Blood, James Blood
- Episodes : 15
- Genre : Action, Mystery, Police, Sci-Fi
- Airing Date : December 2018
- Studios : Studio Pierrot
Contains Spoilers
Hero Mask Introduction
In a city filled with crime, the SSC works hard to maintain order. One of the SSC's best operatives is James Blood, a talented cop known for his reckless behavior. James’ everyday life of tracking down criminals takes a strange turn when a man from his past comes looking for him. The man's name is Grimm and was a prisoner who had died while incarcerated. Grimm appears in front of James with new supernatural powers thanks to a mysterious mask. After fighting and defeated Grimm, James and the rest of the SSC begin to look into the mysteries of the mask and the other strange occurrences that have happened recently.
1. The Visuals
If there is one area Hero Mask excels at, it is the visuals. Everything from the characters designs to the backgrounds look great. Hero Mask is very colorful and has some fantastic backgrounds that are downright beautiful.
2. Grimm and Theo
Grimm and Theo are the first two mask users that are encountered in the series. Although they may not get much screen time, they are involved in some of the best moments in the series. Grimm is one of the most entertaining characters and always leaves an impact whenever he is on screen. Out of every character in Hero Mask, Theo is handled the best and gives us the most emotional scene in the anime.
1. Messy Action Scenes
Hero Mask takes a strange approach to the action scenes, incorporating a larger number of cuts in a relatively short period of time. There are plenty of these scenes throughout the series, with each episode having a couple of these high octane action scenes. While there are a few scenes where this works, the actions scenes mostly come off as being nonsensical messes.
2. The Story
Hero Mask's story isn't terrible, but it also doesn't do much to keep you interested. The story is all over the place, with the first and second half of the series feeling almost like completely different anime. Unfortunately, the story is also dragged down by the one-note characters, with only a couple of the characters being somewhat interesting.
3. Steven Martland
The grand mastermind behind all of the bad things that happen over the course of the series also happens to be one of the worst characters. James and the rest of the main characters spend the majority of the anime trying to figure out who is behind the mask incidents, but as viewers, we learn early on that Steven is the big bad guy. Despite knowing Steven is the bad guy, we never learn what his motives are and we are left completely in the dark as to the purpose of the entire story. While this lack of character backstory and motivation doesn't only affect Steven, he is by far the worst in Hero Mask.
Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of big-budget action movies, you may have a lot of fun watching Hero Mask. If you are looking for a complex crime story like other anime of the same genre, then you will be disappointed. What are your thoughts on Hero Mask? Do you think it is worth watching? Let us know in the comments?
Author: Robby
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