Episode Title: Fear is Often Greater Than the Danger
Original Airdate: 4-24-11
After spending so much time with Barnaby and Kotetsu, the show takes a break to focus on one of the other heroes working for Hero TV, namely Blue Rose. Her real name is Karina and she is one of the youngest heroes on the show. The episode kicks off by having her off her game when she gets shot at in the middle of her catchphrase and rescued by Barnaby, but most of the rest of the episode follows her around in her life outside of the heroism as she tries to have a normal life at school and her fledgling singing career. In fact, she’s more interested in singing than she is in being a hero, and through some of the advice she gets from Barnaby and Kotetsu, we finally get a moment where it seems that they do have something in common after all.
What this episode really does well is take a look at the question of what it means to be a hero. Karina reveals that she initially only wanted to be a hero because her sponsor company told her that they would help her get a singing career if she agreed to become a hero. But she’s still only getting small gigs singing and playing the piano at small time bars where the patrons barely pay attention to her at all. Meanwhile, Kotetsu gives her the advice that the true goal of being a hero is to help people no matter what. But since it’s Kotetsu and all the heroes, including Blue Rose still think he’s pretty much a joke she completely ignores him.
Blue Rose is probably the youngest of all of the heroes and this episode really gets the chance to explore how she is missing out on a normal life when she spends much of her time fighting crime dressed in a skimpy costume that her parents don’t entirely approve of. She constantly has to make the decision between her friends and saving lives. And not only that, but she has to keep her identity a secret from those friends as well, and merely makes lame excuses which they have gotten used to. She even makes the decision to quit being a hero, though conveniently a televised disaster happens to strike while she’s singing at the bar. It’s interesting that it’s not the fact that her friends are in danger that propels her to action, but when a drunken fool starts disparaging those same friends that makes her realize that they really are her friends and pops in to save the day at the last moment. These episodes are really what makes me enjoy this show more than most others as it gets the chance to show the superhero stories that don’t often get to be told.
Channel: Superhero 