Tiger & Bunny is a new 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 and product placement for a hero themed television program.
Sorry for the poor quality screen shots in this review, I don't have a decent raw.
Snyopsis
The media, still favoring Barnaby, is cause for his own photo shoot. Not receiving much attention, Tiger is sent off to assist Fire Emblem who is forced to prove his innocence following the death of several convicts at a local prison. Late, last night, they apparently burst into flame and were killed.
In the meantime, Barnaby is doing his best to remember the one missing detail from his parents assasination, the killer's face. The one element he does remember, the mark of the Ouroboros, has gotten him nowhere despite years of searching.
Returning from prison Wild Tiger is ambushed by a large mech which attempts to gun him down. With help from Fire Emblem, Tiger is able to stop the armor, only to have it slip away when the calvary arrives. Tiger, who encounters the pilot face to face, knows he's seen him before. Doc Saito inadvertently sparks his memory and the gang must rush off before he strikes again. However, before the encounter is through, a new NEXT with unknown motives makes his debut...
Review
Maybe I'm just being over critical, in true Otaku Revolution style, but I can't help but be bothered by several elements of this episode.
While it was nice to finally get a bit more back story regarding the death of Barnaby's parents I felt that a lot of those elements would have worked better in the previous episode. With the basics out of the way they could have used the episode to further develop his search for the elusive Ouroboros. Instead we have him standing outside showing their logo to random strangers on the sidewalk. That's really effective. So in the future we've developed multi-leveled cities, but lack a comprehensive image search engine? Maybe he should ask the bomber, he's apparently very capable at finding folks he only met once.
While the episode was apparently geared toward featuring Fire Emblem it just comes off awkward more than anything else. He didn't really contribute to the story other than provide as a distraction during Tiger's battle to defeat ED-209's father. We didn't get any back story or meaningful character development. You'd figure that developing your most painfully stereotyped character into someone with depth would be an easy decision. It seems like he's only there in a vain attempt to make viewers feel awkward.
Why don't you try some of my ✩fabulous✩
The Battle for Detroit (as I'm going to refer to it for lack of a MechWarrior reference) was rather boring aside from Barnaby's impressive maneuvers during round two. At first the armor is firing rounds powerful enough to take chunks out of walls and iron fences but later is unable to blast through a (oddly drawn) Ferrari 348? It would have also been more appropriate if the writers had brought up this kind of equipment before hand rather than having it pop out of a forest with no explanation.
As predicted the black bomber from before returned but it was far worse than anyone would have wanted. He went from being a calm sly terrorist to a man who has no business driving an armored assault mech. How did he even know where to find Tiger or Agnes? At the very least we got to see our main villain, whom I have mixed feelings about. He shoots fire at people with a crossbow. That's cool, I guess. But that costume...
He somehow fires his bolt at the camera even though it's pointing at the ground
I also noticed during the episode the Empire State Building, or rather its Stern Bild equivalent, is sticking out into the sky rather traditionally. The problem is that in the first episode it's seen on the ground level, below the city's second tier. So, a mix up? Are there more than one of the same building? Everything else background wise was once again fantastic. I love the different hues they used ot break up the different buildings in the distance during the initial robot brawl. If you look closely you can see other buildings from NYC's skyline, even multiple times, as many of the backgrounds are built with reused images.
Notice two of three different Chrysler Buildings in the episode
The CGI for the mecha wasn't too bad even if the design was rather uninspired. It doesn't seem like they're too adapt at modeling damages though. Despite Agnes' car getting banged around there's no damage until it gets thrown into the ceiling. Speaking of that fight, was anyone bothered by the way Tiger just walked into frame in the next shot or how the camera lingered on the broken gun pieces for a second too long shortly after? Fire Emblem's CGI self was awful as ever. The thick, rather inconstant lines, that he's drawn with don't work too well. It's a shame since his character had much more detail when drawn by hand.
So, was I too harsh? Am I thinking about this more than I should? Anyhow, it looks like our heroes will be going head to head with our villain next week. Looking forward to it.
