TBH X comes with alot of hype in the eastern sphere, not so much the west. It has a bunch of big names attached to it too. And they delivered-its great.
What separates this show from its brothers is that it actually tries to have interesting characters. Theyre all pretty generic, im not going to hold you- you’ve likely seen these tropes before. Being tropey isnt a bad thing when done right though, which in this case, it has.
For example, the main protagonist from episode 1-4 is your typical from zero to hero character. But throughout all of it, he remains strangely human. Even when he can fly and beat the shit out of other people pretty easily- he shows genuine humanity in his actions and remains attached to the people and the world around him. It makes him relatable, and I find myself rooting for him and his ideals.
The plot, as of now, isn’t super special. Same with the morale, it can be easily summed up as “Anyone can be a Hero.”
All of this is stuff we’ve seen before. However, they tried to throw some mystery in there, and the villains aren’t evil just for the sake of being evil-which is pretty rare for shounens nowadays.
The power system i actually really like, it gives a-lot of room for uniqueness. It could be expanded on, but id imagine that this’ll happens eventually since this is a preliminary review after all.
My main gripe with the story is that they dont take big risks with this show. Everything is pretty formulaic so far, and safe. I hope they try to do something different in future episodes. But for now, the plot is just above average. 7/10
Animation
The animation is stellar. I love it. Every second of action is exhilarating, and you can see the ion put into the fight scenes. They also tried to do some spiderverse-arcane kind of artstyle for the first seven episodes, which I thought was pretty good.
The animation is really something special. I have 0 issues with it. 10/10
Soundtrack-
Stellar soundtrack, great opening and endings, but its music isnt super impactful except for a few moments during big fights. Its not masterpiece level, but its strong. 8/10
Outside of the show itself, it tries to do some unique stuff like voting for your favorite character to win in the already confirmed second season tournament arc. I like this alot. Engaging your community like this should be done more often with original productions like this. +1 from me.
Overall, TBH X doesnt try to reinvent the wheel. It just attaches rockets to it and tries to take it to the moon. I hope they can keep this momentum, and i might increase my rating later if it really surprises me with this story. I do hope that this show inspires some greater changes in the sputtering anime industry. Otherwise, donghua really might beat out anime in the foreseeable future.
tl;dr It has stellar animation, surprisingly deep and human characters, and a pretty unique power system and setting- its your run-of-the-mill shounen, but elevated to something greater. Go watch it, its worth your time.
