Alternative title(s): Hitorijime My Hero
Manga Adaptation by Encourage Films
Streaming on HIDIVE
Premise
Masahiro Setagawa is the neighborhood delinquent errand-boy until he bumps into Kousuke Oshiba, the older brother of his best friend, whose fighting abilities have earned him the nickname Bear Killer. Fast forward a year or so and Setagawa is entering high school, with the days of playing lapdog for his delinquent ‘buddies’ behind him thanks to Oshiba’s influence. However, the delinquents have not quite forgotten Setagawa, and as fate would have it, Oshiba has just been assigned to Setagawa’s school as a math teacher.
Artemis’ verdict: Surprisingly Okay*
This wasn’t a good premiere exactly, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, and actually not even bad in its own right. I’m pretty wary of anything labeled as BL these days – mostly because I think the usual hallmarks of the genre (i.e. rapey advances and general molestation) isn’t something we need to see yet more of. My Very Own Hero is not only completely devoid of these tropes (so far, at least), but the opening episode was so chaste that I’m not even sure I’d be ready to label it as a BL title at all. The relationship between our main couple is at this point entirely platonic, not even intensely bromantic as much as it seems like a completely ordinary friendship. I don’t know whether to be thankful or disappointed about that, but the point is, this episode was decidedly un-creepy, and that’s definitely something to be thankful for.
On the production values front, things are likewise about average. The artwork is fairly unoriginal but by no means ugly, the animation seems perfectly fine if not especially noteworthy, and the music is all very inoffensive. Basically, I think anyone watching this without having first read the synopsis or having any knowledge of the genre or source material could be forgiven for assuming it was just your run-of-the-mill, high school slice-of-life show. Having zero familiarity with the manga myself, I have no idea if that’s going to change later on down the track, but again, for a BL series this was a refreshingly decent start, albeit not a particularly gripping one. I don’t mind giving it another episode or two to see how it shapes up.
*Having now seen the second episode, my opinion about this show has changed somewhat. That said, my impressions of the premiere alone hold true, so I won’t be editing them.
I’m already addicted to this show lol I know shows like these are just purely meant to be enjoyed and nothing more. Kinda like Super Lovers, Junjou Romantica and Love Stage! I’m enjoying it just for the fun 🙂
I was pleasantly surprised by the first episode and very let down by the second. But I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt with a third episode to see how things go.
I say just enjoy it and watch it for fun! Not all anime needs to be dissected and analyzed 🙂
Sure, but I don’t really need to analyze something to say “I don’t like this because…” If other people enjoy Hitorijime then I say go ahead – I’m certainly not going to try and stop anyone. But personally speaking, it’s probably not going to be my cup of tea exactly because of the same kinds of problems BL always tends to have, which I think is very unfortunate.
True…it is kind of “tropey” already, which means we will probably be able to guess what happens next. Sometimes being predictable is boring. Are there any BL shows you enjoy? I like seeing what other people are in to!
Yes, I once posted a brief list here: https://otakulounge.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/5-decent-yaoi-anime/
Out of curiosity, what about the second episode made you change your mind? I figure the last scene with the broody dude revealing he’s actually a manipulative asshole?
More or less. I mean, he physically cornered the guy and basically said “either have sex with me or we can’t be friends.” That’s not just manipulative, that’s full-on abusive, not to mention creepy as all hell.
Yeah I can agree with that, although I wasn’t as optimistic about the premiere episode, the tonal shift in that scene was atrocious. I’m starting to worry the teacher-student relationship is going to be the “healthy” one. Sasuga BL