The new anime season started great with the first episode of Sentenced to Be a Hero: The Prison Records of Penal Hero Unit 9004 (勇者刑に処す 懲罰勇者9004隊刑務記録). This anime series is adapted from a light novel series written by Rocket Shokai.
The story is a dark fantasy set in a world invaded by monstrous creatures called Demon Lords, which infect an area and kill everything on sight. To fight against them, the world uses Heroes, who are basically individuals forced to fight as a way to atone for their crimes.
They cannot escape, as they have a bomb set on their body, nor can they even die; the system simply retrieves their souls and places them into random bodies so they can continue fighting. The story follows Xylo Forbatz, a former knight commander who is accused of killing a Goddess and is forced to become a Hero.
In this first episode, we are introduced to the main characters and the basic setting of the world. So far, we know Xylo (the protagonist), Teoritta (a Goddess and the main heroine), Patausche Kivia (a female Knight Commander), and Dotta Luzulas (another Hero like Xylo, but one who is very prone to stealing things).
To be honest, Xylo's continued refusal to use Teoritta felt a bit forced, but I guess it was a way to show how tremendous the threat from the Demon Lords is. He knew he had no chance against that horde without the Goddess's power, and his rejection would have jeopardized the survival of the entire group.
Either way, the focus of the series will be, of course, fighting the demons. More importantly, it will focus on Xylo getting his revenge on whoever betrayed him during that fateful mission where he was forced to kill his Goddess. It is a typical dark fantasy setting, really, but so far the quality of the narrative has been solid.
The flashback regarding the death of his originally contracted Goddess is also interesting. According to Xylo, it seems like the Demon Lords can even corrupt the Goddesses. This smells like a "warning" that we are inevitably going to have to fight a corrupted Goddess in the future, doesn't it?
But the real question I have right now is: what are the Goddesses in the first place? Are they natural beings limited in number (Teoritta is supposed to be the 13th), or are they humans who are somehow modified to act as one by embedding something inside them? Given the dark setting and the technology involved in resurrecting Heroes in other people's bodies, it would not surprise me if the Demon Lords are somehow involved in all of this.
In the next episode, we will need to see how Teoritta reacts to the knowledge that Xylo killed a Goddess. More importantly, how will the central government react to a penal Hero becoming contracted to a Goddess? Will they try to separate them? Is that even possible at this point?
Honestly, it has been an amazing start, and I am excited to watch more in the next episode. I may actually pick up the light novel once the anime is over.
