MangaUK tweeted this image earlier today and when I saw the “Movie 1 Premiere” on the poster I thought “it couldn’t be…” but the U.K. fans – and consequently European fans since this brings the BDs and DVDs closer to our reach – are getting a really good treatment. The first BD/DVD combo volume is coming out October 29th in the U.K.

(I also noticed that Blue Rose is gone from the promotional poster. The poster looks so much better without her that it just underlines how pasted on she was in the previous version.)

I know I can’t be the only one planning a trip to the U.K. in September, right?

Update: According to The-O Network, Viz’s North American release of Tiger & Bunny on DVD and Blu-ray will be early 2013. It could mean that the dub will first be broadcast on TV in the USA, and it goes straight on DVD in the U.K.

Of course, the dates could be subject to change…

• Patrick Seitz as Sky High/Keith Goodman
• Travis Willingham as Rock Bison/Antonio Lopez
• Jamieson K. Price as Albert Maverick
• Stephanie Sheh as Kriem
• Steven Blum as Jake Martinez

At the current speed (announcement every other day) they can drag this on for weeks – and Kotetsu and Barnaby’s VA’s will probably be the last ones to be announced.

We don’t usually watch dubs, and the American voice actors we recognise we have learned to know from game dubs. Because of that we don’t really have any expectations, other than that we don’t want to hear Vic Mignogna in any role, and we would absolutely love to hear Yuri Lowenthal in some role, preferably as Ivan.

What do you think of the cast choices so far, and who would be in your dream voice cast?

Update: More cast announced.

• Laura Bailey as Dragon Kid/Huang Pao-Lin
• Kari Wahlgren as Blue Rose/Karina Lyle
• John Eric Bentley as Fire Emblem/Nathan Seymour

I don’t know if my google-fu is failing or if John Eric Bentley hasn’t done notable anime work before, I only found an IMDB page that seems like it’s the right person.

Update 2: Another cast announcement adds…

• Keith Silverstein as Cain Morris
• Laura Bailey as Mary
• Tara Platt as Agnes Joubert

Well, you know the drill. Re-arrange to your liking or add some objectives of your own for future wars!

TIGER & BUNNY Hero Awards 2011
Format: DVD (region 2) / Blu-ray (region free)
Runtime: 2 hours 39 minutes
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: N/A
Extras: pamphlet, final episode event recording, movie announcement trailer

Hero Awards 2011 was held at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall on November 13th, 2011 and the recording is from the evening event. Almost all of the main cast could make it, only Tsuda Kenjirou (Fire Emblem) wasn’t able to join until at the very end of the event. Despite this he wasn’t entirely absent, there were video messages and he did the “commercial breaks”. All the rest of the heroes’ seiyuu are there, also including Lunatic’s who was the MC for most of the event.

The event is built around a simple plot involving the awards ceremony and a bomb that Sky High heard about, and it’s divided in segments. If you remember the King of Catchphrases poll, the winning lines from it are revealed in the Hero Introduction parts of the event. There are live performances from all of the opening and ending artists. I think NOVELS gave the best live performance, while Tamaki wasn’t really up my alley – but I didn’t like her song very much to begin with.

A customary part of seiyuu events are live dubs, the Hero History segment has the seiyuu reading scenes from the anime. Hirata didn’t seem to need even the manuscript for some of those parts, he looked like he was reciting from memory. There’s a live Twitter corner with Origami-Rock-High where they interact with people tweeting from the live viewing theaters. I had almost forgotten that the live action hero suits appeared on stage too, but they don’t show up until the very end of the bomb story played between other segments. The movie announcement is made near the end.

All the seiyuu are styled (a bit over the top if you ask me) which gives the event more of a feeling of an awards gala. Seiyuu events are often pretty varied with their level of casualness, so I thought it was a nice touch that everyone was coordinated… even though Inoue Gou wasn’t allowed to wear the new coat he bought for it.

One of the best parts is that you can feel the audience’s enthusiasm. There’s a lot of cheering, responses when the cast ask something, waving of glowsticks at the bands, and in the end when Orion wo nazoru plays everyone is singing along while the credits roll. The event is also well-paced, and I didn’t get bored at any point (and I’ve even rewatched it).

Extra material

Japanese BDs and DVDs are pretty expensive compared to what they usually cost in the West, but the extras ease the sting on the wallet a little bit. Hero Awards 2011 comes with an extra disc that has a compilation of the final episode live viewing event. It’s pretty talk heavy, with seiyuu (Hirata and Yusa) and staff (Ozaki, Satou, Nishida, Katsura, Tamura, and Matsui). To be honest I didn’t find it very interesting, because most of the stuff they talk about has since been printed in magazines or published online – the video message from Morita was for me the best part. The extra disc also has the movie announcement trailer from Hero Awards.

You also get a scaled down version of the pamphlet that was sold out at the Hero Awards venue and the live viewing theaters. I think the original pamphlet was about A4 size (someone who has the original one, please correct me if I’m wrong). This one has been scaled to about half of that size, so some of the text is really small and a bit difficult to read – otherwise the quality is great and it’s been printed on good, thick paper.

Tl;dr

I totally enjoyed Hero Awards 2011 and I think it was worth buying. I admit my view is very biased because 1) I love Tiger & Bunny 2) I love the seiyuu of Tiger & Bunny 3) I enjoy watching seiyuu events. If you want to see the cute cast on stage doing cute things, then this is definitely worth the investment. If you have no interest in seiyuu events, this is probably not for you. The lack of subtitles also decreases the value of this recording for those fans who don’t know Japanese.

If this got you interested, SOLD OUT hasn’t critted yet. The following places still have Hero Awards 2011 in stock:

DVD: CDJapan | Amiami | YesAsia
BD: CDJapan | Amiami | YesAsia

Photos & Screencaps:

Thanks to the frequent reprints, I finally managed to grab him and today he arrived.

“So, how about that fried rice, Bunny?”

And a few more pictures in the Facebook album.

Seems that the S.H.Figuarts of Wild Tiger and Barnaby have finally reached a point where they aren’t constantly SOLD OUT. Barnaby was in stock at Big in Japan and Wild Tiger at Hobby Search.

Now I’ll stick to my guns and wait for Fire Emblem – I’ve been wanting him ever since I saw his Figuarts but Bandai saved the girls for last because even Lunatic is coming out before them. (Hopefully they’ll release Crapsuit someday, too.)

Which ones of you will be hitting F5 or Command R on a continuous loop on May 9th? This is going to be an interesting battlefest since MegaHouse has decided to open Kotetsu’s pre-order at the same time with One Piece P.O.P Sailing Again Nico Robin. I expect G.E.M series Kotetsu to sell out within minutes.

We Are Disappoint

The worst fears I had about ZETMAN are turning out to be true. 13 episodes is too little, the pace is far too fast, and they’re changing things too much. I fully expected them to change something – that’s always the case with adaptations – but they’re making the story less dark. I won’t say more about the changes since Aki’s avoiding being spoiled about the manga story. There’s no time to build any characterization at the pace they’re going, and Aki is just confused and doesn’t really give a damn about any of the characters. Or the plot. If they’re even managing to build any plot, so far they’re going for the cool factor and nothing really clicks together. I’m mostly just feeling sad about what they’re doing to ZETMAN. The more I watch it the more I feel like I can’t really recommend it to anyone, and it’s a shame because it does look good and the action sequences are well composed. The opening song is very catchy too. I might end up watching this alone if Aki decides to drop it and read the manga instead.

And The Rest

The previous season, most of the stuff we dropped was because it just turned out boring or plain bad. This season seemed like the season of the ragequit because we actually started with a few of those! After the ill first impressions we found a title that is really worth checking for Taibani fans.

Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyoudai) – Hirata Hiroaki plays the main character: a thirty-something guy who gets fired in the first episode from his job designing (red) sports cars, wears too short pants that show his ankles, squashes his burgers and fails a lot. Sound familiar? Well, it’s not Kotetsu but the parallels are really amusing. We got no idea if Hirata got a bit of typecast here after his success with Kotetsu because he’s using a very Kotetsu-like voice for the role. The series is entertaining with a good pacing, even though the setting itself feels quite generic – the main character has to overcome a lot of obstacles to reach his dreams. I feel like I’ve seen a story like this many, many times before but it doesn’t really bother me. The other things outweigh it. Oh, and Crunchyroll is streaming it so you can watch it there.

We’re also happy that Noitamina is good again after a few seasons of stumbling. We were a bit iffy about Sakamichi no Apollon at first because the series compositor Kakihara Yuuko did an epic failure with Persona 4 the Animation, but so far it’s been really pleasant to watch. Tsuritama was automatically on our watch list because we’ve both got the hots for Nakamura Kenji‘s series – Mononoke is one of our all-time favourites.

The rest of our watch list for this season looks like this: Arashi no yoru ni, Folktales from Japan, Hyouka (this just started so we’re still undecided if we’ll stick with it), Jormungand, Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to iu onna, Eureka Seven AO, and Shirokuma Cafe.

It’s Not Anime But I Like It

Actually, there’s something we want to recommend this season: Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger – a parody on super sentai shows. Now, what makes this interesting for us is that Satou Keiichi did the character design for the show. Maybe we’ll get to see some dangerous underpants (with a surprise bulge) in it. Plus it’s really really funny, even for people who don’t normally watch tokusatsu shows. Give it a try!

About the T&B THE LIVE stage play casting #1: We’ve almost fully assembled the main cast. Our enthusiastic staff and the people at JAE did their best to choose the right actors. In addition to focusing on the appearance, acting skills and the ability to perform action sequences, we paid extra attention to the actors’ behaviour, voice, and the atmosphere they create around themselves to fit the characters’ imagery.

About the T&B THE LIVE stage play casting #2: We also considered choosing from the original anime cast, but due to the physical differences, this time we decided to build the team from scratch to create a play full of action sequences.

About the T&B THE LIVE stage play casting #3: The original cast of characters is full of people representing different races, so we also auditioned people who are not Japanese, but due to the fact that it’s difficult to include subtitles or a dubbing in a live-stage play, we preferred actors fluent in Japanese. However, I believe that the original feel of Sternbild – which is like a melting pot full of people of different races – was preserved well.

About the T&B THE LIVE stage play casting #4: We had two aims in mind: to fulfill the expectations of the fans of the anime, and to perfect this event as a live stage play, and we tried to do our best to balance it out. Of course, whether we achieved our goals or not is for the viewers to judge. After all, we’re still at the starting point.

About the T&B THE LIVE stage play casting #5: The main cast and the information on the play itself (locations and the schedule) is to be announced on the main TIGER & BUNNY THE LIVE site in May. http://www.tb-thelive.net/ Look forward to it!

(Sources: 1 2 3 4 5)

It’s nice how they are obviously putting a lot of work into the stage play. We really hope there’ll be a recording of it released on BD or DVD later. It’s not the same as going to see it in person, but this is just one of those cases of “it can’t be helped”.

The official site updated with a nice preview of the upcoming KING OF WORKS archive. The final look of the set might still change since this is a concept picture, but this gives a better idea of what you’re getting than just listing the things. And speaking of lists, here’s what the archive contains:

1. Settings Collection (B4 size, 256 pages)
2. Scripts Collection (B5 size, two volumes with 208 pages each)
3. Original Illustrations Collection (B4 size, 144 pages)
4. A box to hold all of it.
5. Calendar (September 2012 to August 2013)
6. Illustration of Kotetsu and Barnaby (no preview for that yet)

The total page count (without the calendar) is 816, and the price for all this is still the same as before, 5,880 JPY.

The Japanese fans are calling KING OF WORKS a “definitive blunt weapon”, and it’s going to be quite a hefty package. For comparison, this pile of books has 768 pages and it weighs almost exactly three (3) kilos:

Filed under: Media, Merchandise, News, Official Books and Manga, Tiger&Bunny ]]> http://thisissternbild.com/2012/04/16/king-of-works-sneak-peek/feed/ 5 derpchan kow_preview official-books http://thisissternbild.com/2012/04/14/review-s-h-figuarts-rock-bison/ http://thisissternbild.com/2012/04/14/review-s-h-figuarts-rock-bison/#comments Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:52:22 +0000 kirayamato44 http://thisissternbild.com/?p=3852 ]]>

Bandai has given TaiBani fans a lot reasons to lose sleep and battle for their favorite Heroes in action figure form with the S.H.Figuarts line. The line so far has seen the releases of Wild Tiger, Barnaby Brooks Jr., Sky High, Darkness Bunny, Wild Tiger Masakazu Katsura original color version, and Rock Bison. Rock Bison was the third figure released in the Figuarts line back on December 17, 2011. His pre-order window opened on August 1st, and like all Tiger & Bunny merchandise it sold out in a flash. Unfortunately, I missed out on Rock Bison’s pre-order date and woke up to see the usual “Sold Out” next to his figure. Lucky for me, I was able to hunt down and obtain him a couple of weeks after his December release over at Mandarake. Now, let’s see if my hunt for Rock Bison was worth it.

First, let’s take a look at Rock Bison’s box. On the left side of the box in a large black font outlined with olive green color is Rock Bison’s name. A quick glimpse toward the center and you can see Rock Bison through the clear plastic. Towards the center bottom of the box we see a picture of the Tiger & Bunny logo along with Antonio Lopez on the left and Rock Bison on the right. Last but not least, you can see the Bandai and the Tamashii Nations logos on the bottom right hand side of the box. In case of bootlegs, I always like to mention the logos printed on the box as a sign of authenticity.

The side of the Box feature Rock Bison in basic pose just as the front of the box.

Let’s take a peek at the back of Rock Bison’s box. Right away you can see Masakazu Katsura’s name in a bold yellow and red font along the top left corner of the box. Throughout the back of the box you can see Rock Bison pictured in several different action poses.

Inside of Rock Bison’s packing is a set of instructions. The instructions show you step by step how to switch Rock Bison’s hands, insert his drills onto his shoulders, and attach his breathing hose.

A closer look at Rock Bison’s packaging which includes: Rock Bison, 2 drills, extra set of hands, and 2 breathing hoses.

His stand is olive green with ROCK BISON written across it. Antonio Lopez’s name is written underneath. On the bottom right hand corner you have “Kronos Foods”, his sponsor company. Although the figure does include a stand, Rock Bison can stand perfectly well on his own.

Finally, after taking him out of his box prison, we can get a full 360 degree view of “Bull Tank of the West Coast”. The first detail I noticed with Rock Bison’s Figuarts was the ability to move his waist armor. That gives the figure great mobility.

Here’s a quick bust shot of Rock Bison. You can easily spot the product placement on his shoulder armor.

A close up of Rock Bison’s head. His bull horns, head protector, and bull ring are painted with a gold metallic paint. One of the things that caught my attention was the red cover on his face mask. I never noticed in the anime that it was shaped like a bull’s head. Another great detail worth noting are the very well-defined rivets along his head armor.

One of the many fun features of Rock Bison’s Figuarts is the bull ring. It was quite a nice surprise to find out that it can be moved. As you can see, it has a tiny paint scuff underneath but it’s not a deal breaker.

Rock Bison’s head from behind without the breathing hose attached. As you can see there are four bolts in a cross shape on the back of his head. The bolt on the bottom is where you attach one end of the breathing hose.

Taking a closer look, you can see that the same gold metallic paint is used on the top bolt. The two center “bolts” are a honey color clear plastic, and they are actually lamps for his Lightning Mode – in the anime they light up when he uses his NEXT power. There’s some engraving next to the bolts, giving the figure that extra oomph.

Here’s the breathing hose attached to Rock Rison.

One of the first things you need to do when you remove Rock Bison out of his packaging is attach the two drills onto his shoulder armor. It’s a very simple process. On each side of his shoulder there is a joint which you simply attach each drill to.

Here are the drills finally in place. You can actually rotate them without a problem.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the great things I love about the TaiBani Figuarts is actually seeing the product placement on the hero suits. Here we see a close up of Rock Bison’s sponsor “Gyu-Kaku”. The sponsor logo is painted on both sides of his shoulder armor.

Moving onto his chest armor – you can see a gold buckle along with leather belt strap that comes straight down the middle of his chest plate armor. There’s great detail on the leather strap, and the belt loops stand out well. You can also see Antonio’s brown body suit and the abdominal definition.

On the side there are two leather straps that keep Rock Bison’s chest armor in place.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, Rock Bison comes with two sets of hands. Switching his hands is just as easy as placing the drills on his shoulders. You can simply just pop in the hand in his wrist joint. The hands are also marked with L or R so you know which goes where.

A close up of his fist.

The alternative hands make him look like he’s ready to grab a criminal for some hero points.

There’s a noticeable seam on the gold plate around his wrist.

Rock Bison’s waist armor is held up by a belt that wraps completely around him. The waist armor reminds me of the tare I wore around my waist as protection when I was practicing kendo. Much like the tare, Rock Bison’s armor consists of three vertical flaps which protect him from the waist down. The well-detailed rivets form an intricate design pattern. This definitely makes his suit look like a “Bull Tank”.

If you look at the belt from behind, you can see a paint splotch underneath the right silver button. Honestly, I didn’t even notice this until I took the close up shot. It’s hard to spot with the naked eye. I must say that Rock Bison’s belt from behind looks like a thong because the strap goes all the way to the front. You get a nice view of Antonio’s muscular build in the body suit underneath the armor. **This is my panty shot**

One of the very cool features of the Tiger and Bunny S.H.Figuarts line is the fact that so far all of their feet have been made out of metal. This unique feature gives the figures a better balance. Rock Bison’s boots have a golden bull horn on the end. His ankles have joints that give him a lot of movability. Even the soles of his boots have great detailing.

Although he’s a bit heavy compared to the other Figuarts, he’s still very easy to move. Here are some “Powerful Action Pose” shots just like the ones on the back of his box.

I couldn’t resist taking a picture with Rock Bison wearing the “Let’s believe HEROES” sash.

I thought I should include at least one picture with Rock Bison on his stand.

I’m very pleased with Bandai’s work on Rock Bison’s Figuarts. There are a couple of little paint scuffs on him but it’s nothing that would be a deal breaker. His movability is top notch and although he doesn’t come with any major accessories, he’s still a fun figure. At the moment Rock Bison is on his second re-release which is due out in May. If you missed his restock, don’t worry. There are still a couple places that do have him in stock. He’s currently available at Mandarake (4,500Y), Anime Island ($53.63), Power Anime (53.99), and BBTS (59.99).

And now I believe our hero wants to add something, too:

“Ushi!” ~ [うし！]