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Yeah sure, I'm adaptable, we can talk Yang Cheng 😉 I like how organized his episode titles are: "one actor, two e-souls, three seats." it's numerical, escalating, like the arc itself, like his trust value, like the careful manipulation that went into it. actor always has a double meaning to me because its a political term too. which also clicks with the arc. that scene where he gets his first ever trust value and it literally zooms through his bloodstream was so cool. it was also curious to see how everyone apparently has some level of trust value and how it can impact your employment and other opportunities. bro really walked into the plot like "haha I call the big bad of the series my Uncle." they are not related it seems. what did Rock SEE in this guy who was just being dorky about a crush. the bicycle run over the highway was also very cool. my favorite hero types are always the scrappy ones. insane how much confidence he was running on to be faster than e-soul, a gamble that went in his favor. but it was mad risky for a newbie. this series sure has a way of introducing perfectly normal guys who realize their true potential to be hardcore and unhinged. what do you like about his character?

THANK YOU, ANON!!

I love your take on the titling of the E-soul arc episodes and how it's supposed to show Rock's manipulation.

Also, there is such a tragic irony with the titling of the episodes starting from 1 to 3 meaning an increase and most likely accounting for each person in the trio but that doesn't end up being the case as we see the numbers of the trio decreasing each episode with the only person left on the chairs being xia qing all alone and most likely mourning both yang cheng and shang chao.

We quite literally see the trio vanish, and it makes me so sad 😭.

Moreover, I flipping love the scrappy fight scenes in this show. I love how they show the character's desperation, their ideals, motives, and the fact that the scrappy fights happen because the protagonist wants to protect a person they care for, making the fight even more intriguing to me. You see this happen with lin ling, Yang cheng, and luoli being the most scrappy fights they have.

With season 1 almost ending and with people making the connections of the heart in the opening possibly being smile's it did bring me back to the scene in ep 5 with us being shown the reaction Yang cheng has when he first gets his first trust point and I can't help but also link it to the opening. While the heart in the opening is fully blue covered in what we assume is trust and is held in place by it, Yang cheng's heart is only powered by trust, not dependent on it not at this point in his arc anyway. I absolutely adore the contrasting tones that the two scenes offer with us supposedly rooting for yang cheng as he finally earns a trust point and becomes somebody that he deems worthy while the opening depicts an eerie and almost darker tone to a heart that's being trapped by trust and outside sources.

You can even analyse and link these scenes further to what happens to yang cheng later in his storyline as we see him slowly become obsessed and enveloped by trust or justice depending on how you choose to look at it but you can see why this is the case as yang cheng was treated horribly due to his nonexistent trust value and how he was sent spiraling after receiving so much trust just to then fail, lose some and gain even more to an insane point.

It seems that a lot of people seem to get confused but Rock and Yang cheng aren't related and Rock never took Yang cheng in as a child from what it seems since Yang cheng has his own apartment and only works at Rock's boba shop. That being said, Rock is the only adult present in Yang cheng's life, which makes the manipulation even more sinister and tragic.

I do find it funny that Yang cheng and Queen just casually call their boss, who is also a really evil man, "uncle." These two don't even fully know the crimes that their boss has committed but just call him uncle 😭😭, oh queen and Yang cheng only if you knew.

As to why rock chose yang cheng, I don't actually know😭. Many have theorised that it was due to yang cheng being effectively a "nobody," meaning that he was easy to mould as someone with zero trust value. Furthermore, a part of me thinks that he picked yang cheng almost as a second option if he wasn't able to find a better candidate and due to yang cheng being a blank slate someone with nothing and no one makes him both easy to manipulate and makes it so that no one would notice or miss yang cheng when Rock does whatever he wants with him.

I have mentioned it before somewhere, but Rock was targeting Yang cheng that night, not shang chao. When rock gives the gun and orders to the thug he tells him to go and kill the fake E-spuo referring to yang cheng except when it came to it the thug got confused and was very much desperate to save his brother so he shot shang chao.

Essentially, shang chao indirectly saved Yang cheng and took the shot for him instead and if Yang cheng finds out about this in season 2 all I know is that all hell would break loose between yang cheng and Rock and I am all here for that.

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Yang Cheng’s Hands: Left vs Right

Before Yang Cheng became a hero, the hand gear focus was always on his left hand:

(I have more images but I’m reaching the limit and had to remove the rest 🫠)

Yang Cheng’s left hand is highlighted during key moments with Xia Qing:

It was once believed that the left hand has a special vein that connects directly to the heart. Seeing as Yang Cheng had a crush on Xia Qing, the deliberate emphasis on his left hand during moments with her would make sense.

However, when Yang Cheng gained his first Trust Value, in spite of frames showing literal blood cells and a beating heart—

that Trust did not connect to his left hand. Instead, it led to his right:

Notably, before this scene, his right hand gear had been damaged:

It technically could no longer generate electricity, but with the power of Xiao Youzi’s trust in him it started working again.

And since then, his right hand gear started getting more focus.

Then in Episode 6, we have Yang Cheng getting electrocuted as he receives with his left hand the can handed over by Shang Chao:

The focus here is on the X can, so perhaps X has something to do with this. But I’m not gonna speculate too much on that angle because we don’t know anything about X yet. Let’s just say that that spark happened because YC’s undamaged left gear came into contact with metal (a conductor).

The Trust that didn’t flow into Yang Cheng’s left hand suddenly flowed in all at once with the help of a conductor. And Shang Chao was holding that can.

On a symbolic level, Shang Chao is Yang Cheng’s conductor, allowing more Trust to flow into YC by helping him on his hero journey.

Once, Shang Chao helped him fix his damaged right hand gear:

The emphasis on this moment allows us to associate Yang Cheng’s right hand with Shang Chao.

Interestingly, Yang Cheng’s flashback of Shang Chao’s death includes him wearing his right gear...

... even though Shang Chao wasn’t actually wearing it at that time:

In the E-Soul showdown, Yang Cheng delivered the final blow with his right hand:

Initially, I thought this was because, apart from it representing Shang Chao, it also represents the people’s trust in him. This would be consistent with how his first Trust point first manifested in his right hand and how his right is constantly emphasized whenever he was in hero mode in episode 6:

(Once again had to remove some images in order to stay under the limit 🫠)

But then there’s this scene:

While looking at his left hand, Yang Cheng talks about how he carries the trust of many. And this reminded me of how, whenever Yang Cheng checks his trust value, he always looks at his left hand and not his right:

The people’s trust, therefore, is represented by his left hand, not his right.

And in the showdown, he did also attack with his left by turning it into a blade.

Right before this scene, old E-Soul’s manager was talking about how he was losing Trust points. Following that with this blade scene would imply Yang Cheng gaining more trust in contrast.

So yeah, previously the left hand represented Xia Qing. But after Shang Chao’s death, Yang Cheng has left Xia Qing behind:

The left hand now only represents the people’s trust in general.

So what about his right hand? The hand that delivered the final blow on old E-Soul?

“I won’t hesitate anymore” followed by the lines of Xingyun Qing’s song going “Let me pass my color to your heart” as Shang Chao’s right hand transitions into Yang Cheng’s….

Yang Cheng’s right hand thus represents his conviction to be a hero—Shang Chao, whose “color” (yellow) he has chosen to carry with him (blue).

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who’s the spy in MG telling Shand what they’re up to?

Because I understand he knew to send Nice to kill the team at the spaceship bc of Mickey telling him about Ghostblade, but who told him that Dragon Boy was going to be confronting/challenging Smile? at that time and place? The only people in the room when Rock gave the order were him and DB… so is there a spy in Rock’s circle?

was it whoever got Rock the necklace?? does Shand have cameras?? is this connected to the “Nice has future-sight/premonition powers from being Perfect Hero” theory???

Did Shand just ask Lucky Cyan to speculate and she had a Lucky Guess???????

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This is basically what if yang cheng became lu guang

Ok but hear me out

Time travel au where Yang Cheng is pulled back in time and becomes obsessed with writing his past mistakes, aka protecting Shang Chao. And turns into a sort of platonic/romantic (depending on how u want to interpret it) yandere for Shang Chao.

And depending on where he was in his arc when he gets pulled back, he may even start trying to target Rock for being responsible for his death. Plus I just think it would be funny for Yang Cheng to accidentally be freaking out his friends, kuz he just went from a sweet underdog to essentially the dark knight, who also used to kill people in the blink of an eye.

I just think it would be neat.

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THANK YOU!! I honestly don't know how to react to these compliments 😭😭😭

Honestly, this is how I feel seeing parallels or contrasts between characters, specifically the main cast.

Also, you deserve a bit of a break when it comes to the angst, or maybe my angst posts only exist for yang cheng. The poor guy is stuck with tragedy, and it has entrapped me and destroyed me.

I would also love to read what you found with Queen and Dragon Boy as I saw in your last reblog that you had something in your drafts about them 😄

The wanted and unwanted: Dragon boy and Yang cheng

MG heroes all need to get therapy, especially these two, and they need it ASAP.

Two heroes in the same corrupt company both being initially recruited by rock to become a vessel for Zero, yet only dragon boy was chosen, and yang cheng turned into another version of E-soul.

Both Dragon Boy and Yang cheng were 22 years old when they had their respective fights with smile and E-soul. The same fight in which they have a very similar scene where in the climax of said fight before the true final hit man made rain is covers and is poured all over them paired with a transition of them in a similar position in the past. With dragon boy, the transition is to his past walking on the same snow-covered lake after emerging from it, and for Yang cheng, the flashback is back to the night of Shang chao's death. There is an inherent sorrowful tone etched onto both of these scenes as the two heroes come to grapple with the loss of their way and their identity in which they can't fully determine. This is the same fight in which both MG boys kill well-known heroes and usurp their rankings in the system, fully establishing themselves as puppets in rock's hand.

Alongside the struggle with their identity that both Yang cheng and dragon boy face, the two of them also renounce their identity with yang cheng fully taking up the mantle of E-soul and being ONLY E-soul while dragon boy takes up the mantle and is headed to an arc where he ONLY becomes zero.

To get to this point, the pair also seem to acknowledge that pain plays a vital role into shaping them as individuals, with both of them having to endure as they become puppets.

Dragon Boy and Yang Cheng seem to also both share dark imagery, both being depicted as blackholes and voids in the show. We can see this with Dragon Boy's zero form, which seems to distort reality itself, and we see it with Yang cheng in multiple ways whether that be through his moments in the pv, opening, ending and official arts.

Throughout all of this, we only ever see Yang cheng and Dragon Boy get defeated once, and that is by heroes who are way higher than them in the rankings. It is also necessary to point out that those heroes only defeated them by quite literally suspending them, which goes to highlight how destructive and reckless both yang cheng and dragon boy are with the two still trying to move after being suspended by queen and X.

There is also the fact that Dragon Boy and Yang cheng both engage in quite dangerous activities and the way they fight and throw themselves onto everything can (in my opinin) be regarded as a form of self harm. We can see how this habit also originated from their past with the last time they hesitated or almost gave up ended in disastrous concequences with dragon Boy's parents labellingvhim as "useless trash" and leaving him while yang cheng genuinely believes that his hesitation caused shang chao's death and he now refuses to hesitate throwing himself to every event possible even if it may result in certain death as seen in his fight with big johnny.

Lastly, Dragon Boy and Yang cheng are most likely the MOST controversial heroes within the top 10, with them both facing huge media backlash and praise for their actions and behaviour.

In the end, I do believe that season 2 is building up to Dragon Boy, finding out the truth and breaking out freely as the lyrics in scar imply, whereas yang cheng will most likely die taking rock down with him and finally knowing everything trying to redeem himself.

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HAOLIN CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!!! 😭

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What does it mean to rule? Dragon boy and Queen

Two heroes who couldn't seem more different when you take a look at the surface actually end up sharing a lot of similarities.

Dragon Boy and Queen, two heroes from rivalling agencies, aka MG and DOS who are right next to one another in the hero rankings, have a lot more in common than what meets the eye.

The two of them have a backstory tied to the snow and being able to achieve what is required with their powers. We see Queen's dad and micky together starting at Queen in a similar position to Dragon Boy's parents staring at him. Both of these pairs actively encourage and demand the most from their children with liu zhen and micky being proud of Queen at the end of the PV while Dragon Boy's parents are disappointed and abandoned him.

By demonstrating their abilities, they catch the eyes of Micky and Rock, who want to use them for their own plans of changing the world. A part of their plan involves them having Queen and Dragon boy becoming influential figures with a lot of power. Micky wants Queen to change the rules of this world, whereas Rock wants Dragon boy to be a vessel for Zero. They meet Micky and Rock in a snowy area surrounding by a lot of trees where Micky and Rock are clearly above them.

In the process of reaching their own personal goals, which are, in fact, more similar than people believe, Queen and Dragon boy both fight X. The framing of their fight is incredibly similar with X being in front of them, us seeing their backs, and there are some intriguing contrasts such as the colour composition with Queen's fight happening in the day, her being associated with gold and white while Dragon Boy's fight occurs at night and he is associated with black and purple.

They are both instantly stopped by X in a flash with Queen falling down before her staff hits the ground while Dragon boy ends up in the river before he can even land his punch.

In addition, Queen and Dragon boy fight characters that directly contrast their colour scheme and said characters are both out of the top 10 wanting to break into the top 10. On top of that, Dragon Boy and Queen seem quite indifferent at fighting bowa and nice compared to their counterparts, who seem more passionate in the fight. Queen ends up winning and presumably kills Bowa while Dragon boy almost succeeds in killing Nice, but he is stopped by X.

As I mentioned before, Queen and Dragon boy have similar goals revolving around justice and changing the world for the better, yet they both go about their goal in very DIFFERENT ways. Their theme songs "Queen of the stars" and "scars" highlight this best with the songs overlapping from time to time. For example, both Queen and Dragon Boy's theme songs depict them as isolated, but while Queen is "proud to be the top," Dragon boy, on the other hand feel trapped and is in constant anguish and despair with the "lonely road under my feet."

Moreover, Queen is described to be at the top of the world as we see in the lyric "leaping through the skies from up above" implying she is in heaven/ a deity of good while Dragon boy is described to be stuck underground, in a hell he can't escape with the lyric "why should I care about diving into hell" implying so.

While Queen's song refers to her as a healer, someone who can fix the broken and is there for the "broken knights," Dragon Boy is depicted as the broken one rejecting any help but also secretly seeking it as he also wants to but is slowly "giving up on ways to heal."

There is a lot of contrast between light and dark imagery between these two with Queen always being associated with the light " Queen of the light" while Dragon boy is associated with darkness "sink me in the darkness that's where I belong."

Their theme song does make me theorise that Queen will most likely help save Dragon boy in season 2 as she is depicted as the healer and saviour that dragon boy is looking for. I can also see them working together as Rock does seem awfully interested in Queen (opening of tbhx shows it) and he had his hands all over dragon boy so they can most likely escape the system together.

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The wanted and unwanted: Dragon boy and Yang cheng

MG heroes all need to get therapy, especially these two, and they need it ASAP.

Two heroes in the same corrupt company both being initially recruited by rock to become a vessel for Zero, yet only dragon boy was chosen, and yang cheng turned into another version of E-soul.

Both Dragon Boy and Yang cheng were 22 years old when they had their respective fights with smile and E-soul. The same fight in which they have a very similar scene where in the climax of said fight before the true final hit man made rain is covers and is poured all over them paired with a transition of them in a similar position in the past. With dragon boy, the transition is to his past walking on the same snow-covered lake after emerging from it, and for Yang cheng, the flashback is back to the night of Shang chao's death. There is an inherent sorrowful tone etched onto both of these scenes as the two heroes come to grapple with the loss of their way and their identity in which they can't fully determine. This is the same fight in which both MG boys kill well-known heroes and usurp their rankings in the system, fully establishing themselves as puppets in rock's hand.

Alongside the struggle with their identity that both Yang cheng and dragon boy face, the two of them also renounce their identity with yang cheng fully taking up the mantle of E-soul and being ONLY E-soul while dragon boy takes up the mantle and is headed to an arc where he ONLY becomes zero.

To get to this point, the pair also seem to acknowledge that pain plays a vital role into shaping them as individuals, with both of them having to endure as they become puppets.

Dragon Boy and Yang Cheng seem to also both share dark imagery, both being depicted as blackholes and voids in the show. We can see this with Dragon Boy's zero form, which seems to distort reality itself, and we see it with Yang cheng in multiple ways whether that be through his moments in the pv, opening, ending and official arts.

Throughout all of this, we only ever see Yang cheng and Dragon Boy get defeated once, and that is by heroes who are way higher than them in the rankings. It is also necessary to point out that those heroes only defeated them by quite literally suspending them, which goes to highlight how destructive and reckless both yang cheng and dragon boy are with the two still trying to move after being suspended by queen and X.

There is also the fact that Dragon Boy and Yang cheng both engage in quite dangerous activities and the way they fight and throw themselves onto everything can (in my opinin) be regarded as a form of self harm. We can see how this habit also originated from their past with the last time they hesitated or almost gave up ended in disastrous concequences with dragon Boy's parents labellingvhim as "useless trash" and leaving him while yang cheng genuinely believes that his hesitation caused shang chao's death and he now refuses to hesitate throwing himself to every event possible even if it may result in certain death as seen in his fight with big johnny.

Lastly, Dragon Boy and Yang cheng are most likely the MOST controversial heroes within the top 10, with them both facing huge media backlash and praise for their actions and behaviour.

In the end, I do believe that season 2 is building up to Dragon Boy, finding out the truth and breaking out freely as the lyrics in scar imply, whereas yang cheng will most likely die taking rock down with him and finally knowing everything trying to redeem himself.

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I just finished the E-Soul arc and I've never been so misled by a fandom in ages. The way the comments were going, they made it sound like Yang Cheng up and killed E-Soul who was just a poor, retired old man at a convenience store and left his wife to cry over him. Apparently this was actually Shang Chao, and they're all classmates. Then they made E-Soul sound like a great hero who had the truest of true ideals, and the super evil Yang Cheng killed him mercilessly to take his name and uproot his ideals with nobody ever knowing who the real E-Soul was and his legacy stayed ruined forever. No, not that either. Everybody knows from the get-go who is who. They just don't care and want something shiny and new. Kind of dampens the tragedy imo. But tragic in the rough sense that society is like this with its heroes. And I fully see where Yang Cheng's thought process went here, he's not an evil kid, and E-Soul doesn't impress me in the slightest. All I see is an unmotivated guy who really needs to retire instead of agreeing to a duel just because they said to. You don't care about rankings? Okay, why are you here then. QUIT. You already don't do hero work and just sell toys and show up at cosplay contests. He gave a speech about being okay with multiple E-Souls? Fine, let the kid take over the brand then. But he's so passive over the agency sending him to fight? I thought they forced him and he didn't want to hurt Yang Cheng so he gave up, but it doesn't seem that way (altho the fight was fast so I could've missed it.) He uses Lightning Slash because of POPULARITY COMPLAINTS. C'mon dude, get your head in the game. I know more about how Ghostblade feels and he's mute. Negative passion stats here. Not one little comment makes you sound like a puppet. His own legacy was just dragging past its expiration date because he's famous. He needed a clean retirement/honorable discharge or something. The fandom had me so geared and ready to become a Yang Cheng hater with how much they were hyping up E-Soul over the ranking bit, I expected more than that. Got me all sad with the angsty comments for nothing. That's a low standard for calling someone "one of the real ones." Lin Ling had more classic heroism but ig he's also fresh to the field, but I don't even see EMBERS of his old self in this guy. A missing arm doesn't equal a missing heart. I could've missed a ton of reading comprehension because of subtitles, so I'm open to being corrected. How do you see all this? And alright, that last minute of the EP was a slap in the face. Rock is brutal, and that weird comment earlier about having the honor of putting together Yang Cheng's fate or whatever makes sense now. Rn I'm guessing what happened was Yang Cheng thinks E-Soul killed Shang Chao, hence tearing all the posters, because MG freed the killers because they wanted to get back at him, as his speech says. But y'know, it was actually Rock. What would he have DONE if Yang Cheng was wearing the E-Soul mask instead of Shang Chao that day, geez. How reckless. And a convoluted way to screw up people's lives, and majorly freaky way to silence them too. Now to figure out how Shang De goes from working with Yang Cheng to building Nice to murder him…dead end in hunting the last suspects, eh? Probably figured out Rock ordered it behind the scenes somehow and he already hated Yang Cheng so.

I hate that I can't tell my anons apart, but I guess that's the whole point. Can I ask if you're the same anon who sent me the whole ramble about episode 22 that I answered yesterday?

One thing I honestly don't like about the TBHX fandom outside of tumblr is the lack of nuance they have for characters and the inability to read what the text is trying to say. This happened with Dragon boy, Yang cheng, and Nice. Now, I am not saying that people can't hate a character, but i am saying that the amount of mischaracterisation and demonisation that those characters go through for things that are sometimes out of their control is absurd.

Honestly, the fandom on tiktok and reddit remind me of the jjk fandom with the way they will call any character who is an antagonist or bad a fraud. This doesn't really do anything except strip the character away from their nuanced storyline and the messages that TBHX is trying to present to the audience.

"There are no more good and actually altruistic heroes. They're all liars, criminals, and frauds." -> That's the WHOLE POINT!! TBHX is a donguah that heavily criticises and explores the corruption of society and how real heroes can not exist while they are also being commercialised. We spend arc up arc exploring this with all the arcs having the theme of dispoasbility to further address this. The tragedy is that ALL of the heroes have the intention of wanting to help and do good, yet they go about it in better or worse ways depending on a multitude of factors.

I will be the first to say that I don't understand the OG E-soul glaze, and I think that the glaze goes to misinterpret and mischaracterise him.

E-soul wasn't perfect and ALWAYS HEROIC. However, E-soul wasn't lazy or unmotivated, as you stated. The man was old, tired and very much depressed.

Everyone points out that E-soul not caring about the rankings is a good thing, but I think a lot of fans take this at face value. For a hero to even have the power to do their job in the first place, they NEED trust. Heroes need trust in both others and themselves to be able to wield their powers and protect others. You could argue that OG E-souls didn't care for the rankings because he reaches a stage where he is essentially an artefact like Smile was who was in the rankings for over a decade however, we see that's not the case at all so we KNOW that yang cheng taking his trust value was effecting his power.

Furthermore, in OG E-soul's defence, quitting a job, especially the job that he has, is incredibly difficult due to a multitude of reasons such as MG's track records with heroes who have quit in the past either finding themselves dead like Ah sheng or back in the same job most likely due to blackmail and threats like Ghostblade.

Not only that, but we also have to take into account that E-soul is quite literally the PILLAR of hero society and that he HELPED build the new system after the dawnfall incident. This means a lot of things such as OG E-soul unintentionally causing some corruption with what he was given and I think he understood and knew this to an extent blaming himself and resigning himself to being someone who does everything for the people. I think the people also viewed him in the same manner as well. You can see this in the way he acts with him staying to try and infuelnce the next generation of heroes to be better to carry similar ideals to the one that he has making heroes as those who act as the light and bearers of hope in the people's eyes.

Another reason as to why OG E-soul didn't retire or just leave is most likely due to guilt. The OG E-soul PV has a huge focus on the Dawnfall incident and a huge focus on the tragedy it caused. We can still see that OG E-soul is massively affected by it with the way he seems to touch the memorial and constantly keeps referring to the incident indirectly or directly whether that be through his pv, his speech in ep 5 or his actions in ep 7. He very much feels like he owes the people, and I do think that he definitely has a lot of guilt over what happened to those who died in the incident because he couldn't stop zero in time.

In addition to this, OG E-soul hasn't stopped fighting completely, but his hero activity did slow down considerably. We see that is the case based on people's comments and Little polemo's critique of Yang cheng's performance being more of a news boardcast of E-soul has accomplished instead of an actual performance for the kids to enjoy.

Compared to his previous work, E-soul in his arc takes the back seat slowly stopping hero work almost completely but being active enough to the point that he still works out and has some hero activity. Yes, MG has prioritised him being marketable and making him release more merch as a way to gain the publics good eye so he can rise again through the ranks and get back into the top 10.

However, even with all of E-soul's good intentions and deeds, he has still made mistakes that do go unchecked and unnoticed by the fandom. While I don't blame E-soul for these mistakes (both YC and E-soul are vicitms after all), it should at least be recognised that he had a hand in allowing his own tragedy through his inaction throughout the E-soul arc.

The disconnect between OG E-soul and his management team is bewildering and even with that huge disconnect I am a firm believer in the fact that E-soul SHOULD have tried to reach out to Yang cheng after he quite literally proposes a death match. I need you to understand that Yang cheng had NO idea of knowing whether he would survive or not. He was basically going to 1 vs. 1, a very experienced and skilled hero who had better resources and accessibility to more things and power that Yang cheng could have ever thought of. Yang cheng knew that he was going to die, and that was a suicide mission, and he knew it!!! E-SOUL must have known this or been aware of this to an extent. To me, personally, it still bewilders me that E-soul never spoke or chose to reach out to Yang cheng and people still call him a goat and flawlessly heroic!?!?

There is a tragedy in E-soul dying by the same system that he helped create. There is a tragedy in him indirectly not being able to save the kid he once saved years ago, there is a tragedy in the fact that this all happened because of a system that OG E-soul help lay the foundations of, a system that used and disposed of him and will do the same to his predecessor.

E-soul's inaction was due to many things, but it ultimately just highlighted to me how tired the man really was and how he most likely saw a way out of all of this through his fight with Yang cheng. While we can assume that he didn't want to kill yang cheng, he did use this moment as a way to quit, and by doing so, he inadvertently doomed yang cheng and many by extension.

Just to address the last bit of your post, but many don't seem to catch the fact that Yang cheng was the one that was supposed to die that rainy night, NOT shang chao.

Rock's orders are "go and finish of that fake." The fake is referring to the new E-soul aka yang cheng. This also makes more sense when you look at the thug who didn't bother in looking for Yang cheng but aimed for whoever was wearing the E-soul mask and seeing them as the fake, killing them off. There is a big devastating and catastrophic effect and meaning behind this, and in a way, Yang cheng did die that night. He was never the same afterwards.

In terms of your idea, it is probably true that Shang de found out some semblance of the truth and chose to target both Yang cheng and Rock due to that. However, he most likely blamed Yang cheng from the start due to seeing him as a failed product, a failed hero who couldn't even protect his manager. We can see that he hated or was very much passive aggressive towards yang cheng during the funeral, encouraging him to avenge shang chao and stop staying here and doing nothing.

Honestly, in my opinion, blame yang cheng too much for his reaction to shang chao's death. I think people forget that YC had no support system, with abysmally low self-esteem, and the 2 adults we see him interact with literally PUSH him towards revenge and killing OG E-soul. Disaster was bound to happen and its the tragedy of the the 2 E-souls.

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Ugh your dog/Ahu post 😭 devastating thing to point out. Those last two paragraphs got me softly punching the floor. The more y'all humanize Nice, the more I really hope he isn't meant to be a parallel to Lin Ling where we know his real name, but never learn Nice's. I really need something to call him, and all the fan-names have "Bai" in it lol, I googled more and they're all so cute, I can't pick. So I'll call him "Xiao Bai" (little white) as a nickname until learn it. Apparently it can double as a way to call someone "rookie." / platonic bantering, but imagine calling him that he just has this serious frown on his face and you're like 😅 dang, that boy can look grumpy. And he stands up, all 6 foot something over you like, "Xiao?" and you're like..."Gao Bai?" (tall white) 😏 and his cheeks just puff up like a chipmunk because of a knee-jerk laugh reflex at that delivery, but he's trying to hold it in.

Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with Nice.

Ever since the series began, Nice was introduced to us in quite a dehumanised light, and there is intention and purpose in us never knowing his real name and only ever knowing his stage name. This serves to dehumanise him. The narrative throughout his arc strives to dehumanise Nice in every way possible with his relationship with Wreck being the one thing that humanises him until the cycle continues in ep 19 and where he is then humanised again in ep 22.

The constant cycle of dehumanisation and humanisation of Nice only goes to show how he is the condensed version of every hero we know. He shares similarities with them all. Nice isn't himself and never was. Nice was for the people, being controlled by them and he is for the heroes having his every part of him be connected and linked to another hero.

The audience not knowing Nice's name is supposed to be a direct parallel to us not knowing the names of characters such as E-soul, smile, Firmman, zero, X and many other heroes who the public only saw and cared for their stage name completely disregarding the person within the performer, the real essence and identity of said hero is ignored for the bright and flashing image that there agencies show of them on screen.

I have never looked into fan names, but that is so cute!!! Also, the way you could switch the names to depict the duality of Nice is such a neat idea.

Look at him!!! Nice you could do all the wrong in the world, and i wouldn't blame you. Actually, we should all make a petition to see Nice getting to beat up shang de if he is alive next season or to get lin ling to do it while we get a nice mention in there.

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Yang cheng and darkness

Thanks to @akuji05 for pointing this out to me, but Yang cheng seems to have A LOT of dark imagery, which is so incredibly and tragically ironic due to the fact that heroes are depicted as a light source while Yang cheng steals and takes that light most likely showing both his fading identity and painting him as a fallen hero.

The light in TBHX represents a multitude of things, but the 2 things it represents for the heroes are their original identity and how they act as a hope, a ray of light shining the path for the people. The tragedy in all of this is that while yang cheng WANTS to represent and have these things, he ironically doesn't.

Here is a list of all the times that Yang cheng has been paired with darkness:

Official arts

Official arts always seem to depict Yang cheng in darker colours, never allowing him to wear any light colours. You can argue that the lightest colour we have mainly seen on him is blue. This is ironic and depicts his transformation as we used to know Yang cheng used to actively wear the colour white and lighter shades of blue during his arc but now it seems like he only sticks to darker colours as if he is in a constant state of mourning. Furthermore, out of all the heroes usually shown in the arts, his outfits would also be the ones to usually contain the most black alongside ghostblade.

Opening,endings and PV

Yang cheng's imagery with darkness also continues as we see when OG E-soul's perspective of him is quite literally darkness almost as if he is the darker version of E-soul that he has to accept and realise that they both have to pay the price of their deeds and the deeds of the corrupt. Moreover, we see Yang cheng wearing all black in the ending as he falls surrounded by white feathers, and in the opening, we see Yang cheng quite literally stealing or causing all the lights to turn off from the billboards as he runs up a building while all the other heroes have a light of their own or reflect a light of their own Yang cheng seems to take light.

Hero costume transformation

The transformation of a yang cheng's hero costume is a drastic one. From a costume that he personally hand made that was covered with light shades of blue nearing cyan to the costume that shang chao made for him which had darker tones of blue and incorporated gold to make him stand out more to then the mainly black costume that has highlights of gold and blue almost as if they're just peaking out as the darkness and black overtakes them.

Furthermore, there is a focus on Yang cheng's Centre being dark and hollow, emphasising how hollow yang cheng has become after his fight with E-soul and shang chao's death, how he has truly lost himself with the centre acting as a literal void.

The irony and tragedy of it all

Overall, earlier in his arc, Yang cheng is actively depicted in the light, whether that be by his lighter clothes as he quite literally wears white or in his pov as the spotlight is focused on him and his 0 trust value or in xia qing and little polemo's perspectives as they see the light radiating from him which is a dark contrast to Yang cheng post ep 7.

Moreover, this ends up being even more devastating since we hear in Neon Rain, Yang cheng's theme song one of the lyrics goes:

"So I shall rise to light the way for luckless eyes"

Yang cheng sweetie, you are so unlucky, and you may or may not be leading the people to a false light. Furthermore, Yang cheng unintentionally leading the people to darkness/a fake light parallels him well with Zero who seems to have a similar hero costume design as they both have a circular void in the middle of their costume while also leading the people to darkness while wanting and intending to lead them to the light after murdering a man.

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In my defence, you pointed yang cheng's introduction scene out, and all my brain did was connect the dots and the dots led to more dots and now we are all stuck facing the concequences of our actions because I can assure you that I was also rocking back and forth after connecting the dots the way I did.

Thank you for your compliments!!! I do very much love your posts, especially because they get me thinking, and you have solidified it for me that i truly am never getting over the E-soul arc 😭😭

Yang Cheng’s first words in the series being, calling out to his dead parents, E-Soul’s first words being, “Child. What is your name?” Yang Cheng responding with his name (and there was a pause in the middle, like he was unsure of something?). There is something there, like I can’t put my finger on it, but there is a lot there.

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Something something us never knowing the true names of Yang chengs parents or E-soul. Something Something E-soul asking for yang cheng's name automatically humanises him and gives him an identity that isn't just the recently orphaned crying child.

Something something yang cheng growing up and taking over E-soul's identity ultimately losing himself and who he used to he. Something something shang chao and Xia qing advising that Yang cheng should be himself and that he SHOULD and CAN be BOTH yang cheng and E-soul.

Something something E-soul being the one to constantly humanise yang cheng even as he is dehumanised by the public for being an orphan with no trust value and even when he is dehumanising himself claiming that being a weight in a system is the only thing he can do or how Rock actively needs and craves that dehumanisation as its the only thing that can make yang cheng a perfect vessel for Zero.

Yang Cheng’s first words in the series being, calling out to his dead parents, E-Soul’s first words being, “Child. What is your name?” Yang Cheng responding with his name (and there was a pause in the middle, like he was unsure of something?). There is something there, like I can’t put my finger on it, but there is a lot there.

[bibibbon]

Li Haoling please take all of Yang Cheng, Dragon Boy, and Nice’s suffering and give it all to Ghostblade

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Unfortunately, if you turn screen brightness to 100 that is very much shaped like a human heart. Which makes "Inertia" even more evil because a blue heart appears in the opening after Nice appears, then it glitches in color like the X-effect, explodes, and Nice jumps through it at night, even the lyrics are "jump into the night" which is so Smile incident coded. You can't convince me this wasn't planned lmao, how devious.

All my anons are so observant! I love you all!!

I never managed to catch smile's heart on the first watch, and I love how you tied all of this back to the opening,inertia.

Can we talk about how, in the opening, the heart also turns purple? It most likely was blue and held in place by the people's trust and fear, which caused it to turn purple with the glitches happening and showing X's interference.

Also, like you mentioned, the lyric showing Nice afterwards being jump into the night is such a good catch. Overall, i think it could refer to both the ruins and Smile incident with them both occurring during the night and with nice being present in both.

Moreover, I am not that surprised that there are so many details when it comes to tbhx's songs since li haolin did state that due to tbhx being a donguah original that they are able to take more creative liberties so the animation and songs are able to convey a deeper story.

We can see this with character songs such referring directly to the character's lives, fheie regrets and wishes etc etc allowing us to see their motivations. We can also see it with both the opening and ending, being able to tell a story when you merge them together, which I believe adds a lot more to the X is getting the top 10 together and making them turn against the agencies theory.

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Shout out to the person who said Nice's little magical girl sparkle shows he's drawn "brighter" afterwards, like a permanent spotlight on him. haven't seen such a doomed white haired boy in a hot minute. also can we PLS focus on when Nice puts up his fists against DB after those comments, HE'S SO LIN LING IN THAT MOMENT??? Like it's not a show of toughness or ready to fight, it REEKS of someone so unprepared but doing it anyways. he looks SO unsure of himself. and then the live reaction when X turns DB into paper lmao, his face is so deceptively cute, strangely, I feel like I can tell the difference between Nice and Lin Ling in 3D. its subtle but its there. Lin Ling's jaw is more square, while Nice's face is more oval. he's literally just….softer. crying. me, the second I see tears in Nice's eyes: oh no sees him sobbing openly: c'mon man don't do this to me, seeing Lin Ling was enough and sure I wondered what it'd look like to see you, with your evil little smiles and empty-eyed look cry like that literally a day ago but dang, careful what you ask for huh. sees the trauma eyes as he falls down, shaking and clutching his hair: its so over. im never moving past this. and it keeps going?? oh he's absolutely broken right now. It is once again so rude that Smile rooted for Nice and dies indirectly because of him, and because of trying to save him also??? and that X saves Nice here but he can't save him from his suicide. Nice could have been Smile's legacy, but they killed that bright-eyed boy years ago. "I've caught you now." what, on camera? his true face? the snapping? his weakness, aka protecting friends? Are we sure Shang didn't secretly murder Nice to get back at X as the last person Smile ever saved. that boy is crying his heart out behind you. C'mon X, what are you thinking. will you leave him alone after that. It's fascinating that nobody else saw X's powers except Nice. you think he kept that secret? also the fact X trusted him with this <3 

also. apparently Nice saw Smile's literal heart ripped out and blood spattered next to his freaking foot. he's clearly having a normal day tonight. and. the way Nice gets startled when X walks off the roof and instinctively tries to save him. haha. but can't save himself when he does the same later. he's in Lin Ling's exact shoes right now. the IRONY. 

and okay fine. I get the Nice conspiracy theorists now. real Nice up until he walks off--then the Billboard changes bc X pulled a 3d body double they say, and that's why Nice's death isn't "perfect" in the way Smile was still smiling when he died. it'd explain the sus ending with somebody's hand curling around a dove's feather. and I'm a little bit sus of why Nice was a ballerina now. I think the child imagery is a metaphor but hmm. maybe Shang got him into it and he met Wreck then and signed on as an official hero later. Wreck is probably the only moment he actually liked being a ballerina if that child flashback is to taken as real. I hate how this makes sense bc why else would someone who was a ballerina as an adult have a dream of being a hero. Why would he go down the dancer route to begin with, paired with how it seamlessly meshes with his fighting style…it's too purposeful. "I've been personally nurtured by you since the beginning." "Your hero play is nearing the end of its performance. I don't like wasting time on things that no longer have value." (are we sure Shang wouldn't have orchestrated his death for clout if Nice didn't beat him to the punch.) this scene suddenly sounds even worse with new context. I always knew they were gonna pull out the marionette strings after that PV but man. they went HARD on the horror there. literally pulling him apart like a stuffed plushie. Seems like working under Miss J got him a crumb of happiness at least. until SOMEBODY had to crush that too.

Disclaimer I won't be addressing everything in this ask because a lot of what's been said here I have already addressed in other posts!

I also think that we should point out that while fighting Dragon boy, Nice takes on a much defensive approach something that Lin ling did which is why he looks so much like him when he is fighting Dragon boy because usually Nice is the classic punch really hard type of guy when you see him fighting with Wreck.

Also, adding to what you mentioned about Nice seeming even more brighter after his magical sparkles thing it makes me think of the ending of tbhx and the lyric "spotlight lover" where nice/X show up.

Moreover, you're telling me that's Smile's heart?!?!?!?

Ouch, okay, that's so evil of the animators. What the hell!!

The guilt must have eaten at nice to such an insane degree and you know who that reminds me of?

Yang cheng!

Both Nice and Yang cheng have a yellow themed character indirectly die for them. Shang chao indirectly takes the shot for yang cheng, and Smike indirectly dies trying to protect Nice.

Furthermore, don't you think their sobs when it comes to Smile and Shang chao sound similar? They're also both driven by rash and raw emotions to fight an MG hero after said death of the person they care about.

Also, I don't think that Nice hated ballet or that dance was something that he picked up because of Mr shang. I like to think of it as dance being something that he genuinely enjoyed which was then twisted on its head and made to something that kept him in a cage which adds a layer of cruel irony when you realise that a lot of dancers like dance beecuze it's something that they can do to express themselves and they can move their body however they desire making them feel and be in control while here nice is the one being controlled and when he tries to move anyway he pleases the strings bring him back to where they want him to be.

Think about it this wouldn't just be ironic but would be such a cool parallel with him and lucky cyan. Lucky cyan was made to sing and act as a sacred maiden, she was made into a hero and an idol when she never wanted it and rejected the idea but she found her truth and reclaimed that autonomy by doing those things her own way.

A singer and a dancer both having old men use their talent and hobby to fit them into a cage trapping them of the thing that they used to once express themselves and while lucky cyan found the light, nice didn't.

I don't think Mr. shang tried to kill Nice. It wouldn't make sense with him being so adamant on a puppet or something to make his revenge plans into a reality. Moreover, he seemed genuinely annoyed and curious at what happened in episode 1 when lin ling Shouts that Nice is dead.

Also, I just think that Nice's death being planned is too cruel, like you really couldn't even let him die at his own choice? Honestly, I view Nice's suicide as a way for him to regain his autonomy, finally breaking free from the marionette strings and choosing to be free no matter what, even if it means abandoning everything and becoming no one important.

However, I am a nice is alive believer and I will be one until explicity proven otherwise.

However, these bits from the interview kinda seem to prove me wrong, but hey, you never know nice could still be alive?

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"Nice, you came at the perfect time." Evil. stop using that word lmaoo. it's not even funny. "Why are you all acting possessed?" Nice just had several panic attacks on screen and Dragon Boy's feral. pay attention old man. but I guess the DSM-5 didn't exist in your day. he calls "Fear" 'dirty water' so ig he's behind on the times. the fact that Nice's vision went all shaky when he got splashed with fear made me think for a sec that…what if it made him paranoid and afraid, and he started hallucinating. and that's what Lin Ling inherited when he became "Nice" and why he saw Moon die before she actually did. It'd make Nice's cocktail of mental illness even worse... definitely something that would push him even further to the edge. And also, the fact that Smile protected him and a golden sparkle flew in Nice's eyes like, it's probably how they animated the realization, but I think it's also the admiring spark of a kid who's just been saved by their hero. (which ofc is very quickly dampened and co-existing with all the other terrible feelings, but that "Are you okay?" from Nice was just. it was the real him. rare moments where he isn't having a breakdown or being insane. he's just. a worried guy who wants to help people and is constantly disturbed by the people being crazy around him that make him feel crazy too. he can be so civilian coded if you take him away from here.) it makes me sad ngl, that nobody knew the real Nice. only the perfect actor, the heartless one, or the victim of his OCD they had to deal with. he's known as a false hero more than a human being who needed help as well and got handed one bad card after another in every choice he made. they don't know about the Nice who cried after Smile's death, who felt emotions so strongly beneath the princely smile and perfect twirls, who looked at X, at Smile, at Ahu in the preview(?) and just. moved to help them. that wasn't scripted. it wasn't graceful. it was messy. reflexive.

"Idiot, thanks for giving me a reason to fight back." Oh, oh no. DB was going to be civil and walk away. But Nice let his emotions take over despite everybody only seeing this as DB killing a monster. Nice saw otherwise. And then, he realizes, the second he hears the voices. "First he stands around not helping, now he's hurting people?" oh my gosh, he can NOT get a win here. "Go Dragon Boy, kill that little pretty boy." OKAY WHAT THE HELL I DIDN'T THINK THEY'D GO THAT FAR???? dang this society sucks. My poor traumatized boyfailure. he does a good thing by not stabbing Smile and it still screws everything over hard. Sometimes, I can't tell if this rep helps or hurts him. Ruins incident? ok. no direct murder here but im starting to think if you did succeed, you'd have a breakdown over the blood on your hands once you snapped out of that headspace. Smile incident? failed objective. somehow failed even worse after doing the moral thing of not listening to your evil boss. he sucks as a hero and a villain. im in tears. I'm surprised he kept up with Dragon Boy at all after getting curb stomped by Loli like that lmao. aren't all your fights faked anyways. what experience do you have. There's a neat detail in the black/purple, white/gold color scheme. opposites and complementary on the color wheel. "We've all heard about your powers." Yeah. okay. Dragon Boy being all "I forgot to tell you, my powers--"  either the two-fold bit was hidden and they only knew shock absorption or somebody kept Nice in the dark about DB's power.

I feel the urge to ban anyone in tbhx from using the word "perfect" when describing Nice. That word is too cruel for him, and the word being used by his idol is so ironic like look nice your idol, the man who you have wanted to be and cared for your entire life has fallen for the lies that your boss made you play, he thinks that your perfect like everyone else does.

In Smile's defence, he is physically unable to frown and express distress, and he most likely didn't expect a hero who is pretty high in the rankings (I don't think many realise that there are A LOT of heroes more than 200+ so ranking at 15 is pretty high) to just freeze up and start panicking like nice did.

Also, I can't really blame Smile for not knowing everything about dear because he is very clearly kept out of the loop, most likely due to his status and power level. Moreover, the commission hasn't released much knowledge on fear to the public, so Smile most likely knows the same amount of information as the public, which sure as hell isn't a lot compared to Nice who works with a man actively dabbling and involving him with fear or dragon boy who was told everything that Rock knows also giving him an advantage when it comes to fear.

Furthermore, Smile labelling fear as just some water is most likely a bluff to not scare Nice who already seems like he is in a horrible mental state as smile describes him to be possessed. It would make more sense to me if this was the case since Smile actively chooses to take the hit for Nice and protect him which indicates that he most likely was aware about the danger of Dragon boy spitting out fear to an extent.

You have an interesting theory when it comes to fear and Nice!

When I first watched the episode, I interpreted Nice reacting the way he did was due to him having his mental crisis and being on the verge of a mental breakdown because of what he is made to do.

However, every time there's a scene of him on the verge of going into a full-on mental breakdown, there is this weird and creepy soundtrack that ends up playing and I do wonder if this is something associated with fear. While fear can't infect you if it's on your clothes, Dragon boy did make the effects of fear 2 times more powerful so I can see them having minor affects on Nice but not to the point of genuine prophetic visions. Moreover, this could be due to shang de doing something to Nice. He did create Nice's image with fear, meaning that Nice has come into contact with fear one way or another, and we don't know what the effects of prolonged exposure to fear are so that could be the case?

The tragedy with Nice is that he is just a young man who has always wanted to help and be helpful. He is again the condensed version of every hero and every hero we know has wanted to help in one way shape or form even if their way of helping ends up making things worse the intention to do good was there and will always be there.

Nice always stuck to the script, not because he wanted to but because he NEEDED to and couldn't break out of the script either. Yet in those moments when his life isn't dictated by a script, he is human, he is noble, he is passionate, kind, confused, naive, he is the real Nice the one that wants to protect, the one that worries about people, the one that would recklessly dive to catch X or to hurriedly ask Smile if he is ok and even cry over the man.

What's even more interesting is that Nice's own fans seem to like him when he breaks out of the script and we see that with the way Nice's fans praise lin ling whenever he seems to deviate from the 'script' such as taking on a different style, or presenting Moon's death as an imperfection as a failure that the perfect hero achieved.

The people loved lin ling because he was passionate, messy and willing to do anything for those he loved and that's exactly what Nice was except when Nice git his chance to break away from the script he chose to leap and fall from grace giving up on his and Wreck's dream and choosing what he deemed the most logical way out.

I doubt dragon boy was going to be civil and leave. Again earlier in the episode he did say that he was willing to give Nice the chance to get into the top 10 and that's not by them sharing the trust values they would get from smile but by fighting one another after defeating smile to see who comes out on top. I would assume that Dragon boy would have proposed a match but Nice just punched him and provoked him.

I wonder if Dragon Boy's power makes it so that he must always hit back or beat the person that engages in a fight with him, and that's the reason why he says he doesn't have a choice but to take Nice up on the fight.

Honestly, it's been 22 episodes, and I still can't get a full grasp on tbhx civillains. I personally think that they're too casual about straight-up murdering heroes and replacing them, but maybe that's just me. At the same time they also seem to care about the safety of others but have no empathy for heroes (most of them that is) and view the heroes in the same way the CEO'S see them : disposable and worthless when they lose value or do anything that doesn't align with the believers mental framework if them.

Although, I would assume any TBHX civillain that is a dragon boy fan is just automatically ok with a good chunk of messed up nonsense such as violence, murder and multiple other things that Dragon boy has committed. I wonder if people in TBHX automatically think that a fear infected individual is no longer human, like do they view them how MHA civillians and heroes view Nomu's in MHA?

Personally, I don't think it's that surprising that Nice managed to keep up with Dragon Boy. After his failure in the ruins incident, Mr. shang most likely made him go through even more training since he did need his weapon to be strong and perfect enough to enact the vengeance he envisions. Moreover, I think Nice himself realised after his fight with Luoli that he needs to get stronger to achieve his goals.

However, even with that, you can clearly see him struggling against Dragon Boy, and I do think that Truat Value has a part to play with how Nice was able to keep up with Dragon Boy. Let us not forget that Luoli's suit negates the effects of fear and trust so it doesn't work in the same way.

Moreover, Nice vs. DB's colour scheme reminds me of Queen vs. Bowa. If you were to ask me, Nice and most likely the public weren't aware of Dragon Boy's ability to strengthen attacks that he receives which is why you can clearly see Nice and smile fight the way they do before Nice switches tactics halfway through and starts dodging instead of going for straight up punches like he usually does as we see with his fights with Wreck in the PV.

I also like to believe that after the Ruins incident that Mr. shang slowly started sending Nice out on actual missions instead of having fake ones so I do think Nice has actual combat experience although it's not as good as the others that's for sure.