Anyone who’s followed LiA for a while knows that one of my core tenets is “don’t bury the lead”.  I imagine it’s what most people are thinking first about the premiere of My Home Hero, so let’s get it out there.  I know this looked like ass – you certainly don’t have to tell me.  Having tried to force myself through Hoshi no Samidare I can certainly say I’ve seen worse, but there’s no denying this was bad.  Tezuka Productions is not a name synonymous with elite production values but still, this was a bit of a shock.

So with that in the ledger, the only thing that matters is this – is My Home Hero interesting enough as a story to get past the visuals?  For most people I’m guessing probably not.  For me, what with the volume of quality this season, it feels dubious.  That said, I did find the premiere pretty engaging.  I know the manga has a sterling reputation.  It’s a seinen, and thematically pretty different from the overwhelming majority of anime we see every season.  I can’t get past thinking how good this would be with a vintage Madhouse treatment, but that’s obviously not what we got.

At least the production committee didn’t cut corners on the casting.  Suwabe Junichi (almost as big an onii-san it boy at Tsuda Kenjirou atm) is Tosu Tetsuo, a loser dad whose daughter Reika doesn’t seem inclined to give him the time of day.  She’s dating a yakuza who’s beating her up, and walks out on Tetsuo when he tries to question her about it.  When he eventually heads over to her apartment he hears her boyfriend bragging on the phone to his organization that he plans to steal Reika’s inheritance money and then, presumably, do her in (which would be at least his third).

There’s a sort of cascade effect of events here leading up to Tetsuo killing the scumbag boyfriend in Reika’s apartment while she’s out.  Tetsuo is an unlikely murderer but these are unlikely circumstances.  It’s bad enough that he’d have to explain this to the cops – having the boyfriend’s mob after him is even worse.  What’s a bit shocking here is how cool his wife Kasen is about the whole thing, calmly suggesting they hide the body and cover up the crime, which as she points out is what the yakuza would do.  Complicating things even further is that the dead man is the son of a powerful mob boss, and thus his disappearance is going to be the subject of even greater scrutiny.

I won’t lie, the highlight of the episode for me was Ohtsuka Akio’s enforcer Kubo’s conversation with Miki Shinichriou’s boss Matori.  Those two are as good as it gets, absolute legends.  The premise itself is an interesting one, and as poor as the visuals are the scenes in Reika’s apartment are actually pretty tense.  To be honest when I saw the reaction to the art and animation I was expecting something even worse, so maybe low expectations played in my favor here – I found the premiere ugly but not unwatachable.  Given the positives, I’ll certainly give My Home Hero at least one more episode to make its case.