Category Merchandise

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.

Jul 22 2011

Manga news updates

There are three Tiger & Bunny manga publications planned.

It seems that Katsura’s one-shot will also be included in his Tiger & Bunny illustration book. I’m not sure if it’ll be in both versions, the regular edition without figure hasn’t been made available for preorders yet. I’ve yet to dig out the artist list for the anthology, they’re not listed on the Ichijinsha site, either. (I preordered it anyway, lol.)

Note: If you want any of the books (not just the mangas), I really recommend ordering them asap. Some sites list the Official Hero Book as out of print (meaning not able to restock). The Official Hero TV Fan Book is still available in the places I checked, but that might not last long if the other book is already out of print. Manga anthology’s been sold out on preorders in some places already and it’s a month to release. I can’t tell if this is because they weren’t prepared for the series to be so popular and haven’t printed enough, or because the demand is really just so high the first print can’t meet it.

Jul 22 2011

Masakazu Katsura artbook preorders closed (updated) + charm set announced

Illustration Book + Wild Tiger Figure

Shueisha put out a notice today that due to the “flood of preorders” (their exact wording) for the Masakazu Katsura illustration book + Wild Tiger figure they had to set a deadline. Any orders made after July 22, 18:00 JST will not be accepted. And that point of time has passed already, so if you managed to order it, congrats.

We’re actually not sure what’s going on anymore. I’ve never been into a series where the merchandise sells this quickly. I didn’t expect the book+figure set to go so fast because it was a bit on the expensive side. And I really wanted to preorder this myself, too, but the price with shipping was just too high for my current financial situation.

Update: Not sure how legit this is, but Go Inoue tweeted some stuff that sounded like they were going to make the book+figure sets to order, but they were getting more orders than they expected and that’s why the deadline was set. Take this with a grain of salt, we have no further confirmation.

Update August 22: The artbook + figure set release date has been pushed back to February 10, 2012.

Deformeister Charm Set

The rubber charm set that was on display at the Tamashii Festival was added to the Tiger & Bunny lineup at the Tamashii website. Release date and price aren’t determined yet. The set has eight charms, 6 cm tall.

Summarized TL from the description on the product page: Kotetsu, Barnaby, Karina, Ivan and Paolin are doing the same poses as on the BD Limited Edition jackets. (Paolin’s design was still in progress so they used photos of the sketches by Masakazu Katsura as the base for her charm.) Keith and Yuri are doing their poses from the 2nd OP stills. And then there’s Doc Saito as the highlight of the set!

(Personally, I’m dying to get the Bunny one, that pout is too cute.)