Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hero Mask: Part II’ on Netflix, in Which the Conspiracy Deepens and the Streaming Anime Library Swells

Anime aficionados have great reason to be happy with Netflix, which has churned out multiple series in the past several weeks. The ambitious Hero Mask debuted with 15 episodes in late 2018, and returns with nine more, which will bring its supernatural-noir story to a close — although series creators are already talking about making a sequel, or a new series altogether, for Netflix.

HERO MASK: PART II: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Crumpled papers rustle in the wind, at the feet of a person in a wheelchair. He mutters to himself unintelligibly.

The Gist: Detective James Blood (voice of Greg Chun) and officer Lennox Gallagher (Brad Venable), members of the Special Service of Crime police division, lean on a bridge railing, ruminating over their coffee. Their investigation into the LIVE Corp. — which unfolded over the course of season one — failed to unspool a conspiracy involving a prosecutor who suddenly dropped dead, prisoners who are supposed to be dead but aren’t and masks that give their wearers super powers. And now the SSC has a new chief, who’s likely to keep simmering hotheads like James Blood — whose name, you’ll note, is definitely not James Lukewarm Tea — on short leashes.

Now, Blood has a babysitter, a total wet blanket with a stern-ass face, Alan Wyatt, who tags along as the detective follows a new lead. A bunch of scientists linked to LIVE have vanished, except for one guy, William Herst, whose 14-year-old daughter was the only survivor of a bus crash that killed every other passenger. Hmm. Before Blood and Wyatt knock on their door, Herst draws lowercase-b blood from her arm, adding to his growing collection of vials full of her lowercase-b blood. Double hmm. When the detectives arrive, Herst isn’t at all friendly to them. TRIPLE hmm!

Meanwhile, Anna Winehouse (Rachel Robinson), a woman with stark-white hair styled to exquisitely match her Villainess Couture fashion sense, drops in on Geffrey Connor (Cam Clarke), a vital LIVE cog who may not live much longer. Sequestered in a mansion, he’s aging rapidly. He shows Anna a newspaper clipping about Herst’s miracle daughter, and they stop just shy of stroking their beards and laughing maniacally as they plot to (probably) murder the crap out of their former employee and his (probably) superhuman daughter.

Our Take: Hero Mask is known for its dense action sequences, but the first episode of Part II has precisely zero incidences of guns, fisticuffs, car chases or any of that fun stuff. It’s lots of poker-faced confab and reframing of Det. Blood’s quest to get to the bottom of all this, which he’ll do if he has to use his fierce, debilitating stare to mow down every man, woman, child, dog, horse, hamster and hedgehog in his way.

Frankly, this isn’t all that gripping of an episode — it’s a the-plot-thicks middle chapter introducing some new characters and wrinkles to a larger story arc. It establishes potential for the principal good guys to butt heads with authority figures, and for the bad guys to show their willingness to disappear innocent teenage girls.

Generally speaking, Hero Mask boasts finely detailed animation and dynamic visual sense, which might keep us watching in spite of its noir cliches — the cop who doesn’t play by the rules, the chief who wants to reign him in, the deepening conspiracy that likely stretches from the Earth’s core to the Moon and involves every Caucasian CEO and politician between them, etc. It’s not bad, but neither is it original, and it’s driven more by plot than character.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Herst’s daughter pulls a crumpled business card from the trash can. “Detective James Blood,” she reads out loud.

Sleeper Star: Anna has the air of a Bond villain who sits around stroking hairless cats.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m solving this case. Just don’t get in my way,” Blood says to Wyatt. Territorial much?

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’ve made it this far into Hero Mask, you’re likely sticking around to see how everything shakes out. It’s not the most exciting or dramatically compelling episode, but you’re not likely to tune out and go check out the latest episodes of Boss Baby.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Hero Mask: Part II on Netflix