Heroman 01 - First Impressions

The first "first impressions" post for the spring 2010 season is finally here. This post is for Heroman, a superhero robot series created by Stan Lee and Bones. This series doesn't look that great on paper, but it is being animated by Bones so there's a chance of being a sleeper hit. Or else maybe it'll be good for some unintentional laughs. Either way, here are my impressions of the first episode.

This is more or less an accurate depiction of the freeway that goes into LA.

Sports jock-bullies with gelled hair... what would we do without them?

The electricity bill for this place has got to hurt the pocketbooks.

Cameo time.

Premise:
Girlish, wimpy orphan boy gets control of a big super-powered robot and together they try to save the world from invading aliens.

Wouldn't it be nice if every piece of electronic can be fixed with a nice jolt?

It's alive! It's alive!!

And the stars and stripes paint job is included.

Voice command should be standard feature for giant hero toy robots.

Heroman saves the day for the first time.

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The first episode was along the line of what I expected. It wasn't terrible, but wasn't great either. Heroman appears to have the standard "boy gets robot to save the world" setup. The first episode was predictable and there wasn't much to talk about the plot. Character-wise, all the important characters seem to be the standard archetypes that are seen in this genre of shows, so not much to talk about here either. I was slightly annoyed though when Joey kept calling out the name "Heroman!". I guess I'm just past the stage of my life where I enjoy shows that feature characters who keep calling out the names of their weapons (ex Pokemon). I also thought it was kind of cumbersome that Joey had to press a button every time he wanted Heroman to do something. Voice command should be a standard feature for superhero robot toys at the very least.

The animation is up to Bone's usual excellent quality. The background and settings seems to be representative of a Californian city. I'm not too sure about everything else, but it looks like Bones got the cars right. Based on personal experience, it is true that there are many SUVs and trucks roaming the roads in States. More so than Canada anyways.

After watching the first episode of Heroman, I'm pretty sure I'll watch the next one but whether or not if I'll keep following this series remains to be seen. With Stan Lee at the helm, there should be plenty of action, but I have my doubts about the plot. If it turns out to be hilariously bad then I'll probably keep watching too, but it becomes boring then it might go into the "dropped" bin. Even if I keep watching I won't be blogging this series though.

On an unrelated note, given many bloggers' positive first reactions to B Gata H Kei, maybe I should give that series a look.