The series premiere of the new dark fantasy anime Sentenced to Be a Hero was praised for being one of the best first episodes in years.
The show is set in a world where being a hero is the ultimate punishment. Criminals are trapped in an endless cycle of death and resurrection as they’re forced to fight against a demonic blight. A full hour of cinema-quality animation and well choreographed fight scenes made Sentenced to Be a Hero feel like the surprise hit of the winter season.
A few weeks later, that energy is gone. The series has slipped out of the main discourse so quietly it’s easy to forget that it’s still airing. The interesting part is how quickly the hype faded and how much of it was due to decisions made before the series even aired.
The first episode was supposed to go viral
The first episode isn’t subtle about what it wants from you. It wants anime fans to tweet about it, make reaction videos gushing about how good it is.
It throws you into a chaotic battlefield where Xylo Forbartz makes a pact with the goddess Teoritta in his quest for vengeance. It builds a world where “being a hero” is a death sentence, a way to convert criminals into state-owned weapons.
Sharp action sequences, smooth animation and expressive character designs were quickly deemed the highlights of the episode. Reviewers called it cinematic but wondered if the production could sustain this kind of quality for a whole season.
Turning the first episode into a mini-movie was a great way to draw people into the series, but also sets a trap. If you give people a film-quality debut, they expect the rest of the season to keep hitting that bar.
Front‑loaded production made everything after look weaker
Studio Kai, a small Japanese animation studio producing Sentenced to a Be a Hero, is ambitious but it doesn’t have an endless budget. The series was pushed from October 2025 to January 2026, and you can see that time and money went into episode 1.
After that, the series reverts to something closer to a standard weekly anime. The animation is still good, but the scale and smoothness of the premiere are gone. Fights aren’t as cinematic.
That’s just resource management. You can’t build and maintain an entire season at the intensity of a launch special. But for fans, it feels like the quality of the show has dropped. Viewers are not comparing episode 2 to some average anime. They’re comparing it to the high standards the first episode set.
Problems with the writing
At first, it seemed like Sentenced to Be a Hero would subvert a lot of the tropes that are common in fantasy anime. Instead, people started to complain about the writing not doing the story justice.
The world’s hatred of heroes is so intense it feels forced most of the time. The show doesn’t really give enough reasons to justify that level of hostility.
Xylo is the terrifyingly capable protagonist who can wipe out threats that overwhelm other units. That can be fun to watch, but it also makes the series look like another “power fantasy” anime. Everyone else exists to highlight how strong Xylo is. Teoritta is entertaining but she doesn’t feel like a fully realized character with her own character arc.
Once the second episode aired, you started seeing a shift. Fans were wondering if the writing could really express the themes it had introduced. Some admitted they were already less eager to watch more of the show. Going from “this is amazing” to “I’m not sure about this” is never a good sign, but once it happens, the wider hype never comes back.
Delaying episode 2 broke the show’s momentum
Timing is another reason why Sentenced to Be a Hero lost its momentum. The series premiered on January 3, 2026 but episode 2 was delayed by a week, airing on January 15.
That would be bad at any time of the year. What’s worse is that the show premiered during a packed season where other series like My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Hell’s Paradise, and Jujutsu Kaisen return to the small screen every week. By the time Sentenced to Be a Hero was on a set schedule, it had to fight to reclaim attention it initially had.
From dark horse to “I’ll binge it someday”
None of this adds up to a catastrophic failure. Sentenced to Be a Hero still has a nice-sized fandom who like its grim tone. If the writing improves over the course of the first season, the show can still preserve its claim of being a runaway hit of the year.
Sentenced to Be a Hero didn’t just “lose hype.” It accidentally became an example of what happens when you pour everything into episode 1. Then you sit back and pray the momentum will do all the hard work.
