Category Media

Jul 10 2011

Episode 15 or nice guys just can’t get a break

That thing with summer and swimsuits that producer Tamura talked about in the magazine snippet we found? Well we did get characters in swimsuits in this episode, just as he promised. But no beach episode. In other words, trolled again. （；￣д￣） And apart from finding inventive ways to distract us with, this episode had a lot of interesting stuff going on…

15. The sky’s the limit…
限界は空高くに。。。

This week, King of Moe has his spot in the limelight. And Tiger & Bunny is a really cruel show to the nicest of the nice guys.

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Jul 9 2011

Blue Rose’s character song single

Blue Rose’s character song single came out yesterday and we were able to sample it today. If we have to find something nice to say about it, I guess it would be that it’s very in-character. The single has two songs sung by Minako Kotobuki, Blue Rose/Karina’s seiyuu, and karaoke versions of them.

The first track is GO NEXT! which is also the in-series Hero TV closing theme. It’s credited to Blue Rose, and even at best ear-grating. The song doesn’t suit Kotobuki’s voice and we felt that it was purposefully made to sound worse than it could have been. It makes sense from the character’s point of view. It’s something the sponsors want Blue Rose to sing, unlike the other song on the CD.

The second track is My Song which was the insert song in episode 4. It’s credited to Karina Lyle and is a much more pleasant listening experience. It’s a song that represents Karina’s own dreams and it does much better justice to Kotobuki’s voice. Still, overall My Song doesn’t leave a lasting impression.

We can’t really recommend this CD for the music. But if you’re a big fan of Minako Kotobuki or if you liked the insert song in episode 4, then it might be worth getting.

Jul 8 2011

Episode titles 16-19 again… (updated)

I could update my earlier post about episode titles, but the August issue of Newtype magazine had an additional title listed so might as well make a new one. We refuse to speculate until we have some sort of idea where the plot might be going from here. Episode titles 1-15 listed here.

16. Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
-真実は井戸の底にある-

Meaning: To find the truth, you may have to dig deep. Japanese title is a direct translation of the English one.

17. Blood is thicker than water.
-血は水よりも濃い-

Meaning: The bonds of family and common ancestry are stronger than those bonds between unrelated people (such as friendship). This is an originally German proverb and the Japanese title is a direct translation of the English one.

18. lgnorance is bliss.
-知らぬが仏-

Meaning: If knowing something makes you unhappy, it would be better not to know it. The full version is “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

19. There’s no way out.
–袋の鼠–

This isn’t a proverb or an idiom. The Japanese title wasn’t given so it’s possible that it refers to a proverb, there’s been at least one clumsily translated one in the titles before. Update: found what seems to be the correct Japanese title. It means “rat in a trap”. There are many proverbs about rats, but this could be part of “a cornered rat may dare to bite a cat” which is a Chinese proverb. There’s a German proverb that is very similar to this, too.


And now for something completely different…

Aki dug this up on /a/. We don’t have a source which magazine it is from, but at least Animage and Newtype August issues have come out so it’s probably from one of them.

Q: Which one of the male characters would enjoy summer?

Tamura (producer): Fire Emblem, he’d do a lot of sight-seeing… of men. (laughs) And while we are talking about summer, there will be character(s) in swimsuit(s) in the show soon, so look forward to it!
Yep, we saw them swimsuits in episode 15.

Jul 8 2011

Comparing the TV and BD versions

Sunrise have been advertising about fixing the animation for BD/DVD release, but they’re not just fixing derpy character animation. I was skipping through the 2nd BD last night and noted a few additional changes because these scenes really bothered me in the original TV airing. Click the image to view it in full size.

So the Ouroboros symbol on the dollar bill was just a derp changed because people read too much into it, and here we were trying to figure out why the hell it was there…

(By the way, Tiger & Bunny looks really good in full HD and the BDs have English subtitles.)

And in totally unrelated news, HLJ are getting undersupplied with their figure preorders, our Deformeister order was just cancelled. щ(ﾟДﾟщ)

Jul 5 2011

2nd OP and ED

Like I mentioned in the episode 14 post, new opening and ending songs premiered. They’re similar in style as the first set of songs and both are performed by new artists. This is also going to be the post where I finally throw my hands in the air in resignation. It was a personal challenge for me to not let my fujoshi show and not talk about all the gay subtext in the series but even the new opening and ending sequences both show that the series creators are pairing Kotetsu and Barnaby. Truthfully, maybe my challenge was silly now that I’ve been reading comments about episode 14 – it’s really hard to be blind to how these guys are acting around each other. Even my straight male friends are pointing it out to me.

Anyway, click the cut and let’s take a look at these.

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