It's an often used synonym if directly translated, which really got me blindsided when they treat it differently. Wtf does that even mean now?
Also, poor princess. She needs a milf whisperer making her happy again!
in japanese, there's eiyuu and yuusha, both mean hero, but have different connotations
eiyuu is the appointed by god/what we usually think of as a "hero"
yuusha is the hero class, aka courageous adventurer type thing, which is what is usually translated as "brave" to differentiate
This is what i remember reading when people have been describing the difference, tho it's usually only different if both actually exist/are used in the story, otherswise you'll find yuusha translated as hero usually
another comment mentioned using champion for eiyuu, and hero for yuusha, which does work too yea, but it gets funky depending on if you're western media or japanese translated media biased (dragon quest has the yuusha brave)