind of lose yourself after a while and they don't really go into that

[02:32] that. So the series follows one particular hero who was turned into a hero through not the best of methods because he was accused of things that he didn't actually do. A lot of the things revolving around what he was doing and

[02:45] what he was accused of is really bad and tragic and shows the lives, but now he's a hero and he's being ordered around to go and fight off the demon incursions and the demon lords and you know, all these wonderful

[02:59] people and ruining the land. He ends up finding himself contracted to one of the world's 13 goddesses, this young little ball of pep and flame who is just utterly delightful. And despite being a hero, one of the bottom ranks of

[03:14] about the contracts between goddesses and their chosen knights. So yeah, there if they're wanting to use her at all for her abilities and her abilities are kind of OP in a combat perspective, then they got to keep this hero around and you

[03:29] the series. They're going around trying espionage going on behind the scenes that you may or may not see. It may or may not be important. We don't know. And then 12 episodes later, here we are. So

[03:42] having completed the show as kind of saying here is why I would recommend the generally speaking overall. There's a couple of reasons why you might not want that. This show does two things really, really well, and we already touched on

[03:56] animation. The animation is goddamn stellar. It has some of the best animation, not just in fights. I mean, fights is kind of a given. I don't like really good animation," and they're really only talking about the fights.

[04:09] cuz Sentenced to Be a Hero, yes, it does have good fights, but when I look for good animation in a series, I want something beyond fights. So, let me give you an example. One of my favorite pieces of animation of this

[04:23] entire season is actually from, well, surprise, from coming from me, Freiren. some of the best animation that I've seen, where it's just involving interacting with a book. Just kind of the the way that the hands are and the

[04:37] the the way that the hands are and the the object is. It is a small moment. And the reason why I find those those little bits of detailed animation very important is because it's kind of unnecessary, right? Because you can do

[04:51] the exact same thing with like two key frames in between. And it doesn't need to look good. But when they make it look good, when they actually decide, "No, we're going to do that for the little moments," that's good animation for me.

[05:05] scenes. A lot of shows have good fight scenes. I don't think that that's they also decide to do those little moments, that's where I get really interested. And Sentenced to Be a Hero does that multiple times throughout the

[05:19] series, where we just have these smaller uh more intimate moments between some of the characters, where the animation is just racked up to 11, and it didn't need to be there, but I love it so. So, animation uh is a very big high point. I

[05:35] would actually recommend for a lot of people, if you're really into watching good animation, then to watch the series just based on that alone. The second Sentenced to Be a Hero uh is its characters on an individual scale. You

[05:49] episodes. There are a lot of very colorful characters here and none of them feel, well, A, one note, even though some of them some of them get a constraints and all that, I can forgive uh I can forgive it to a little bit.

[06:05] But, most of these characters that we interact with are very deep, very detailed, and have motivations that even if they're not explained at the start, you get you get a feeling of who they are pretty quickly and then once you

[06:19] learn their backstory, assuming you do, we learn a lot of backstory. Um, then because not only do their backstories usually help you get a better feel for the the characters themselves, but then it also helps build the world, which is

[06:32] something the show's less good at. We'll get to that. Because not only do we have really have three main characters cuz we have our hero, Zylo, we have the goddess who follows him around. And then we have the the leader of the Knights Battalion

[06:46] that kind of commands them throughout and she basically becomes, if not an actual full-on protagonist by the end of the series, she is a very close to it and she's arguably I want her to be POV character

[06:58] But, we have those characters, but then there's like the whole battalion of their own motivations, they had their lives that led them to being arrested and tried and then actually sentenced to be a hero. Most of them didn't get

[07:15] turned into heroes for the best of reasons and a lot of times you're like, unlike what they tell you at the start, is not just because you were just you there was nothing worse that they could do for you. No, becoming a hero is very

[07:30] much a someone thought that you would be useful, more useful as a hero and as a tool than a dead body and that is why you are a hero. There isn't like a a list of, "Hey, if you do things bad enough, you will become a hero. It's

[07:44] more of a no, someone happened to notice that you were on the chopping block and some of the things that they want to do. And so, you became a hero so that you could help them, you know, unwillingly. And just watching the individual

[07:58] character stories, honestly, really, really good. You like to learn about these guys. You want to learn about hey, why is this guy flying around with a dragon? How did that happen? How did he become a hero because he flies around

[08:10] with dragons more? Yes, please. Let's do that. And he's just one of many. Do we want to see the guy that they call your majesty who sports a wondrous mustache running around and being a badass? Yes. Yes, please.

[08:25] This series is so, so good on the individual character levels, on introducing you to someone and being like, no, I want to see more of you. Or they introduce someone that's like not good and on the villain side and you

[08:38] because I also want to see you dead. I want to see you die horribly and It's not going to happen. But I'd love it if it did. Those are the things that reasons why I would recommend this season, even though it's not complete

[08:52] and we hope that it will be. Probably won't be. But there's still reasons why you should watch an incomplete work because what we do have is good. I am not a person that likes to judge things based on the hypothetical future. Yes,

[09:05] you can go and read the light novel and find out more and figure out things that the light novel, which is a different medium and that's fine. Now, you can use that to predict how the anime in future is going to go and you can hope that

[09:21] we actually get it, you never know. How many times have we watched a really stellar season one only to get a season two that wasn't as good. It's happened enough times, but if I'm judging it just on season one, it was a

[09:35] good season. It could have been a bit better, and I would say that a lot of Sentenced to Be a Hero Well, I mean, a lot of it is just one of those pieces of circumstance. A lot of this season one felt like not

[09:49] necessarily a prologue, but just the early on setup for more things. I think that one of the reasons why I enjoyed all of the time that we spent with these time with these characters, and this season focuses heavily on building its

[10:04] cast rather than really dealing with its world building to the detriment of the overall narrative. The overall narrative is kind of the the problem that I have with the show at present. Again, not having read

[10:17] it's going. There's a lot of the big picture stuff we don't see. And the picture stuff we don't see. And the parts that we do see can get confusing because it's trying to do a lot of different things at once, and if you're

[10:30] trying to it gives you a lot of pieces, but you don't know if you have all of it together anytime soon. We spend a lot of time with the heroes, but the heroes are kind of being directed They're They're being directed on site by the

[10:43] night commander, but even she gets her own orders from elsewhere, and we don't know what their motives are. There's also the motives of the section of the knights that created the heroes to begin with. There is the motivations of the

[10:57] other knights that are contracted to the other goddesses. We don't really see them. We see one briefly, but we don't really get a feeling of what their interactions is like versus the the main night and goddess pair that we see all

[11:10] the time. The world is being overrun by demonic entities and demon lords, but some of the demon lords just seem to be like rampaging berserkers that we go and this first season. But then you also have some demon lords that seem to be

[11:24] very conniving and highly intelligent. How does that hierarchy work? There is How does that hierarchy work? There is talk about a demon lord king or some other overlordly entity that we don't meet. What motivations do they have? In

[11:39] general, what is the demon's goal? Is it just wiping out all of humanity? If it do you have some humans that are convinced that they can actually survive this demonic apocalypse? Because you also have a section of humanity that is

[11:53] like the co-conspirators. I think that the co-existers, I think is what the show actually describes them as because they want to coexist with the demons. They know or they believe that the demons are going to overrun everything

[12:05] and so they're like, "Hey, we're going to join up with them so that when they do rule over the land, I'll be in a good position having helped them to, you know, be able to keep either myself or the people I care about safe from the

[12:18] demons." You're putting a lot of trust in demons and we know how that probably goes. But for those people to exist, is it because A, the demons aren't planning to necessarily wipe out humanity or is it just that they want uh more semblance

[12:32] of control over the land and the world or are they actually going to be wiping telling some of the humans that they're not so that they can use them as useful pawns. Don't know yet. Then you have the the anti

[12:45] the anti-coexisters. That's a little bit confusing. You have the people that don't want to align with the the demons and they have their the church, which is their own thing and then some of them work for the the

[12:57] government and the royal family. That's something else. The royal family seems something or some entity. There's a lot or a lot of different groups and organizations with all different

[13:09] motivations and we don't really know what's going on. You're getting hints that things are bad, but you don't really know like who is in control, who has the power and what does that mean for our characters? Are we being ordered

[13:22] around by people that are actually secretly controlling controlled by the demons or are the ones that are in charge of heroes not like that. You would think that anyone involved with the goddesses who are like these divine

[13:37] of the demons, you'd think that anyone involved with them would be fine. But we've also seen that the goddesses can't always tell when a demon is right in So when you have demons that can look like humans, you could have a human

[13:52] power in the goddesses might not know. You You don't know. It's one of those I don't want to necessarily say I mean I may have already said it out loud, but this first season is not great with the

[14:05] overarching thing because it's not trying and that that is only a problem how it was written with knowledge that yes, it's part of a light novel and the as an anime, we don't really know where it's going and what's going to happen

[14:19] beyond. So from just season 1, it's terrible at all of this overarching stuff because it's not trying to set that up. It's only trying to loosely set that up for now. We're trying to focus more on the characters and that's fine.

[14:31] As long as we get more and we do, thankfully, have a second season confirmed. But I mean based on the pace of everything so far, we're going to going to need like four or five seasons. Are we going to get four or five

[14:43] seasons? I hope so. That'd be lovely. But statistically, I feel like we're not not going to get anything to the animation level of quality of this first season. I could be wrong and I would love to be wrong here, but that is a

[14:57] very real possibility cuz I do want to know more. I want to know more of the moment, we don't really get a lot of that. Like it's the show's first episode is very stellar and very great. But beyond that, yes, the heroes get ordered

[15:13] not really sure why. We spend like the entire latter half of the show in one town and we don't really find out what what the Now, we're kind of basically told you don't need to know. We know as much as

[15:28] need to know the big picture stuff cuz it doesn't concern them. That is for the the higher echelons to decide. The people in power to decide where the pawns and so even we as the audience only know as much as the pawns, which is

[15:43] not much. But the downside to that, especially with just this first season, is that it sometimes just feels like the narrative doesn't necessarily exist at all and it's just a way to string along things from fight to fight to fight. And

[15:55] the fights are beautiful and I love watching the fights and they're great. But I wish there was a little more in meat from a narrative perspective for this season, which we didn't get. But I mean but I mean arguably I could just be

[16:07] everything. I want to have stellar animation, stellar characters, and an overarching narrative that rocks. Not every show can be Freiren. overarching narrative in Freiren arguably doesn't go as anywhere near as

[16:21] much, but it's just the overarching narrative of Freiren is set up in such a along. Where we you have your your main a destination and they are on the journey to that destination. And even if

[16:34] we get sidetracked, you can kind of feel like every episode sort of slowly gets Sentenced to Be a Hero is that we don't really know what the end goal here is. It's not like we're we're Like you think maybe it's wiping out all

[16:48] of the demons, but like with all of the corruption and all of the other things going on with just humanity in general, you don't really feel like that'll solve the problem cuz probably won't. So then what is the end goal here? We don't

[17:00] really know. And so it's hard to say that every episode is slowly pushing us towards that end goal in the same way. Probably is. It might be, but it's not as It's not as clear-cut. The other problem I have

[17:13] spoiler. Um you already heard my recommendation watch Sentenced to Be a Hero. It is very good. The animation is stellar. The characters are great. Uh, that's enough to for the recommendation on the whole.

[17:26] Um, I'm about to talk about the final episode, episode 12. So, if you don't want to hear about that, know that you should go watch the show and I recommend later or not, totally up to you. Uh, but there's your warning. So, Kivia.

[17:41] Out of all of the characters that we learn things about, we spend a lot of time with the heroes, we spend some time, you know, with at least one Um, Kivia is the one that kind of to me feels like she goes all over the place.

[17:54] And it's it's hard for me to like really coalesce my thoughts on her because some of the things that we get are really good. You know that she has a very hard moral center, one that is pretty unshakable and that's very good. We get

[18:07] that a lot in the first episode and then that's sprinkled out throughout the series. And then at the end, in in episode 12, she basically kills her Not because he was taken over by a demon, which is what I thought they were

[18:20] going to do. No, he's still human. But he just decides that no, and he's like, "No, the demons are going to win, but I have people that I care about and I want them to survive the demonic apocalypse. So, I am doing what

[18:36] demonic apocalypse. So, I am doing what I am doing for that." And that makes her essentially, she just does it. But it makes their conflict like so great and good. The problem that I have

[18:50] with her is that, well, twofold is one, she becomes a hero at the end. doesn't jive with that yet and it's probably because I don't know enough. There's we got dropped a lot of things in

[19:05] episode 12 about what it means to be a hero, how they are made even and how they are maintained because we knew none of that going forward. Like I thought some weird magical ritual that locked you into this. No, it all ties into this

[19:20] she dies? If the first goddess is killed, does that mean that the heroes are just normal people again? Like I mean they're not The only reason they're That's all from a societal standpoint. There's no magical thing that's saying

[19:35] that they're not. They're just reincarnated people and they are mostly fine and normal except, you know, they have special abilities like Zylo can freaking throw knives that explode. But Keyaru decides to be a hero and chooses

[19:48] that. I mean there is the argument that she didn't really have a choice. Depending on how you read the dialogue that she has in the in the the cell She might have been turned into a hero whether she liked it or not. It's just a

[20:00] matter of she was going to die here and will she choose to become a hero or not? There was a bit of an implication that her choosing to become a hero would be beneficial to her because it would be easier to be resurrected. And I think

[20:13] maybe her offering her own head was such a violent helps. I think we spent this entire show talking about how being a hero is not a good thing, right? Episode 1 makes that

[20:29] throughout the whole show. You don't want to be a hero. There's that one guy that chose to be a hero but turns out he's a freaking demon lord and that's a know if I want to touch him but for Keyaru it's like, "No, you're going to

[20:44] become a hero now and you're going to choose this. You're going to choose to choose this. You're going to choose to now be under the uh direct employee of a group or a person cuz we we don't know we don't know the

[20:58] motivations of this one night guy that's been in everyone's back stories turning his motivations are. She doesn't know what his motivations are and she's going along with this. She is essentially killing herself to become a hero, to

[21:11] his motivations are. And that's one of those things that maybe it's because of this my moral core or or something of that that persuasion. It's like you don't know whose side you're on when you do this. Now, you could argue that she

[21:25] as I said, she was probably going to be made into a hero regardless cuz somebody wanted her to be a hero cuz she was useful. The chances of her just dying and exiting well, exiting the story from a meta perspective was never going to

[21:37] chances of her just dying and being forgotten was pretty low. But she still makes this choice when I feel like she doesn't have all of the information that she needs in front of her. And it's a very serious choice cuz you can't take

[21:50] this back. Cuz you're you're killing yourself. You're dying, and now you're being reincarnated, and maybe what they're telling you is a lie. There's still a lot of things about the aspect uh of the first goddess's power

[22:04] that we are not told, and we might not be told or ever be told because how much of those the not Well, maybe not how much knowledge exists. It's the power. And so, why would they ever tell

[22:18] for them to tell you? So, the full extent of the goddess's powers will probably never be told to anyone except for her chosen knight, who we also haven't met, I don't think cuz the guy we have met, I think he is the knight of

[22:32] the third goddess who can see the future and do all of that stuff. We don't know what their goals are. And so, for Kevia to decide to do this and to throw her it's an I don't know. It just rubbed me the wrong way. A part of me feels like

[22:48] it was just she was being set up to be a hero, and this is just how it worked, and you're just trying to force you're trying to force a square brick into a as cleanly as you would like. But there are certain aspects of her character

[23:01] that I also just kind of wish weren't here. I like um her combat ability. I think that that is one of the such a well-written and and acted and directed and animated

[23:15] scene and section and the uh it's just so good. I loved all of I guess it keeps her in the story, but also like the immediate aftermath of her killing her uncle, she basically just kind of goes comatose and allows herself

[23:30] even though she knows that there's corruption going on. She knows all of this is happening. She didn't have to be put in chains. She was fully capable of figuring out something else, but she decides to go in chains. She decides to

[23:45] tried and then thrown in a jail cell. These are things she could have avoided but didn't. And I'm just trying to separate the the in-universe explanations for why this happens from the meta explanations for why this

[24:00] are misaligned. And the last thing about her character that I don't like is I don't like the one-sided romance with Xylo. I They keep hinting to it. She's a big-ass tsundere. That's fine, but I don't feel

[24:16] maybe that is one of those that is building up for something in the future. Although there are big questions there. Xylo just seems completely uninterested. with anyone at all. He has an ex-fiancée, but that almost feels like

[24:30] it gives off a lot of vibes of arranged marriage and his ex-fiancée is just really into it for one reason or another. We don't really know her motivations either. A lot of things motivation-wise we don't know. You can

[24:43] ship Xylo and Kivi a lot if you want, but since he seems completely uninterested, I just feel like it's not a plot that is it here? I think she works great as a character on her own without having to

[24:56] force her into any semblance of a romantic relationship with the show's lead. We don't need it. I don't I don't feel like it should have been there. And it's just an extra addition to her character that feels a bit superfluous

[25:09] and it's a little bit hard to tie it into everything else cuz you things. You don't know I mean someone could probably argue that another reason gets to be closer to uh her love interest. And maybe, but

[25:25] there was Rhino and Uh We're going to save that for uh a season 2 when it's more interesting because it's like well he's a hero, but he's a demon lord, but

[25:38] heroes are made because the first goddess is resurrecting people. She's resurrecting a demon lord. How is that working? Or is she just resurrecting his host and the demon lord part of him is able to do something separate? I don't

[25:51] know enough. And so I am very much looking forward to a season 2. I'm also looking forward to a seasons 3, 4, and beyond because I really hope we get it cuz I don't like adding to my list of light novels that I need to to

[26:04] read because that list is already stupid long and it basically just comes down to don't necessarily want to, but because I don't have time to be constantly reading watching anime and I would like the anime adaptations to be complete and to

[26:19] be an all-encompassing work of art. And with that, go watch it if you skipped my spoiler warning and listened to me anyway. And if you have seen it, I hope of this season. And that's it for me. Thank you to all of my patrons who allow

[26:35] spending some time watching a whole 12 episodes of anime, even though it is not a complete show. I thank you regardless. And a very special thank you, of course, And a very special thank you, of course, to my patrons Aiden, Cityamaco, Ryfen

[26:49] to my patrons Aiden, Cityamaco, Ryfen Bonaparte, Omar Showman, Ross Emerson, especially awesome. You guys are great and I can't thank you enough. So, until next time, cuz we're getting dangerously close to the new anime season that I'm

[27:03] going to be spending so much time watching and trying to coalesce my thoughts on literally everything. My god, this this season's going to be stacked. That might take a bit. We'll get to it. Until then, watch more anime

[27:16] get to it. Until then, watch more anime and stay frosty.