“Sentenced to Be a Hero” is a new dark fantasy anime series that is currently releasing episodes every Thursday. There are seven episodes available to stream on Crunchyroll as of February 17th.
It takes place in a society where those who commit terrible crimes like murder, are sentenced to serve as a hero and use “sacred seals” which contain abilities to save people. The main character, Xylo, killed a goddess.
The anime has a really cool concept, because unlike stereotypical superhero films, heroes are not praised and are actually frowned upon, since civilians know that they have committed bad crimes. The heroes cannot die either, so they are trapped in an endless cycle of saving civilians from “faeries” or demons.
One character, Tatsuya, has been serving as a hero for a very long time and does not even speak anymore. All of the characters are crafted really well and it is a huge breath of fresh air compared to a lot of recent anime releases.
What really set the tone for this series was the fact that the pilot episode was over an hour long, which is triple the length of most other anime episodes. It set the plot up nicely and was really cinematic for the first episode. It almost felt like a movie.
Unless the plot goes way off the rails, “Sentenced to Be a Hero” is going to be one of the best new anime series of the year.