Tu Bian Yingxiong X Episode 1 Discussion

It is easily one of the most promising anime 2025 has seen yet. The storytelling, soundtrack, background music, and even the art style that fluctuates between 3D animation and Japanese 2D anime are amazing.

This feels quite similar to MHA in terms of its synopsis and initial setup, and I hope it will keep me hooked as MHA did (at least for the first 4 seasons). The only con I noticed was the sometimes unneeded background sounds during comedy scenes that feel awkward.

P.S. - The opening shown in the end was an absolute banger!!

I could very easily see this becoming another hyperfixation

Good Lord, what an epic first episode.
The storytelling was top notch
The animation, OST, OP, and everything was amazing. The cliffhanger showing Moon's death was shocking.
Really has the potential to be the best new anime of the season by a landslide.
Looking forward to more episodes (dub ofc).

@SoZLuka honestly I just watched it with the Chinese dub - it's available as one of the options on crunchyroll, so I figured I may as well since I don't speak either language, so I should pick the native one that'll match the lip flaps.

What does everyone think of this first episode? I think that it was absolutely outstanding, an amazing start to this show. I really hope that everyone watches this and it really hits the big time, this crazy unique animation mixing deserves massive props. Love the premise too.

@Eragonnogare The Chinese dub is good, but the English one is fine as well so I think I'll go with that so I can focus more on the visuals as there is a lot to take in.

HOLD UP this is sequel/related to To Be Heroine? Damn what a blast from the past

China really has the money now to pump out good looking anime (can't say much to their 3D dongwhas since they looks ass to me), but thats mostly for first seasons (ie, The King's Avatar looks way worse than the first season was which is still the one of the best animated ones ever to come out)

I watched some preview and it was 2D and I liked it but now I take a look at the anime and its cgi? Huh? Or is it going to be some weird mix of the two?

Can i watch this alone?
or should I watch the prequels first?

That was alright. I didn't quite expect the 3D animation to be present throughout the entire episode, but it's not terrible and I'll definitely get used to it. I assume this will mostly be for the Nice arc.

This world is a dystopia! I was getting Blade Runner vibes from the blimp projector. The fact that Nice felt the need to appear perfect by doing his signature hand sign even as he was jumping probably suggests the reason for his suicide. I fully expect to learn more about the previous Nice in future episodes. Enlighter has been suspecting Nice to be an actor "for a while", so I think the previous Nice was an actor as well.

Also, poor Lin Ling. The contrast between a constant hyper-capitalistic stream of advertisements promoting heroes as perfect personalities and a single 'loser' stuck in a dead-end job is hilarious, but it's also disturbingly relevant.

Finally, some additional information if you're interested:

• In the original Chinese, the glitching of the screen right after Nice #1 walks off makes the sound "Nice-ce-ce-ce-ce". In Chinese, sǐ (死) means death, so it sounds like "Nice死死死死死".
  
• A Chinese joke that I don't think will get translated very well is when the rank 249th hero, Enlighter, is mistaken for rank 250th. 250 in Chinese is 二百五, which also means idiot.
  
• To Be Hero X is a collaboration between multiple Chinese animation studios, so expect the animation style to change a lot.