4 Cut Hero is a comic take on the fantasy-hero genre. Years ago, Krodin, the Demon King, tried to take over the world, and was stopped by the hero Zeed.
Unfortunately, Zeed discovered afterwards that with the demon king defeated, there was little need for his skills; "saving the world" was not much use on his resume, and he had no useful skills outside of slaying demon kings and blowing things up. As a result, he became a Hikikomori and an Otaku and withdrew from the world...
The comic can be read at Lezhin
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4 Cut Hero provides examples of:
- Best Her to Bed Her: Gyel, older sister of Fallen Hero Roak, swore to only marry a man who defeats her in combat. Unfortunately, she's the World's Strongest Woman and is therefore 35 and still single.
- Brought Down to Badass: While Zeed can't really fight without his magic, his most dangerous weapons are his mind and his tongue; multiple opponents who thought they had him dead-to-rights in an Anti-Magic effect have found the situation turned against them after making the mistake of letting him talk.
- Brought Down to Normal: Zeed depends entirely on magic to enhance is strength when fighting; without it he's nearly helpless, at least physically. As a result, he's forced to depend on his wits when trapped in Anti-Magic effects.
- Camping a Crapper: This was how Zeed initially defeated General Roak, who was even stronger than the Demon King - he came across him while he was on the toilet.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Demon King Krodin was one of these early on, to the point where he'd respond to objections that his strategies were cowardly or dishonorable by reminding people that he's a villain. Despite this, he's also a Noble Demon who is driven by the genuinely awful situation that the demon clans find themselves in.
- Cassandra Truth: Nobody believes the hero when he tells them he saved the world, and he has absolutely no useful skills, on top of having no motivation to accomplish anything else. So he ends up as a useless Hikikomori.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The series doesn't entirely abandon comedy at any point, but it does get a lot more darker and serious in tone as the world building progresses, especially in season 2.
- Chaste Hero: An Enforced Trope both inside and outside the universe. Zeed even points it out and weaponizes it when attacked by a succubus, telling her that she can't succeed at seducing him because a shonen protagonist like him can never sleep with anyone outside of a Distant Finale. When she tries to force the issue, the comic's publishers intercede to stop her.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Fogue, who describes his obsession with sexy outfits as being a "gentleman and a scholar", although Mirelle Veik might disagree with the "Chivalrous" part given his penchant for forcing defeated opponents to dress up in sexy clothes. Zeed also gets infected with some of this through interacting with him.
- Con Man: Zeed's true talent is at this, to the point that Roak flatly tells his minions to never listen to anything he says and never give him a chance to start talking. And he still manages to talk them into switching sides.
- Covert Pervert: Basically everyone in the story that isn't an outright pervert will most likely still have a perverted side to them. The number of major characters that aren't either could be counted on one hand.
- Distressed Damsel: Zeed mistakes Prince Ruda for this. It turns out to be a mistake on both accounts, since Prince Ruda is not only a prince but is a shapeshifting black dragon and Regell, one of the demon generals.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Prince Ruda. Zeed has to remind himself several times that Ruda is a prince and not a princess, and even the caption for him in the prologue says "this girl is a guy." Ruda's actual original identity is female, though.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: As the series goes on and develops its world, lore and continuity, many of the outright parodying moments do get used less and less and the story starts taking itself seriously, particularly in the flashback arcs. Downplayed, as the parody elements and referential humor never disappear and are still used now and again.
- Easily Forgiven: Zena forgives Zeed for killing the Demon King, who she viewed as a father, after hitting him on the chest a bit. (Even if it does nearly kill him.)
- Elite Four: The demon-king's four generals, who all went their separate ways after he was defeated.
- Fallen Hero:
- General Roak, "The Fallen", was once considered a great hero before he defected to become one of the Demon King's Elite Four.
- Zeed himself is seen as such by the kingdom, since he develops a Friendly Enemy relationship with the defeated Demon Generals after the war. Season 2 has him become the new Demon Commander, although it isn't by his choice and at this point the demons aren't even really villians.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The world features dragons, beastmen, magical elementals, demons that are just regular humanoids, devils that are explicitly supernatural, and sentient magical constructs with humanoid forms just to name a few.
- Flat "What": Roak's reaction when Fogue tells him that Zena, who he viewed as a daughter, ran off with the Chivalrous Pervert Zeed.
- Foe Romance Subtext: Demon King Krodin and the hero Roak had a lot of this in the backstory (at one point, due to a complicated series of events, Krodin even ended up casting a Gender Bender spell on Roak and presenting "her" as his wife.) This ultimately became a Foe Romance Text and serves as one of the reasons Roak switches sides; it's eventually explicitly stated that the two raised Zena together as their child.
- Foregone Conclusion: In the flashback detailing Roak and Krodin's backstory, it's pretty obvious who lives and who dies based on who's still around in the present day. Additionally, it's a given that Roak will eventually change sides.
- Friendly Enemy: Zeed is on fairly close terms with the Demon Generals he defeated, to the point where Fogue, one of the Elite Four, crashes at his place when he doesn't have anywhere else to stay.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Fogue is a useless layabout and a pervert who forces his fetishes onto others. Just about everyone wants to ditch him. Zeed and Zena (who were just trying to kill each other) leave him behind to be captured by the knights, Mirelle Veik, his captor, begs Roak to take him and escape just to get rid of him, and Roak makes it clear he doesn't really want him either.
- Hikikomori: Zeed becomes one after he retires, and is even described as such in text.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: One of the main reasons Demon King Krodin lived as long as he did was his willingness to immediately drop everything and run away if his enemy seemed stronger than he was.
- Kung-Fu Wizard: Zeed is actually one of these, relying on his magic to enhance his speed and strength. Unfortunately, this means he's Brought Down to Normal in any situation where he can't use magic.
- Maid Cafe: Zena, one of the Demon King's Elite Four, ends up working at one of these after he's defeated.
- Mood Whiplash: Unlike the rest of the story, the tragic backstory of the Black Dragon isn't humorous at all. Roak's backstory is this to a lesser extent - there's still a few jokes, but also much much more suffering, injustice, and death than in the main storyline.
- Nominal Importance: Lampshaded with the first demon general that Roak fights (in a flashback before he switched sides.) The narration box for the panel introducing him reads "Since he's going to die soon, he has no name". The general, side-eying it, reacts with a "What?"
- Otaku: Zeed becomes one after he retires, partially as a result of accidentally reading the demon king's porn stash while collecting loot after defeating him.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons in this world are powerful magical beings and shapeshifters whose true/default forms are actually human, though they also have a larger, more powerful dragon form that they can use.
- Retired Badass: Although he's become a Hikikomori and withdrawn from the world to watch anime and read comics in his apartment, Zeed has lost none of his skills and is still ridiculously powerful.
- Revenge: Zena's desire for revenge on Zeed is what sets the plot in motion in the current day.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The setting is makes regular fun of RPG mechanics, and occasionally presents the action through this lens (such as showing the hero looting the Demon King's lair as if it were a screen from Diablo.)
- Shout-Out:
- To Death Note in Zeed's "just as planned", complete with Red Eyes, Take Warning, after tricking Fogue into drinking holy water (which is deadly poison to demons.)
- To Diablo, when showing Zeed looting the Demon King's lair after beating him.
- When Zeed is abducted by Regi Rugas in her red dragon form, the narration is a Shout-Out to what happened to Cars in Jojos Bizarre Adventure, complete with "Eventually, Zeed stopped thinking." Several other mock-dramatic moments reference specific Jojo panels as well.
- The Training Montage of General Roak teaching Zena how to fight is intercut with a fake screenshot from Princess Maker showing her increasing stats.
- When Fogue's father exploits people's psychological weaknesses with his lectures, it's shown using the Affliction symbol from Darkest Dungeon.
- So What Do We Do Now?: The comic starts with this, as the hero defeats the Demon King and is forced to realize his plans for afterwards were completely unrealistic and he has no other useful skills.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Demon King Krodin averted this by teleporting in a huge army, which he would lead personally, to crush up-and-coming heroes before they grew in power.
- Standard Hero Reward: Zeed expected to receive this for saving the world. Unfortunately, it turns out the demon lord kidnapped the prince instead of the princess, and Zeed doesn't swing that way (much to the disappointment of parts of the in-universe audience.)
- Stronger Sibling: General Roak is the strongest member of the Demon Army, stronger than the Demon King himself... but his sister is vastly stronger than even he is, capable of fighting off an entire regiment with a tiny wooden skewer.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Mirelle Veik makes the mistake of trying to torture the S&M-obsessed Fogue. He tells her that will never work on him, breaks free, lectures her on her technique, then has her bind him back up to torture him properly.
- Worf Effect: Lampshaded with the Blue Dragon Hirr Hees, who (while supposedly one of the most powerful beings in the setting) only appears or gets mentioned so people can curbstomp him to show how strong they are. The second time this happens, a popup appears saying that he has received the title of "pushover."
- Yaoi Fangirl: Zena is one, to the point where she views any interactions between male characters through in-universe Shipping Goggles.
