Monthly Archives: July 2011

Jul 26 2011

Full Version of 2nd OP + News (updated)

The 2nd OP single Missing Link by NOVELS is coming out on August 3rd, but the full version’s already on Youtube on Toy’s Factory’s channel.

And some news while I’m at it:

BIGLOBE Spring Season Best Anime Poll

Tiger & Bunny scored 1st place on the 2011 Spring Season Best Anime poll held at BIGLOBE (via Tenkai-japan). The voting was a bit tighter this time than with the best character poll also held at BIGLOBE that the T&B men took by storm.

2nd Manga Serialization

There’s going to be a second manga serialization on top of the already planned ones, this one will be in Miracle Jump. Hiroshi Ueda is set to illustrate it. Writer hasn’t been announced yet. Update August 10: The official Twitter just announced that the manga will have original story by Erika Yoshida who was the 2nd scriptwriter for episode 15.

BD/DVD sales

As expected, the 3rd volume that hit the shelves last week was on 2nd place on the animation sales rankings. (No doubt it would sell even more if Sunrise/Bandai would print more copies to meet the demand.)

Jul 25 2011

What’s in the official books?

I haven’t received my books yet (Official Hero Book is in transit from Japan to me, might have it on wednesday, Hero TV Fanbook is in shipping process) but I found reviews on Amazon.jp that listed the contents. Here’s some summarized translations of the main contents in the books. If there’s errors in the actual contents, I’ll point at the Amazon.jp reviewers. Any translation errors are mine and mine only.

OFFICIAL HERO BOOK

  • Character Introductions (color, 29 pages): Kotetsu, Barnaby 4 pages each, other heroes 2 pages each, 7 pages for the rest of the characters.
  • Story introduction (color, 15 pages): summaries and highlights of episodes 1-13. OP&ED 1 page each.
  • Sternbild Guide (color, 10 pages).
  • Mini articles (color, 2 pages): Find Origami Cyclone!! and focus on the girl who keeps turning up. (Not entirely sure on the second one, but from the wording I am guessing it’s about Scarf-tan.)
  • Storyboards (color, 8 pages).
  • Interviews (b&w, 7 pages): director Keiichi Satou 3 pages, producer Kazuhiko Tamura and designer Masami Ozone 3 pages, original creator&screenwriter Masafumi Nishida 1 page.
  • Cast comments (b&w, 3 pages): mini interviews with the heroes’ voice actors.

HERO TV FANBOOK

  • Poster. Same picture as on the book cover.
  • Character profiles (21 pages): Kotetsu, Barnaby 3 pages each, other heroes 2 pages each, 3 pages for the rest of the characters.
  • Story introduction (26 pages): episodes 1-13, 2 pages per episode. Summaries, staff comments, highlights, previews, etc.
  • Special interviews (12 pages). Interview with Hiroaki Hirata (Kotetsu) and Masakazu Morita (Barnaby) 4 pages, reprint of the interview that was in Cool Voice issue 5 (that one can be read in English here). Interview with Taiten Kusunoki (Antonio), Kenjiro Tsuda (Nathan) and Go Inoue (Keith) 4 pages, originally printed in PASH Deeep!! issue 4. New interview with Masakazu Morita (Barnaby) and Kouji Yusa (Yuri Petrov/Lunatic), 4 pages.
  • Sternbild Guide (4 pages).
  • Machine Guide (2 pages): machines and transportation used by the heroes and Ouroboros.
  • How Tiger&Barnaby’s partnership has developed (2 pages).
  • Enemy profiles (2 pages): Lunatic, Jake Martinez, Kriem, Hans Chuckman.
  • Director Keiichi Satou’s interview (4 pages). Not the same interview that is in the Official Hero Book.

More on all of this once I get the books myself. I’m pretty happy that I chose to order both, from the look at the contents Official Hero Book has more interesting interviews, but the Hero TV Fanbook has a poster which will go on my wall immediately.