TC Hero 2026 January - Episode 1 News!

Hey there TC Hero community! Happy new year! Wow, it's been a year since I've written one of these it seems... 2025 was a wild year for me! Rest assured though, everything is still on track! In fact, in some ways we actually managed to get ahead in schedule last year, but we'll get into that later in the post! Today's post will cover the following topics:

• A recap of TC Hero's 2025, published media and production related news.

• The plan and goals concerning the TC Hero series in 2026.

And... that's about it, I suppose! Let's jump straight into it! 2025 RECAP

So where's TC Hero been this year? Why no news posts in 2025? There's a lot of reasons as to why there hasn't been much TC Hero stuff in the past year. Some of it is actually deeply personal, so I won't get too into it, but the first half of 2025 was incredibly difficult, painful, draining and demotivating for me. Not to mention, I felt incredibly burned out from the TC Hero 2024 marketing stunt I pulled, which was also done while I was still working a stressful (but fulfilling, I kinda miss it) full time job.

As you can probably imagine, that's not a recipe for success. All of this I still think is important to mention though, since it highlights the fact that I'm personally the main driving force behind TC Hero. When life decides to life, it has the potential to kill the ever living daylights out of my project. I'm a sturdy fella though and I'll keep on trucking, since this is a project I have a lot of faith in. I love it and I'll always try my best to prepare the best possible product for you all to enjoy. 💙 And that was only the first half of the year 💀 but that's enough about that, I think you get the picture. Bottom line is, I had it extra mega hard.

Despite the difficulties of my personal life and burnout though, there were some highlights that I managed to push out last year!

2025 HIGHLIGHTS

Without a doubt, the biggest highlight of 2025 was when I managed to release the long awaited character trailer that I announced back in... 2023! 😂😅🫠 You can check out the announcement post here.

I still can't believe this took me 2 years to complete and release. There are reasons as to why, but I won't bore you with the details. 🫠 Let's just say: Animation is hard and 2coolmon2 started mucking around with the plan too much. I'm sure I posted more details on my Twitter if you're interested. There were also a bunch of animated shots that ended up getting cut, since I just wanted to get this out man. Having said that, it still ended up being way cooler and dare I say, be more consistent, than the OG idea! It even showcases something I didn't originally want to add, which is Net's transformation design! Despite that, I do still deeply regret not being able to deliver on time, so I apologize.

Although it took as long as it did, I learned a lot of vital lessons from making this trailer, which I also believe will come into play and speed up the development of episodes! More about that later in the post though. Speaking about the episodes, the series poster also dropped! It can be viewed in the trailer, but I'll leave it here too for your viewing pleasure.

The site has also received some smaller revamps, the largest change being found on the info page! Now, it links to our IMDB page, where you can now find everyone included in production! The watch page has also received a new category at the bottom showcasing some animations that were inaccessible on the site before! Very soon, we're looking to add another update to the page, with a section where you'll be able to access episodes! The characters page received a small update, now showcasing Cybele too! We're going to be working slowly on adding more pages for all the other characters, but that's not our top priority at the moment. If you wish to learn more about the characters, go to the watch page, where you can view most current revealed characters and their trailers!

...

What's that? Most characters? Uh, yes! Funny thing is, we also had a casting call this year for two new characters!

Meet Helia and Stefan! Two hard working (or hardly working?) Surge Public Safety Division officers! The casting call was held in September and Stefan's voice actor has been selected! Helia has still not been cast, but that is entirely due to me not being able to make a choice. I have now made a choice and will be contacting the selected VA shortly. Terribly sorry to any VA:s that auditioned for Helia and have been patiently waiting! The truth is, you're all too good. I legitimately had an insanely difficult time. The voice actors will be publicly revealed at some point this year, hopefully sooner than later! AND THAT'S NOT AALLLL!! Slowly I'm beginning to realize how much I've actually gotten up to.

I've been working on a TC Hero style update! As an artist, my style will naturally change and skills improve over time, so since Episode 1 still hasn't aired and with me definitely needing to work on some updated and new character sheets, I decided to take a look and see if I could somehow update the style a little bit!

This is a screenshot of a part of Net's expression sheet. I've taken some influence from artworks (I highly enjoy the work of Posuka Demizu and Kei Urana) I've enjoyed and tried to incorporate it into the general TC Hero style and put my own spin on things! I'm personally a fan of how things are looking, you can expect to see more characters being updated to the current style too! Most characters won't receive large design changes, but some, I believe, needed some changes. Net is among those characters and his full redesign has been revealed to the public! His original outfit is still canon and may still be seen, but this is the outfit you'll mainly see him wearing for the first couple episodes!

I was kind of dissatisfied by Net's design for quite a while. It did fit him, but there were elements that I wanted to change and add that would reference his birdlike transformation! I also found that some of his original design features were fairly annoying to animate (thanks to the Net trailer), so I tried making his design more animation friendly! FINALLY The final highlight of 2025 was certainly the fact that I completed the script for Episode 1! When I was making the plans for what I wanted to accomplish in 2025, my main goal was to complete the first episode script for TC Hero, focusing on it for the entire year and making sure it would be the best it could be. Any other progress was welcome, but I tried not to set too high a goal so I wouldn't feel too pressured, get burned out or demotivated that I didn't reach that goal. I completed it early.

Episode 1 has been in the works for an incredibly long time. I've been writing and writing, iterating over and over again, trying to find the ideas and concepts I want to explore in the series and first few episodes.

The first episode in a series is a defining factor for the whole show, as it showcases what the series is about, the general tone and ideas it wants to explore.

Episode 1 will not be perfect, but it's certainly the best literature I've written so far. I look forward to finally releasing Episode 1 and the feedback I'll receive!

It has always been my priority to make TC Hero the best it can be. 💙 Once Episode 1 airs, that's marking only the beginning of our adventure. I intend to take all constructive criticism seriously and improve my work as TC Hero develops. But that's about it for 2025 highlights! What about 2026? 2026 PLANS AND HOPES

There's been a lot of talk about Episode 1 and I even mentioned airing... is the 2026 news somehow related to that? Yes.

😲 Yo. I was a little hesitant about announcing this, but TC Hero Episode 1 production will be my top priority this year. We have a release date, that being...

Late 2026 to early 2027!

Now I want to start by mentioning that this is a flexible deadline. VERY FLEXIBLE. Please keep your expectations low! 🙇 As with any other year, who knows what this year will bring and various spanners could be thrown into the works. I know for a fact that I will be busy to a certain extent, as I'm also focusing on getting into school to get a degree! This month I'll be starting at a kind of college, to try and get the feel and some expertise in the subject that I'm attempting to apply to. But we have a plan, a script and even voice lines already recorded by our talented VA:s! I'm confident that with the lessons I've learned from previous mistakes, this is a goal that is possible to achieve! I wanna get this out man, I believe so much in this project. With that, work resumes on TC Hero's "Rebirth Arc".

Thank you for reading. Thank you for watching. Thank you for all your support. It means the world to me, you have no idea. Here's to 2026!! Let's make this the year TC Hero goes wild! Love you all, God bless! TC activate!!