TIGER AND BUNNY
When I initially saw the poster and banner for this series, I thought this would be a playboy ecchi or a Mafia series. Soon after, I saw it tagged as a shounen-mecha with comedy and action. Either way, whichever it is, mecha or Mafia, or even ecchi.
The quality of the banner made me think this wasn’t going to be any good. I’m so glad I went against my gut and watched this series anyway because it's not about Mafia, mecha, or ecchi; it’s literally about Superheroes! Why did none of the forums for this series say that? It’s insanely weird to think a series so good would have zero people mentioning the natural superhero aspect of it. This was a great show. Let me get into why.
Set in the futuristic city of Stern Bild, where people with superpowers are referred to as the NEXT. These NEXT get sponsorships as they become superheroes and begin fighting crime. Our protagonist is called Kotetsu T Kaburagi, who is the “Crusher for Justice” superhero, and he’s in a bit of a challenging situation. Kotetsu gets kicked by his sponsors, so all he can do now is wait until he’s retired. Lucky him, though, he gets picked up by another company called Apollon Media.
Though their condition on giving him a sponsorship is that he partners up with Barnaby Brooks Jr., Kotetsu has more of a lone wolf mentality, so he refuses to work with him on many stages. Safe to say, they get off on the wrong foot. It stays that way for a while in the series, too, as Kotetsu and Barnaby (Bunny-Chan) warm up to each other and learn to work as a team. However, Bunny has a dark secret that he hasn’t told anyone, not even Kotetsu.
It’s such a refreshing take on a buddy comedy with two heroes, opposing ideals, and end goals running around and fighting crime together. It focuses significantly on the psychological aspects of being a superhero and the backstories that lead them to this life.
The series has a couple of episodes that have self-contained arcs. These self-contained one-episode-long arcs bring so much perspective into the lives of these characters in the series, not just Kotetsu or Bunny, but also the rest of the side characters, such as the other heroes like Blue Rose, Rock Bison, Dragon Kid, Origami, and Fire-Emblem.
In comparison, different arcs go on for several episodes, which focus on particular super-villains that these heroes band together to defeat. However, the breadcrumb trail of foreshadowing this series does is almost as great as that of Shingeki No Kyojin (AOT). This brings us to the final point about this series; it’s all about the DRAMA at its core.
The drama of a dad trying his hardest to make his daughter think that he is cool. Promising to spend time with her but then unable to live up to it because of being called away. The drama of a man drowning in revenge after the murder of his parents. Barnaby himself is a massive aspect of this drama, the way they portray him holding his melodramatic angst as he finds every single opportunity to let loose and let it all out on his enemies. Working with Kotetsu brings a much-needed sense of clarity in both his character and Kotetsu’s personality.
The animation is borderline perfection; the vistas are filled with nighttime sparkling city life in Stern Bild. The outlining for this series is done in a brown tint instead of the usual black, so everything looks warmer and alive. The action is exhilarating, though it does use a ton of CGI. Most of it is utilized on the chunky suits of the superheroes. It looks great too, the CGI does not take away from the experience whatsoever, though that doesn’t mean the purists won’t complain. The only part where I think the CGI doesn’t work too well is Fire-Emblem’s skin-tight suit.
After some research, I found out that the series gained a lot of attention for using actual real-life sponsor names on the superhero suits. The chests of these superheroes’ suits had the logos of companies or “Sponsors” such as SoftBank and Bandai Namco. It had a significant impact on the Otaku world, mainly because many people are familiar with these trendy names in Japan.
Now to talk about the music, I knew that the music was not going to disappoint. The music in the series is so fun that I usually play it in my free time just for the heck of it. It goes from smooth jazz to regular jazz, opera music, and then something in between all these combined. In fact, I think an accurate comparison for the music in this series is Pixar’s “The Incredibles” films. The music in both films is almost identical to the music in Tiger and Bunny.
The main takeaway from Tiger and Bunny that I got is that it isn’t a regular shounen. Most shounen focuses on the action or the lack thereof. In contrast, Tiger and Bunny concentrate on the partnership between its two main characters and their interactions with the rest of the characters. The series makes you deeply care about these characters through the deep storytelling backdrops and the backstories.
This is why the series is most probably going to attract people from all demographics in anime. It doesn’t matter whether you like drama, action, comedy, great music, or even a fan of the animation; Tiger and Bunny have you covered. Set in an exciting setting with a compelling cast of characters in a fascinating set of situations, give this show a try. Tiger and Bunny might just be the thing you’re looking for in the current anime drought that’s happening.
