The My Home Hero anime had its premiere with two episodes out, and in a sea of isekai and romance titles this season, this crime thriller title definitely stands out. When the anime was first announced in June 2022, I had high hopes for this, considering its dark theme. And despite a faulty first episode premiere, the story keeps getting darker and darker which in turn reels in more interest.
The anime follows the ordinary life of a 47-year old man named Tetsuo Tosu. After figuring out that his daughter Reika is being abused physically by her boyfriend Nobuto Matori, he decides to get involved. However, when he goes to her unit, Nobuto suddenly enters, causing Tetsuo to hide in the cabinet. He then hears a call of what Nobuto and the yakuza plan to do with Reika. He drops his phone, almost getting found out. Managing to outsmart Nobuto, he emerges from the cabinet and kills Nobuto by hitting him multiple times with a rice cooker.
In a bid to commit the “perfect murder”, he resolves to hide the corpse and dispose it without anyone knowing to protect Reika. Surprisingly, when his wife Kasen Tosu discovers the crime, she appears nonchalant and is willing to cooperate with Tetsuo’s plans to cover it up. It’s likely Reika’s wealthy grandparents whose money Nobuto was aiming for are from her side, so it will be interesting to see if they get involved and if they also have some shady side to them.
As if the premise alone wasn’t dark enough, it terrified me how both Tetsuo and his wife were so chilled with the idea of disposing a body without a trace. From buying a suitcase to fit the corpse, on preparing a solution on how to shrink the body, to even using flesh-eating bacteria to eat out the corpse’s flesh: you would think this wasn’t the first time the couple did this. However, it’s explained with Tetsuo’s extreme love for mystery novels.
Even with the phrase ‘keeping a safe family’ used as the reason to do such a deed, one could not help but think: “but why go there?” Either way, I think such vagueness still makes My Home Hero interesting to watch, as the family now finds themselves under the scrutiny of a powerful yakuza group, of which Nobuto was part of.
In short, the My Home Hero premiere still managed to bring itself as one of the most interesting titles this season, leaving viewers both in shock and fear. Despite the lackluster animation, the title is supplemented with an interesting storyline not common in anime.
My Home Hero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll outside of Japan, describing it as:
After killing his daughter’s abusive yakuza boyfriend to save her, ordinary salaryman Tetsuo Tosu becomes embroiled in the dark criminal underworld. The wish for a simple life he and his wife Kasen had for their daughter has been reduced to a wish for survival. Though middle-aged and weak, he’ll put his life on the line using only his wits in order to protect his family.
The anime also ranked sixth in the recent Anime Corner polls for the first week of Spring 2023. If you liked the 2nd episode of My Home Hero, don’t forget to vote for it on our weekly polls.
Images via Ani-One Asia
© Naoki Yamakawa, Masashi Asaki/KODANSHA/”My Home Hero” Production Committee