Sentenced to Be a Hero: Episode Recap, Characters, Relationships & Review
- Kimi
- 12 minutes ago
- 13 min read
I. Series Overview — Sentenced to Be a Hero: The Prison Records of Penal Hero Unit 9004
Sentenced to Be a Hero: The Prison Records of Penal Hero Unit 9004 (official English: SENTENCED TO BE A HERO) is an anime adaptation of Rocket Shokai’s light novel of the same name. It’s a dark fantasy war story built around one brutal core idea: “being sentenced to become a hero” is the cruelest punishment. Serious criminals are forced onto the front lines to fight the Demon King’s army; even if they die in battle, they are resurrected—meaning they aren’t even allowed the escape of death.
II. Sentenced to Be a Hero Anime Plot — Episode 1
Episode 1 (a 60-minute extended premiere) is titled “Sentence: Support Retreat From Couveunge Forest / Support Retreat From Couveunge Forest.” The story throws you straight onto the battlefield. Penal Hero Unit 9004’s Xylo (ザイロ / Xylo) is fighting in the Couveunge Forest when he runs into a teammate, Dotta (ドッタ / Dotta), sprinting for his life from monsters while dragging a “giant coffin.” Xylo yanks him out of danger, and his first reaction isn’t concern—it’s the usual furious accusation: “You stole something again.”
Very quickly, Episode 1 clarifies the mission. They’ve been dispatched to support the retreat of a collapsing Holy Knight Order (the main force). The catch is that “hero” in this world isn’t honor—it’s a punitive sentence. Convicted criminals are branded “heroes” and thrown against the Demon King’s forces. They can be killed, but they can’t stay dead: the system forcibly resurrects them, so even “choosing death to end it” is not an option.
Worse still, resurrection is not free. Through dialogue and context, the episode implies that each time someone is dragged back, part of their “self” is shaved away. The more they resurrect, the more likely they become an empty shell—no past, no identity, only battle instinct. This is why Xylo dreads “dying again” so intensely. It’s not pain he fears—it’s the possibility that one day, he won’t be himself anymore.
That coffin becomes the episode’s fuse. Dotta “swiped” it from the Holy Knights, and what sleeps inside isn’t a corpse—it’s a living bio-weapon intended for use against the Demon King: a “Goddess.” Specifically, the “Sword Goddess,” Teoritta (テオリッタ / Teoritta). In other words, Dotta’s greed has just hauled the battlefield’s highest-level secret straight into Xylo’s hands.
When Teoritta awakens, she immediately calls Xylo “my knight,” clings to him, and repeatedly urges him to form a “pact/contract” so she can release her combat power. Her personality feels half-weapon, half-child: she demands—completely unashamedly—that after they annihilate the enemy, he should praise her and pat her head. But Xylo refuses at first. He has a strong, visceral distrust of “Goddesses” as weapons.
The battlefield situation then spirals. The Holy Knight Order’s retreat turns stubborn and disorderly; prioritizing the Goddess’s transport makes it even harder to stabilize the front line. The whole force is pushed to the brink of annihilation. When the situation becomes “borrow power now or everyone dies,” Xylo is forced into the choice he least wants to make: he forms a contract with Teoritta. With overwhelming firepower, she carves a path through the enemy and brute-forces the outcome back from disaster.
But victory doesn’t mean acceptance. After the battle, the world’s cruelty lands another punch: even though Xylo saved them, the Holy Knights still despise “heroes = criminals.” They vent their anger over the stolen coffin and the stolen contract onto him. Teoritta, however, becomes even more convinced that Xylo is a “worthy knight,” and chooses to remain by his side.
The final hook of Episode 1 reveals why Xylo ended up under a hero sentence. He was once a commander within the Holy Knights, but he was accused of the crime of “killing a Goddess” and judged guilty. Xylo insists he was framed—that orders and truth were covered up by those above him. So even as he fights on the front lines, he clings to revenge (and the hunt for whoever ruined him) as the one reason to keep going.
III. Sentenced to Be a Hero Character Introductions
In one sentence: in this story, “Penal Hero Unit 9004” exists because the “hero sentence” is not glory but a punishment worse than death—those sentenced are thrown onto the front lines against the Demon King, resurrected if killed, and forced to keep dying. Unit 9004 is made of these “absurdly capable, catastrophically broken” criminal heroes.
Penal Hero Unit 9004 (main squad)
Xylo Forbartz / ザイロ・フォルバーツ (CV: Yohei Azakami)Identity & crimes: Former Holy Knight commander who becomes a penal hero after being convicted of severe crimes such as “violence against the gods resulting in death.”Core personality: Brutal-looking and violently direct, but at heart he’s the type who cannot stand leaving people behind—so he constantly tears himself between cold rationality and stubborn decency.Combat role: One of the few in 9004 who has both frontline fighting power and real leadership. Additional notes describe him using holy sigils carved across his body for abnormal mobility and explosive throwing attacks (for example, making a thrown knife detonate), giving his style a “high-speed close-range burst + rushdown” feel.Tie to the main plot: His sentencing is directly bound to the unprecedented crime of “Goddess-killing.” And by later forming a pact with another Goddess, the story pivots from “forced to die” into “biting back at the system and fate.”
Teoritta / テオリッタ (CV: Mayu Iizuka)Identity: The “Sword Goddess” who contracts with Xylo, able to summon countless holy swords and cursed swords—her authority is weaponry itself.Core personality: Extremely proud and addicted to praise, yet capable of a very “Goddess-like” self-sacrifice when it matters. Her love of head pats is especially memorable.Combat role: She fights like a living armory—overwhelming enemies with volume, or summoning high-grade weapons for decisive strikes. Settings also suggest non-human traits (for instance, sparks flickering from the tips of her hair).Tie to the main plot: Her “arrival” is the trigger that blows open the first arc: the stolen coffin, her awakening, her meeting with Xylo, and the pact.
Dotta Luzulas / ドッタ・ルズラス (CV: Shun Horie)Identity & crimes: A rare career thief responsible for thousands of thefts, sentenced for “larceny,” assigned to 9004.Core personality: Timid and constantly on edge, but pathologically unable to stop stealing—he’ll steal the Goddess’s coffin and also totally pointless junk, and somehow he succeeds.Combat role: Strong night vision and sharp sensitivity to presence, so he’s often the scout, observer, runner, and pathfinder—the jobs that, if nobody does them, the whole squad dies. He also contributes far more than expected in supply and odd-task logistics.Tie to the main plot: His “sticky fingers” steal the coffin, directly creating the fate-turning encounter between Xylo and Teoritta.
Venetim Leopool / ベネティム・レオプール (CV: Shunichi Toki)Identity & crimes: The nominal commander of Unit 9004. His crimes include fraud, embezzlement, abuse of holy authority, preparing insurrection, etc.—a “legendary con man” who once tried to sell the royal palace to a circus.Core personality: Silver-tongued and looks like he can handle anything, but is often panicking inside—and he’s uniquely talented at making “bad news” sound even worse.Combat role: Not a damage dealer; more a “chaos manager”—using talk, scams, and improvisation to shove situations toward survival (even if it’s sometimes just the illusion of control).Tie to the main plot: He injects absurdity into the darkness. Among hardened criminals sits a “leader” who survives via performance—making the unit’s anti-hero vibe even sharper.
Norgalle Senridge / ノルガユ・センリッジ (CV: Yoji Ueda)Identity & crimes: Charged with arson, murder, property destruction, insulting the royal family; he believes he is the true king of the United Kingdom and carried out large-scale terror attacks against the monarchy—nicknamed “His Majesty.”Core personality: Arrogant, yet his “people-first” conviction doesn’t feel fake. His madness and his ideals coexist.Combat role: Exceptionally gifted in “holy sigil tuning” (engraving/adjusting sigils), making him a key engineer/tech-support pillar—the one who turns magical engineering into a practical toolchain for the unit.
Tatsuya / タツヤ (CV: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka)Identity & crimes: “No record.” One of the longest-serving members of the penal hero forces; due to too many resurrections, he has lost selfhood and most thinking ability, barely speaks—his identity is a mystery.Core personality: Not “silent because he’s cool,” but “ground down by the system until only battle instinct remains.”Combat role: A monstrous melee fighter who swings a huge battle axe as easily as a kitchen knife—Unit 9004’s close-combat ceiling and walking intimidation aura.
Tsav / ツァーヴ (CV: Jun Fukushima)Identity & crimes: Murder, corpse mutilation/abandonment; a former elite assassin from a killer cult.Core personality: Loud, flippant, a gambler—like someone welded “professional assassin” to “party animal brain.”Combat role: Abnormally strong sniping. Twisted background: as an assassin, he sometimes couldn’t bring himself to kill the target and instead killed unrelated people to “complete the job,” giving him a dual nature of high skill and total moral collapse.
Jayce Partiract / ジェイス・パーチラクト (CV: Shoya Chiba)Identity & crimes: Drug trafficking and rebellion; a dragon rider who serves as Unit 9004’s aerial combat power.Core personality: Cold to humans, almost obsessed with dragons; his love for them is intense and genuine.Combat role: High-speed aerial maneuvering plus lance charges. He can communicate with dragons and has a bizarre trait of being “unusually loved by dragons,” effectively upgrading a mount into a co-fighting partner weapons system.
Neely / ニーリィ (CV: Yoko Hikasa)Identity: A female dragon who fights alongside Jayce, with vivid blue scales and powerful flame breath.Personality highlights: She gets jealous when Jayce is adored by other dragons and throws tantrums. In Jayce’s eyes, her charm is her “shadowy gaze + dominant personality.”
Rhyno Molchet / ライノー (CV: Yuichi Nakamura)Identity & crimes: “None.” A weirdo who volunteered to become a penal hero; specializes in artillery.Core personality: Polite like a priest and speaks in beautiful phrases, but always wears an unsettling smile—you’ll constantly wonder what he’s really plotting.Combat role: His strange armor is covered in holy sigils; his huge right arm can even function as a cannon barrel—meaning he is, in a sense, a “humanoid artillery piece.”
Key characters strongly entangled with Unit 9004
Patausche Kivia / パトーシェ・キヴィア (CV: Shizuka Ishigami)Identity: Commander of the Thirteenth Holy Knight Order, originally the one “meant” to contract with Teoritta.Core personality: Extremely earnest and righteous, but rigid. She has near-religious loyalty to “mission” and “Goddesses,” even believing her own life—or a hero’s life—can be discarded if it serves the Goddess.Tie to the main plot: She initially stands firmly on the side of “kingdom order / heroes are criminals,” especially wary of Xylo as a “Goddess-killer,” but battlefield cooperation forces her worldview to update.
Frenci Mastibolt / フレンシィ・マスティボルト (CV: Saori Onishi)Identity: A noble daughter of the southern Night Ogre clan, House Mastibolt; also Xylo’s former fiancée.Core personality: Emotionally flat and sharp-tongued; her blunt comments often stab right into the truth.Tie to the main plot: By standard logic, the engagement should be void once Xylo becomes a penal hero—but she refuses to accept the engagement as broken. That “emotional refusal to retreat” makes her a thorn in Xylo’s life, and a strong branch line for themes of humanity, bonds, and what remains after the system strips everything away.
IV. Sentenced to Be a Hero Character Relationships
One rule that shapes every relationship: a Goddess contract in this world is strictly “one-to-one.” And to dissolve a contract, there are typically only two routes: both Goddess and contractor formally declare it broken, or the Goddess dies. This rule makes “who is bound to which Goddess” an extremely sharp source of conflict—strategic, emotional, and political.
Core mainline relationships (the story’s central triangle)
Xylo Forbartz (ザイロ / Xylo) ↔ Teoritta (テオリッタ / Teoritta)He is Penal Hero Unit 9004’s key fighter and a former Holy Knight commander sentenced for the crime of “Goddess-killing.” She is the Sword Goddess who contracts with him, able to summon endless holy/cursed blades, and calls him “my knight.” Their bond—contractor and Goddess—is the core partnership driving the war, conspiracies, and human struggle.
Patausche Kivia (パトーシェ / Patausche) ↔ Teoritta ↔ XyloPatausche, commander of the Thirteenth Holy Knights, was “supposed” to contract with Teoritta. But Dotta stole Teoritta’s coffin during transport, and Xylo became the one to contract with her instead. This naturally gives Patausche hostility and suspicion toward Unit 9004—especially toward Xylo, the alleged Goddess-killer—yet later battle conditions force cooperation, creating a long-term dynamic of “values clash + compelled teamwork.”
Inside Unit 9004 (same unit, not same heart: everyone is a time bomb)
A) Command chain: Venetim (formal) / Xylo (actual frontline)Venetim is the “commander” on paper, but not a true tactical leader. Real combat decisions often fall on Xylo. Venetim handles “making bad news worse,” external negotiation, and keeping the unit’s formal structure intact; Xylo handles the job of “bringing people back alive.”
B) The main-plot trigger: Dotta → makes Teoritta and Xylo’s encounter happenDotta is the rare thief who will even steal a “Goddess coffin.” The entire destiny gear-train turns because his theft causes Teoritta to awaken and contract with Xylo, while igniting Patausche’s storyline. He isn’t the protagonist, but he’s the “butterfingers trigger” that fires the narrative gun.
C) “Big bro” attachment: Tsav → XyloTsav, the chatty assassin-sniper, shows obvious emotional dependency on Xylo and calls him “aniki / big bro.” It reflects both respect for Xylo’s strength and leadership, and how desperately this unit needs a center to lean on.
D) Caretaker link: Venetim ↔ TatsuyaTatsuya has been ground down by repeated resurrection into near-silence. Someone has to manage his daily functioning and movements; materials note Venetim serves as Tatsuya’s caretaker in the unit. This makes Venetim more than comic relief—he’s also a crucial thread holding operations together.
E) Technical anchor: Norgalle ↔ the whole unitDespite calling himself the true king and having a terrorist past, Norgalle’s genius in “holy sigil tuning” makes him the unit’s engineer backbone. Repairs, modifications, and turning sigils into practical systems often run through him.
F) Aerial combat duo: Jayce ↔ Neely ↔ Unit 9004Jayce, the dragon rider, and Neely are a fixed pair—the core of aerial firepower and mobility. Their bond isn’t “rider and mount,” but “partners” who get jealous, sulk, and influence morale. Notes also mention Jayce respects Dotta—a hilarious contrast that adds to Unit 9004’s charm: an aerial ace admiring a thief-scout.
G) The volunteer outlier: Rhyno ↔ Unit 9004Rhyno is one of the few who volunteered for the hero sentence. His artillery role is clear, but his manner is suspicious. The unit’s relationship with him is less “trust” and more “he’s strong, but what does he want?”
Xylo’s private line (the kind that bites back into the main plot)
Frenci Mastibolt ↔ XyloFrenci is Xylo’s former fiancée from the southern Night Ogre lineage. By the system’s rules, the engagement should be void once Xylo becomes a penal hero—but she refuses to recognize it as broken. This isn’t simple romance; it pulls in family, identity, and the question of what relationships remain after the system strips you down.
The shadow of a previous Goddess contract: Senerva (セネルヴァ) ↔ Xylo → shapes his attitude toward TeorittaMaterials state Xylo once contracted with a Goddess named Senerva, and under incomprehensible orders and tragedy, he was forced to kill her—earning the unprecedented crime label “Goddess-killer” and receiving the hero sentence. This past directly explains his early distrust of Goddesses and casts a shadow over his pact with Teoritta from day one.
V. Sentenced to Be a Hero Original Work Performance and Adaptation Highlights
Why did it get an anime? The original was first serialized on Kakuyomu, then published by KADOKAWA (Dengeki no Shin Bungei). The official write-ups emphasize that it stacked major awards and rankings (for example, Kakuyomu Awards, Next-Coming Light Novel Awards, and This Light Novel Is Amazing!), essentially the kind of “critical buzz + sustained hype” that pushes a project into animation.
There is also a manga adaptation serialized on platforms such as ComicWalker; if you want a faster way to absorb the setting and pacing, the manga can be a very accessible entry point.
VI. Sentenced to Be a Hero Review and Recommendation
I’d split my take on Sentenced to Be a Hero / Penal Hero Unit 9004 into a few angles, because it’s the kind of work where “this is awesome” and “this is uncomfortable” can both be true at the same time. You may love its setting and battlefield tension, and also feel suffocated by how cold and cruel it is.
The first big strength is how it flips the word “hero” into the language of punishment. Most fantasy stories romanticize resurrection as a cheat. This series weaponizes it as a curse: you cannot die, you cannot escape, you will be dragged back and forced to keep fighting. Once that idea is locked in, every battle stops being “hot-blooded” and becomes “survival while paying a higher and higher price.” The worldbuilding isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a rules system that bites the characters and refuses to let go—and that is powerful.
The second strength is the anti-hero design of Unit 9004. Almost everyone is a criminal: warped values, broken personalities, foul mouths, and yet they must cooperate under the worst conditions imaginable. That creates a special kind of tension. You don’t watch expecting warm “team unity”; you watch to see how they complete the mission while distrusting each other. And they aren’t fighting to save the world. They fight to avoid being crushed by the system, and to avoid being worn down into empty shells by the resurrection loop. That motivation feels closer to real-world survival strategy, which makes it sharper and more painful.
The third strength is that “Goddesses” and “contracts” aren’t romantic here. A Goddess functions more like a weapons platform or military asset, and a contract feels like a chain. Especially with the protagonist and the Sword Goddess, the surface-level interactions can be cute and childish, but underneath, the story keeps interrogating power: who commands whom, who holds life-and-death authority, who is the “tool.” When a work is willing to lay that discomfort on the table instead of beautifying it, it becomes more than dark fantasy—it becomes a story about how institutions deform people, and how someone can still claw back a fragment of choice after being deformed.
In terms of combat and pacing, it leans toward “military operation” rather than “adventure dungeon-crawling.” It loves mission language—retreat, support, frontline positions, objectives—so it reads like a set of penal records or battlefield files. That makes it hard, cold, and information-dense. If you like “clear rules, action-driven progression,” it’s satisfying. If you’re expecting lighter daily-life episodes, or plot driven mainly by romance and friendship beats, you may find the characters too jagged and the world too stingy with comfort.
The barriers are also obvious. First, the moral gray is heavy; “likable characters” are not the default, and if you’re used to protagonists who are easy to morally align with, this may block you. Second, its cruelty isn’t about gore—it’s about having no exit: the cost of resurrection, the systematized humiliation of punishment, and the constant pressure of being forced to swallow indignities create a sustained sense of suffocation. Third, the very concept of a Goddess that is both a person and a weapon may unsettle some viewers, because the story refuses to sanitize that contradiction.
Overall, I’d rate it as a dark fantasy with a very hard premise, dense worldbuilding, and sharp themes. Its most compelling question isn’t “how to defeat the Demon King,” but “how someone sentenced to be a hero can reclaim agency—without being ground into a hollow shell first.” If you enjoy the institutional oppression of Attack on Titan, the mission-forward feel of military fantasy like GATE, or the tension of an anti-hero squad forced into coexistence, this series is very likely to hit your taste.
