Heroman, 1/Progression

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As I watch Heroman, I simultaneously get two conflicting messages.

1) “Whoa, this plot is moving blindingly fast!”

2) “Man, this plot is dragging its feet like crazy.”

It doesn’t make sense at first, but then I realize it’s because the things that you expect to happen quickly seem to take forever, and the things you expect to not occur until much later happen immediately. It’s like Heroman has some sort of “inverse pacing” that defies all conventions of storytelling, especially something you’d expect from the minds of Stan Lee + Studio Bones.

The love interest finding out that the main character is really the hero is something you’d expect to happen towards the end of the series, or at least a season. In Heroman, it happens in episode 2.

Then the rival/bully character to get brought over to the side of evil somehow and become some kind of rival. In most other series, this would be a mid-point “twist,” but here it happens in episode 5.

So all these reveals and events that you’d think would be saved for much later in the series are happening in the single-digit episodes, but somehow giant rolling balls is a strong enough opponent for multiple episodes to the point that we may be looking back one day and referring to this as the “Giant Rolling Balls Arc of Heroman.”

I’m enjoying the series well enough, but this can be kind of disorienting.

Bonus Video Gallery of Total Relevance:

6 thoughts on “Heroman, 1/Progression”

  1. I think part of it if can be “blamed” on the fact that Heroman follows something of a “monster of the week” format in that he fights something different almost every episode and said enemies increase in power with each battle, but it’s all in the sequence of the same ongoing storyline.

    It’s playing like a series of levels in a video game as opposed to “Heroman fights something, goes back to everyday life, then fights something else a few days late.” The series is borrowing storytelling elements from two different kinds of stories and is mashing them together. We get the ongoing, unbroken plot AND the “new enemy new powerup” format of an episodic series wrapped into one package.

    That might be part of what’s disorienting about the pace. I for one love it.

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  2. what? no pun? :I

    “They must have some giant metal balls to be doing shit this way!”

    Also I feel that the character design for joey is really androgynous. I wonder if they’re deliberately pandering to the shoutacon demographic…. now that I’ve said that.. I guess it’s a.. similarity to that franchise with the boy and robot.

    Also. Goddamn! You updated the post. I guess that makes it even.

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  3. balls to the wall for twists

    i think you’ve summed up why heroman was able to get away with its glacial pacing–the development is so random that it is amusing in of itself.

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  5. I’ve noticed this with every Bones show I’ve seen. A lot of important stuff happens in the beginning that make you wonder where the series could possably go in later episodes. Of course, I’ve yet to actually finish a Bones anime but I’m getting there with Heroman and Eureka Seven.

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