I first found out about Tiger and Bunny through my site last year when I discovered the spin-off movie Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning which essentially just rehashed the first couple episodes of the series or so and added in a new third act. This year I watched the second spin-off film from the single season series called the Rising which followed after the end of the show and made me want to watch the whole series even more. The world of Tiger and Bunny is fascinating to me, it’s set in a world similar to the X-Men, but instead of being persecuted for being different, the mutants, or NEXTs as they’re called in this series, are celebrated as celebrities and heroes. There’s even a popular television station dedicated to their coverage in a season long reality style competition with points for capturing criminals, saving civilians, and other various heroics.
Tiger and Bunny came out in 2011 in Japan and is currently streaming on Hulu which is where I watched it. It’s available in both the original Japanese language with subtitles and also with the English dub. I watched the two movies in Japanese, and my daughter was somewhat interested in the show so I opted to watch the English dub this time around. The show was produced by Sunrise who are probably best known for Mobile Suit Gundam. The show is a mix of mostly traditional line drawn anime for the characters, and CGI for some of the background elements as well as the mech suits worn by the main characters Kotetsu aka Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks Jr. who doesn’t have a hero name but is given the nickname Bunny by his partner Kotetsu.
The series is generally an action comedy where the heroes have several fights and disasters that they have to go into action, but there’s also a lot of comedy coming from both the fact that Wild Tiger is a bit of a loose cannon and a klutz so he ends up getting into trouble more often than he gets others out of trouble. There’s also quite a bit of time spent with the characters in between the action beats where they have to deal with their sponsors, the television executives, and each other. I enjoyed both of the films quite a bit and I’m really excited to dig deeper into this world for the next 25 episodes!
Channel: Superhero 