HEROMAN - Episode 12

Although Joey's date with Lina was deferred thanks to the arrival of the former's sister Holly on the scene last episode, we knew it was coming and here it is - The inevitable date episode, now with added beach scenes!

To be honest, if you've ever seen any anime series which has people going on their first date before, then you should know the drill by now - The couple gets stalked by a bunch of their friends and hijinks ensue, at least the female of the couple will get top wear a different outfit (yes, that's right, Lina doesn't wear her cheerleader outfit on her date, nor does she wear it in the sea), and yet the pair of them both end up enjoying their date anyhow and everything ends happily despite any disruptions which might occur.


In this particular case, that disruption comes via not only Joey and Lina's quartet of stalkers, but also a news report that Dr. Minami's robot has gone out of control and is about to go rampaging through the city. Needless to say, this causes Joey to temporarily postpone his plans with Lina so they he can deal with the threat, using Heroman to easily defeat this particular opponent despite his misgivings that the whole thing is yet another trap. Of course, these misgivings are entirely correct, bringing about a situation that hasn't just revealed more to the NIA about Heroman, but has also unmasked Joey has Heroman's "owner" - A revelation that is about to prove more than a little problematic for our protagonist.

Given those important moments in the latter half of the episode, I suppose I'm not really allowed to call this instalment of HEROMAN filler any more, but it was certainly headed that way until Doctor Minami (who seems to be incredible stupid for a supposed scientific genius) and his NIA-sponsored plan turn up. Still, I guess it was nice to see Lina in a swimsuit, but that was about as exciting as things got in another episode that did everything is set out to do without ever really being particularly spectacular - Even seeing Heroman in action just isn't as exciting when he isn't being set loose against evil aliens. In short then... bring back the Skrugg! No matter how well animated and polished, Heroman and Joey taking on a bunch of humans just isn't anything like as much fun.