u/TR3X-1NF1N1T3

SONG STYLE

Being composed by the great Hiroyuki Sawano it is to be expected that the song would sound like a beautiful orquesta dedicated to Nice, the song has a sense of solemnity like an anthem which connects to Nice persona and gives a godhood feeling.

TITLE MEANING

A Paragon is a model of extreme virtue or perfection, which goes perfect with Nice and even the lyrics reflects this meaning

OVERALL MEANING

The song lyrics reflects what the public thinks of Nice as a Hero, but also how Nice (and later Lin Ling) feels deep inside, most of the song is from the people to Nice.

LYRICAL ANALYSIS

"To be the pinnacle there's a price, a model of virtue above the vice"

- This line refers to Nice's status as the perfect hero, however is a subtle foreshadowing too, Nice paid the prize of his freedom and mental sanity to reach the TOP

"Dressed in gold and flowing white, the darkness vanquished by your light"

- A physical description of Nice, the second line refers to Nice's persona as a Hero who fights all evil

"Pretenders that would keep their lives, if painless and was televised"

- This song may be a foreshadow to Lin Ling being nothing but a random dude pretending to be Nice after the original died, he got his wish of becoming a hero but not in the most precisely honest of ways and compared to the life Nice had Lin Ling had it way easier

"It's not easy being Nice, it's not about the merchandise"

- This line again foreshadow some stuff, Lin Ling had to keep his identity a secret to continue being Nice and his rise to the top and also the real Nice's life was definetly not easy, when the song mentions the merchandise this reflects to the heroes status as mere faces used by the companies Lin Ling wanted to be a hero not because of the fame, the money or to reach a higher status, he believes heroes are people that risks his life to give hope to people and fight evil and that even some random dude like him can become one Nice had a dream of being a hero inspired by his idol Smile, they both had selfless reasons to become heroes.

"It's all serene, the blue and green from outer space, if we all could make it work it could be such a happy place, to broke all piece so pain can cease"

This line may hint at one of the reasons why Nice became a hero, to make the world a better place

"We are much more, than the sum of all our parts, so go and capture all their hearts"

This goes to the realm of headcanons, but I like to believe this line is from Nice to Lin Ling as he ended up becoming the better Nice, so he's inspiring Ling from the otherworld to become the hero he couldn't be while alive.

"CAUSE YOU ARE THE TEACHER, SHINE LIKE A SAPPHIRE TO GUIDE US, WISDOM IS JUST IN YOUR NATURE, FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE YOU TAKE US HIGHER!"

This part of the chorus is sang by the public to Nice, he's the one that will guide humanity into the light, freedom and wisdom just like a teacher to his students

"SAW THE POTENTIAL TO BE GOOD, SO MANY JUST MISUNDERSTOOD"

This part is directly talking again from Nice and Lin Ling's perspective, Nice became a hero to be like Smile and make the world a peaceful place but he ended up twisted and corrupted by Shang De's seek of revenge, Lin Ling believed that a nobody like him could become a hero, he got his wish granted, by stealing another Hero's identity and almost loosing his own persona, this line can also be a reference to the negative effects of the Trust Value on Nice and Lin Ling, Nice developed OCD while Lin Ling was so into the Nice persona he was unable to go and save Moon until he dropped the persona loosing his trust value and powers in the process.

"SO MANY LOST DEEP IN THE WOOD SHALL FIND THEIR WAY"

This may refer to the people that has fallen in darkness and despair in their life but still found a way to get over it and continue to move on, could this be a foreshadow to Nice's conclusion in Season 2? 🤔

"CAN IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO FEAR OR HATE, WAKING UP IS NO REASON FOR FEELING GREAT, CAN'T IMAGINE A WORLD THAT YOU CAN'T CREATE, YOU ARE THE FATE, YOU ARE THE FATE THAT WE DESERVE, PARAGON JUST CUT THROUGH THE NIGHT, GUIDE US WITH YOUR BEACON OF LIGHT"

Once again this is from the public to Nice, this refers to people believing Nice will guide them to a better world, that he will free them from the woods of darkness

This is from a BTS PV that I found on YT

This was the most interesting part of them since it's from May and if I recall the Ruins Incident released in August I think? Or October? I don't remember well right now

I mean

Just look at her?????

Lin Ling bagged a baddie

Or well...

Would HAVE bagged if it weren't for a certain dude

Lucky Cyan Arc:

The most prominent one in the whole trailer, changes are mostly less saturated colors and color pallete (such as Cyan having a more greenish hair in the trailer and Luo's shirt looking more brown than gray).

Loli Arc:

The scenes looks exactly the same unlike Cyan's arc, except for this specific frame where it looks like they colored Luo Li's headband as grey/white and later turned red in the donghua

Queen Arc:

Queen looks more detailed and colorful in the donghua with also warmer colors contrasting the BG, the hair shadows looks darler, the BG looks totally different too showing one of the cargo boxes in the BG

Ghostblade Arc:

The trailer looks more colorful but also more simplistic compositing wise, the scene of Ghostblade drawing the knife at Shindig looks totally different to the point I don't even need to explain what differences are there

The Johnnies Arc:

The whole shot looks more detailed and colorful in the trailer, the car looks totally different too, the lighting specially looks better and vibrant in the trailer there's also little bounce lights similar to the ones in LC's arc overall the Donghua version looks mad bland in contrast

Nice Arc:

Overall Nice/Lin Ling looks more shiny and vibrant in the donghua, the second shot also looks more bright

Ahu Arc:

Do I need to say what's different here? It looks like Ahu's arc was originally going to be animated by the Lucky Cyan Arc team I think but ended up with a totally different artists and overall different artstyle but still retaining the cartoon vibe

First many of the official arts that depicts Luo Li with this specific outfit has her looking mad serious (specially in Kontinum where she's the only hero not bothering to look at the camera) which may reflect her post-Ruins Incident state (I also have the little HC that Luo Li might use her armor to hide her true emotions)

In many times where this version of her is shown it seems to be in the present (for example in Kontinum Lin Ling is already The Commoner)

Her hair also looks way longer than before (tho LL's hair may be a little inconsistent) reaching below her back when in the show it just reaches below the neck

And as a final proof that this is LL 2 years later: shehasbreastsnow

They better do my scissoring queen justice with her 3D model

First 2 concept arts that I've never seen before

One is Big Johnny on a rampage in a city in plain daylight, curious I wonder if it's a deleted concept or scene

Second is Lin Ling about to fight God Eye but he seems to still have the cape instead of the final version where already took it off he's also dressing full white clothes

And another thing, in Moon's 3D sheet you can see images of Natasha Romanoff (MCUs Black Widow) and Spiderverse's Gwen Stacy, supposedly Super girl???

I don't know when did the BTS video dropped but there's also character sheets of characters and moments that appeared much later, such as Old Smile, Civil X, Shindig and Fear!Shindig

And some early animations and Storyboards like Loli, NuoNuo and Ghostblade from episode 16 and Storyboards of Nice sneaking on the researchers from episode 20

1.- Luo Li and Da Xiong seemed to be close in terms of age meaning that he died at 16-18 probably.

2.- Since XinYa's death was scrapped Da Xiong is the only underage character to have died onscreen (Luo could have been the first but he survived).

3.- In the dinner scene in Ghostblade's arc he mentions that he doesn't need to cry since he has a good relationship with his parents and they are still alive one has to wonder how bad his parents took the news about his death.

4.- When Luo Li discovered Phobiaclone killing Luo Tong and injuring Nuonuo we can see one of them grabbing (what I think it is cause I could be wrong) his corpse meaning that they were still mauling the poor guy even after he's deader than death.

You know after that Luo Li and Mizi comparison I realized that Nice has a little of Luka in him

Both are Mr perfect guys adored by the public

Luka was made artificially while Nice identity was built in Fear

They both have used unorthodox methods to win which puts their morals in question

Even tho Luka is a manipulative bastard this is in part because of the way he was raised and made out to be, he can be sensitive about certain things (specially about Hyuna)

Nice even tho was slowly going trough the slippery slope still had some spark of heroism until the Smile incident broke him completely

They both got their ass kicked by an enraged pink haired girl

In the current Alien Stage Luka failed to get their opponents killed (Mizi and Till) and also got the love of his life killed in front of him

Nice on the other hand either failed to kill his opponents (Loli and Dragón Boy) failed to keep the people he cared about safe too (Smile)

At the end of the Alien Stage Luka was consumed by the fire but managed to survive with lots of skin tissue reattached to him deforming his face

Nice killed himself but was somehow brought back to life with his face and body looking like a cracked vase

They both have a somehow fallen angel vibe (with Luka even doing a Lucifer pose at one point) and Nice sometimes opposing to his superior and slowly loosing his cool the more we know about his actions

This series for autistic people (like me) feels like excess sugar for a diabetic on his deathbed

I mean, how do you expect me to feel with a series with 10 protagonists each more original and unique than the other, mixing different styles of animation and having action scenes with tremendous quality?

When To Be Hero X ended I was SO obsessed that I re-watched the series like 3 times in 1 year (which I don't even do with my favorite anime AOT)

And it gets worse considering I'm an artist, so the show was an overload of inspiration for me.

The series was so good that I ended up getting hooked on 2 more series from the creator (Link Click and Ringing Fate and the previous TBH entries)

Like I said, the show is to a neurodivergent kid what excess sugar is to a diabetic

No I'm not over with glazing the hell out of this show :)

The Art is credited to either Haoling or a Lan animator on Twitter

I did some research and the person in question has re tweeted many stuff from Haoling and even shared some sketches and sheets for Link Click tho his acc seems abandoned as the last tweet was from 2023

The drawing also dates from 2023 so it's hella old

If someone is curious the name of the artist is ladonghua I think

Name of the character is Vivy I think

I dont know where she comes from

Speaking of contradictory character roles

This partially goes with my belief that Megaman Zero is the Old Man Logan of the franchise

Also because in the same series X is kind of like the father of the fourth guardians, so imagine Zero also having his own "child"

I believe it would have made the dynamic more unique instead of another blonde girl whose in love with his respective Megaman (not to mention the tragic romance was already done with Iris)

And it would also make Zero's sacrifice even more wholesomely tragic since he dies leaving the rest to his daughter (which kinda parallels how Light entrusted the future to X)

The only thing that makes this not have much sense is that Zero's body is that of a kid or a teen but meh many characters in the saga already looks more childlike

The scene when Queen comes to help with Cyan's case and she comforts her patting her head had originally a shot of Ken visibly so confused/embarrassed that she let her tablet fall

Why did they deleted it?

Probably because of time and because mixed with Queen's previous declaration that it was Cyan's music what got her out of depression would probably look like as if Ken was thinking Queen was gay for Cyan.

First things first, both studios are (as far as I know) Korean and I've read somewhere that one of ALNST animators actually worked on the animation of Lull (Bridon Arc's Ending Theme)

Second, both studios seems to have a thing of using soft edged shadows instead of more hard edged shadows like most anime's do, they also use bounce lights a lot

OFC both have to adapt to their respective character designs and artstyle (Vivimeng's for ALNST, INPLICK for Link Click, oh wow another coincidence the three are Korean women)

But I don't know it's just a silly observation I noticed

If anyone's curious for Wang Nuonuo the trope is not included to her (for some reason despite being less implicit than Luo Li) but she was included in the "Pseudo Romantic Friendship" and "Ship Tease" Tropes.

However I think this was bound to happen soon or later since one of S2's theories or predictions has that she and Nuonuo will become a couple

Speaking of dub, Luo Li's voice was definetly NOT what I had in mind, not saying I disliked it but I wasn't expecting her to have a more high pitched voice than the other dubs

The wiki also states thay he might be a Chhubikyou or whatever the hell is called the type of Japanese person that believes he's the MC of an Anime and thinks he's hot shit but ends up being cringe

Song: Ruler of my Heart from Alien Stage