To Be Hero X Ep 15 Review: Ghostblade? More like Creepblade

Ever since the beginning, we’ve been shown that the Top 10 Heroes in the world of To Be Hero X all have different “styles”. Nice/Lin Ling is the extrovert celebrity, Cyan is the cheerful poster girl, Queen is the strict and ambitious type, and so on… And ever since, Ghostblade have been portrayed as a super cool and merciless killer, who kinda has an aura of anti-hero on him. But in this episode, we discover that Ghostblade is anything but.

The backstory of Ghostblade is actually pretty okay. Although I feel like I’ve seen this trope somewhere before: someone who is extremely sensitive and bothered by noises around him just wanted to shut everything up…by killing them. Ghostblade’s childhood wasn’t tragic by any means, just that he was born with an extremely sensitivity to sound. It adds a layer of ominous feeling to his background, which does explain why he becomes such a cold-blooded murderer. Later on, he became a corporate assassin – killing bad guys, good guys, and people who know too much. From his monologue, we can see that he didn’t really know why he kill, just that he will finish the job assigned from the top. Kinda…not heroic imo. But to be fair, many of the “heroes” aren’t heroic either (looking at you Yang Cheng).

His love story is also quite funny as well. Of course we have the same vs same couple here because only someone on the same wavelength as him can tolerate his demeanor. His love story play out in silence…and honestly, I think that was cute. He was born with a certain quirk and it is not easy for him to fit in – impossible even. But there is someone out there who can “click” with him, and that’s Zhang Lan. They both instantly recognize the other as an oddity and instantly got hooked. The montage where the couple’s relationship develop is both heartwarming and hilarious. The two is probably one of the strangest couples out there. But still, I was kinda happy for him. He’s an odd fellow but I’m happy he found love.

But things change when they got a child. Zhang Lan realized that they have brought a child into this world, and she want this child to grow up “normal”, unlike them. But unfortunately, only Zhang Lan could change, Ghostblade was locked into his “persona” as a silent handsome and cool assassin. So it’s not that he doesn’t want to speak, but he couldn’t. Even as he try, he couldn’t speak. That’s why Zhang Lan left him with Wang Nuonuo and raised her alone by herself. He didn’t get visitation rights as we were shown, and was limited to sending her presents on her birthday and stuff. But eventually, Nuonuo has grown up and doesn’t want his presents anymore – mostly cause he keeps buying the same stuffed animals – just bigger every year.

Eventually, he was completely cut off from his daughter. So he thought of the next best thing to learn about his dear little girl: to stalk her. Yeah I don’t know how he arrived at the method but that was kinda insane. Maybe being a “cool” assassin kinda eat up his reasonable neurons. But over the next few months, he stalked her and learn everything about her – from her taste in music, her favorite foods, where she visited etc… And it all culminated into the run-in with Luo Li in her armor the other night. And afterwards the DJ Shindig incident.

Now what do I think of Ghostblade? I think he’s an incredibly awkward dude that is another victim of the “hero” society. However, it’s not like he didn’t want to become a hero or an assassin. He just didn’t expect life to turn out that way when he encountered Zhang Lan. But that also mean he’s stupid. And his common sense might be a lil skewed. After everything in this episode, I half feel bad for him and half despise him for his behaviour. If he truly loved Zhang Lan and Wang Nuo Nuo over his hero work, he would have done what Ling Lin did and just disavow all of the silent cool guy stuff. Even so, I think his remaining 2 episodes will definitely give him a chance to redeem himself.

=Aaron=
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