Anime Review: TO BE HERO X reveals Big Johnny’s secret

TO BE HERO X
Director: Li Haoling
Producers: Aniplex, bilibili, BeDream
Studios: Pb Animation Co. Ltd., LAN Studio, Paper Plane Animation Studio
Streamer: Crunchyroll
Release Date: April 5, 2025
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, donghua

With Ahu yet to appear, Adam and Hilary have embraced Big Johnny as their cute mascot character of choice. Now, in this episode, we finally learn his secret. Is Big Johnny a friendly critter or a terrifying kaiju? What about his “father,” Little Johnny? Is anybody’s dad safe in this show? We get into it below.

The following write-up contains spoilers for Episodes 17-19 of To Be Hero X.

He’s adorable, though

ADAM: Well, I totally called that Big Johnny was an alien. I knew that his plush toy cuteness was too good to be true…

HILARY: He’s still lovable as an angry, destructive, enormous alien. Just…at an arm’s length distance. Or a couple-miles-away-distance. He’s adorable though! I still love him! *pounds table*

In our last roundtable review, I jokingly-not-jokingly demanded that we needed plush versions of Big Johnny. I didn’t expect we’d actually get one in this arc, although now I feel bad about it since the Johnnies have been made into mascot figureheads for DOS. I still want that plush toy of Big Johnny though…

Anyway, what did you think about this arc, Adam?

ADAM: I thought it was pretty good. It didn’t match the heights of the Ghostblade arc for me, which was my favorite in the series so far. But it did make me care about Little and Big Johnny. I particularly liked the scenes in the arc’s first episode that were just about the two of them hanging out with their dad Ah Sheng. Just nice, cozy stuff that felt very lived-in.

Parent-child relationships

ADAM: Li Haolin’s team are really at their best when telling stories about parent-child relationships. Ghostblade’s arc was about a bad dad trying to do well by the daughter he failed. Big and Little Johnny’s arc is more conventional, in that Ah Sheng is your standard good dad who is sacrificed for the needs of the plot. But I like how Little Johnny learns lessons from him that he applies by training Big Johnny.

HILARY: Ghostblade’s arc had the element of surprise. Who would’ve thought this silent assassin was just a socially awkward dad trying to connect with his daughter? Still, it was nice to get a break from all the sadness that we’ve seen so far. Plus, we were given a wholesome parent-child relationship that lasted for almost a whole episode? Inconceivable!

The exploration of Ah Sheng, Little Johnny’s father, contrasts with Ghostblade’s story and their roles as fathers. After his wife died, Sheng didn’t want to be a hero anymore. Nothing mattered to him more than the safety and happiness of his son; that might be why he left Hero Tower for the countryside. Then we have Ghostblade who, for his own personal reasons, couldn’t leave hero life behind despite his wife pleading with him to choose her and their daughter. His later choice to abandon his mission to assassinate Little Johnny and protect him instead was a redemption of sorts. Maybe assassinating Ah Sheng back then did rattle him after all.

ADAM: There’s definitely something that the story is still hiding from us regarding Ah Sheng. The fact that his former associate, Vortex, also died in the plane accident that claimed Lucky Cyan’s parents raises alarm bells for me too. Just how many other secrets are buried beneath the hero world? No wonder everybody in this series, like Ghostblade and the Johnnies, keep miscommunicating with each other.

Digimon are the champions

ADAM: What are your thoughts regarding Little Johnny’s relationship with Big Johnny? It occurs to me that I’ve never asked you if you’ve had a Pokémon or Digimon phase. I was really feeling it in those training sessions.

HILARY: Ha, Little Johnny was having a real hard time trying to wrangle Big Johnny in that training sequence. Poor guy.

I watched both Pokémon and Digimon but I have a particularly soft spot for Digimon‘s first season. The second season with the 02 cast, not so much, but that’s because the OGs have a special place in my heart. I’ve been meaning to get back into watching the rest of it. But I wasn’t that big into Pokémon cards/merch or the Digivice. Does having a Neopet count?

Big Johnny’s berserk phase ties closely into Little Johnny’s emotions. His anger and grief from losing his father is what triggers Little Johnny’s first big transformation. Maybe that link formed when Big Johnny nips Little Johnny’s hand early on. It makes me curious as to what Big Johnny’s backstory is. Did he have a family? Is he the last of his kind or will we see more Big Johnnies in the future?

ADAM: Now I’m imagining an army of Big Johnnies descending on the Hero Tower. Maybe they reproduce asexually? That would be terrifying.

Even keel

ADAM: I brought up Digimon earlier because Little Johnny and Big Johnny’s relationship reminds me a bit of that series. Some of the most effective arcs come about when a kid like Taichi or Takato pushes their partner into evolution, only to have them transform into a horrible skeleton or dragon. There’s something horrible about how Little Johnny doesn’t seem to realize as a kid just how dangerous Big Johnny can be. At the same time, Big Johnny is helpless when exposed to Little Johnny’s powerful feelings of sadness and anger. It’s a volatile relationship; I’m surprised that they’ve kept it on an even keel for so long.

If I had a complaint with this arc, actually, it’s that I’m not fully convinced by how Big Johnny is animated in his monster form. The battles in this show have been pretty weightless, leaning into fast-paced skirmishes that send characters flying long distances. That doesn’t lend itself well to kaiju combat, where you really want to see the weight of the monsters on screen in their every movement. I don’t mind that Big Johnny is fast, but I wish they made him look heavier in his fight against Vortex. I did like the background art we saw during Little Johnny’s time in the forest, though, so I’ll take that trade-off.

HILARY: We also got a deeper dive into the alien spaceship crash this arc. What’d you think of it?

ADAM: There are definitely still unknowns for me when it comes to the crashed spaceship. I assumed last time that the aliens had something to do with Fear, but it’s clear now that’s not the case. In fact, alien tech being unaffected by Trust and Fear (as we saw with Loli earlier) is what makes it so dangerous. Big Johnny is no exception to this, in that he’s seemingly invulnerable to powerful folks like DJ Shindig or Vortex. It’s no surprise that the powers that be want to get rid of him!

All of our answers

ADAM: I should have expected they’d pull this with Big Johnny because we haven’t seen very many other creatures in the series so far. The fact that he’s from outer space clears up a question around his origin in the series that I didn’t even think to ask. That’s the kind of tricky script-writing I’d expect from the Link Click team. I don’t have strong feelings about the spaceship itself so far though. It’s dark and anonymous, and more like a set from an Alien movie than something that feels like a part of the To Be Hero X universe. I’m waiting for another twist that will bring it into alignment.

HILARY: Hopefully, we’ll have all of our answers in the last few episodes. That said, I have no idea how the series is going to end. It depends on if To Be Hero X is meant to be a multi-season series or a single season. I have a feeling we will get a second season though. The world is just too big and there’s so much potential. Reception has been pretty good so far, so I have hope that Season 2 is just around the corner.

I’ve gotta ask, what did you think about the plot twist at the end with Nice appearing and well, not being very nice at all?

ADAM: Again: I knew it!! I had a sneaking suspicion that Nice would be more than he seemed at first. Was he really so satisfied walking off a skyscraper to his death at the very start of the series? I expect that we’ll find out soon enough. I just hope that Moon wasn’t tied up in his dirty laundry as well.

HILARY: I didn’t think we’d see Nice again! Dang, I thought he was some tortured hero when we first saw him. But turns out that smile was a farce.

I’m trusting to fate

ADAM: The real “oh crap” moment for me in this episode was when E-Soul came out of nowhere to murder The Johnnies. When we saw him kill Moon earlier in the series, we didn’t know who he was or why he did it. Now we know that politics were almost certainly involved. So were the most powerful players operating in this setting. It makes me frightened for the safety of the Johnnies, Ghostblade, and even Loli; even if they escape E-Soul and Nice, there’s no way they survive if the hero corporations decide to eliminate them.

HILARY: It seems like E-Soul, or Yang Cheng, has lost himself completely. He was sent to kill the Johnnies and Ghostblade for the sole purpose of weeding out the competition. But like you said, there’s definitely something bigger at play here than just a simple ranking competition.

ADAM: I’m sure we’ll find out more next episode. Remember, our bet is still ongoing! I’m a little nervous about what might happen, but I’m trusting to fate.

HILARY: I remember our bet…I don’t know if I’m going to be right or not. If I am, though, I’m still going to be mad that we ended on a cliffhanger and we have to wait until who knows when to know what happens.

Timeline-wise, I’m not sure how the series will bring it all together. This Nice is the OG Nice and not Lin Ling, so we’re still in the past. Plus, after the “????” episode, we have the Dragon Boy arc, and we haven’t seen hide nor tail of him in this arc. I don’t think he’ll drop out of the sky for his arc, so he’ll probably appear next week. Otherwise, I wonder how he’ll come into the story.

A fun place to be

ADAM: Yeah, we haven’t seen any of Dragon Boy so far, much less our boy Ahu. I’m curious to see just how they make sense of them, considering that we’re just a few arcs from the end. Unless this is just the first season of a longer story, of course!

While I’ve found To Be Hero X to be inconsistent, I’m excited by where the pieces are falling now. Loli is up against Nice, Ghostblade and the Johnnies are being hunted through a spaceship by E-Soul, and Queen and Lucky Cyan are somehow mixed up in this too. I don’t know whether most of these characters will be dead next episode, or if something even worse will happen. It’s a fun place to be!

HILARY: We are long overdue for the death of a main character. The original Nice and E-Soul don’t really count, since the story’s focus is on their successors. So I’d be intrigued if To Be Hero X kills off one of the top 10 heroes. As long as it’s not Big Johnny or Ahu.

I also just realized it’s been a while since we last saw our mysterious villains. We’ve seen them in brief flashes and they’re introduced in the OP, but they haven’t made many big moves aside from giving orders on the phone. So maybe, “????” will be focused on the villains. Who knows? It’s a big question mark, or in this case, four big question marks.

ADAM: Are the hero corporations and the Spotlight Organization plotting against each other or are they in fact the same thing? I think the answer to that question will do a lot to determine how everything shakes out.

I’d say this arc was more of a Little Johnny than a Big Johnny, but the ending was certainly exciting. I hope that the conclusion to this series will similarly be out of this world!

To Be Hero X airs in the United States via Crunchyroll.