Tiger & Bunny is an anime program current airing weekly in Japan and simulcast on Hulu and Viz Anime. Produced by Sunrise, it's directed by Keiichi Satou (best known for his work on Big O). The series revolves around a couple of super heroes who fight crime while driving ad revenue via product placement for a hero themed television program.
Synopsis
After the chaos and near disaster brought on by Jake life for our heroes begins to settle down. Blue Rose is set to release a new hit single with Tiger and Barnaby playing backup. While Rose takes time to teach the two how to dance she finds herself falling in love with the Tiger despite his weird ways. Barnaby points out to her that, while his actions may seem disrespectful, he's always thinking of those around himself first.
After a performing the new track the heroes return to find Rose's dressing room trashed and her bag missing. The actions of a thief NEXT who can turn invisible when holding his breath. The three take off after the thief who escapes on a moped. In pursuit Tiger activities his NEXT power and finds something's not right. He suddenly finds his strength and speed greater than before but depleted under the standard five minute mark.
New Opening and Ending!
The opening track, Missing Link by NOVELS, is pretty solid. It just doesn't match the accompanying animation sequence in the least bit. Especially with the animation's tempo changes. Oh, and who doesn't love the ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT spots? The ending is definitely a cop-out animation wise, features Mind Game by Tamaki.
Review
I almost forgot about Tiger & Bunny last weekend if not for a tweet from CharredKnight mentioning Rose's punches in the episode. How my reviews have gotten some to look out for animation flubs now... Anyhow, I didn't think the punches were that bad. Okay, they look like her arms twelve inches long, but I think that's due to the lack of detail to indicate depth. (On second viewing, there are more issues than I wanted to admit the firs time around. I'm more annoyed by Tiger's bowlegged running and Bison's shape shifting in door sunglasses.) There were some other derpy animation moments in the episode but not enough to annoy as previously.
I rather enjoyed the episode. Okay, the base of the story may be a litttttle bit creepy (teenage girl with the hots for a middle-aged father), but it was well paced and was a breath of fresh air from the forced drama in the last couple of episodes. They also did a good job introducing a new dynamic, Tiger's odd power changes, without having to resort to a mid-battle upgrade-like event.
The Hero's B Team designs are fucking horrendous, no ounce of cool or style. Hopefully the next we see of them is Kriem throwing the lot into a smelting furnace. I also don't understand this Japanese obsession with song and dance. I think I've brought this up before, actually. Having Barnaby and Tiger in the background as supporting dancers for a show is pretty silly, having them end with a Flashdance-esk pose is just disrespectful.
This coming episode looks to center around Sky High and his love interest. Considering his impressive (even if ineffective) performance against Jake we might get some good action too. Meanwhile poor Rock Bison gets the shaft once again.
