Category Merchandise

Aug 26 2011

Review: Tiger & Barnaby’s character song CD

TVアニメ「TIGER & BUNNY」 キャラクターソング「正義の声が聞こえるかい」
(TV anime “Tiger & Bunny” Character Song “Seigi no Koe ga Kikoerukai”)

Artists: Wild Tiger/Kotetsu T. Kaburagi (Hiroaki Hirata) & Barnaby Brooks Jr. (Masakazu Morita)
Drama Script: Masafumi Nishida
Song Lyrics: Saori Kodama
Composers: Kosuke Yamamoto (duet), Takuya Watanabe (Kotetsu’s song), Miki Fujisue (Barnaby’s song)
Buy: CDJapan | Amiami | Amazon Japan

The CD contains four drama tracks and three songs, tracklist here. Lyrics in kanji and romaji are available here. Anonymous translations of the songs and drama tracks here.

This is the first character CD I’ve actually bought, I confess I’m not a big fan of character songs. There are many voice actors who aren’t that great singers, and I was actually very surprised when I went to check how Hiroaki Hirata and Masakazu Morita sound when singing. (Though I think I’d have ordered this CD anyway even if I wasn’t encouraged by browsing their song samples on YouTube.) My memory of Morita’s voice was from almost 5 years ago when he sang the first Bleach character songs and I was totally floored when I heard his newer stuff. He’s developed tremendously, and Hirata is also a very good singer – though I was told he doesn’t actually like singing very much.

The drama tracks

The short drama tracks between the songs tie the whole CD together. They’re written by the series creator and screenwriter, Masafumi Nishida, and judging by the characterization the scenes probably take place somewhere between episodes 3 and 7. Barnaby is his early first cour tsun-tsun, and Kotetsu is… well, Kotetsu. I daresay the drama tracks are a bit nostalgic considering how the story in the series is currently proceeding. In my opinion they’re best part of the CD together with the duet.

The songs aren’t as well in character in my opinion as on Blue Rose’s CD, but the drama tracks serve really well to keep the feeling of the characters. (And unlike Blue Rose’s songs, these do not make cringe.)

Seigi no Koe ga Kikoerukai (the duet)

The duet was probably the song everyone (including me) was looking forward to the most, and I wasn’t disappointed. It is quite simply put fun. It’s fun to listen to, fun to sing along to, and just puts a huge grin on my face – especially when they get to the “lalalalala” part in the end. The lyrics are just the right kind of cheesy. Hirata and Morita’s voices work well together (much better than I expected!) and I’m actually left hoping they’d record more duets. The song itself isn’t really groundbreaking in any way, but it’s full of good feeling and definitely the best of the three on this CD.

Hamidashimono Sanka (Kotetsu’s song)

I think that Hirata doesn’t really sound like Kotetsu while singing this. And the feeling from the lyrics gives an impression that the singer is way older than Kotetsu’s estimated age. This isn’t a bad song, and it suits his voice well, but it can’t compete with the duet. There’s this a kind of a mellow feeling that I get from listening to Kotetsu’s song, I can’t really describe it in another way. Of the three, this song left the weakest impression on me.

POWER OF JUSTICE (Barnaby’s song)

This song is so Barnaby it hurts. The lyrics are – again – cheesy, but more in a comical way with gratuitous Engrish thrown into the mix. Morita has a pretty interesting pronunciation that wasn’t so prominent on the duet and that also leads to unintended hilarity when some words sound different from what they should. Also, he sings fairly well in character – he’s even kept Barnaby’s slight lisp (DOUTHITE?!). I didn’t notice him lisping that badly while singing when I listened to his other songs so I can only jot it down to “being in-character”. The song has a kind of a 90’s pop feel to it, which gives me slight nostalgia. I didn’t really like this song that much at first but now it’s grown on me.

Overall reception

The CD came out on Wednesday, and for a character CD it’s been doing incredibly well on the charts. It has been on 1st place on Amazon Japan’s anime music CD ranking, and also as high as the 6th place on the overall music CD ranking there. On the release day it was on 1st place on CDJapan’s daily anime CD ranking and it’s still hanging in the top 10 (and the day before its release it was 2nd on preorder list there). It’s also been on 6th and 5th places on Oricon’s daily CD single list, so it’s probably worth keeping an eye on the weekly ranking too!

Personally, I think Tiger & Barnaby’s CD was definitely worth the money. It doesn’t try too hard, and overall it’s a fun combination. Even the cover is epic in its own way, with Barnaby doing one of his “unfortunate” poses. I can only recommend. (^ω<)~☆

Aug 24 2011

Masakazu Katsura’s artbook + figure set release date changed

The release date of the limited edition of character designer Masakazu Katsura‘s artbook with the original coloring version of Wild Tiger S.H. Figuarts has been changed. The new date appeared in a Rakuten store last week, but I wanted to confirm it from another source. The new release date is February 10, 2012.

The regular edition isn’t available anywhere for preorder yet, so I’m not sure if it’ll come out at the same time with the limited edition or if the release date will be different.

Other book news

  • The first official comic anthology from DNA Comics is coming out tomorrow, August 25th.
  • Another source book, “Official Guide Book Hero Gossips” from Kadokawa Shoten, is coming out in late September. It will cover the entire series and also features a new “tribute story”. Cheapest price I’ve found so far is at CDJapan, but it’s also listed in most other online stores selling Tiger & Bunny merchandise.
Aug 20 2011

Opinion: Please, take my money!

Hello! I’m derpchan, the member of Sternbild who is trying to find ways to kill time before episode 21 airs. There’s a lot of merchandise talk now that release dates are finally coming up, so I figured I’d share some of my thoughts on that. It’s not something new for me to buy stuff related to my favourite show/movie/book/etc. I’ve got a collection of figures, books, posters, gunpla, games, CDs and DVDs that I’ve accumulated over the years to show my powerlevel. But Tiger & Bunny is really making me lay down the cash from my meager funds like no fandom before has. And judging how fast the merchandise is selling out already on preorders, I’m not the only one…

Popular theory: Keiichi Satou is a powerful NEXT.
His ability is to make people buy merchandise.

Usually I buy a lot of fanmade goods, so I didn’t mind it too much that to begin with there was barely any official merchandise for Tiger & Bunny. Many people were even looking up stuff that had been placed in the show by the animators and buying those instead to fill the merchandise void. (I wonder if Kenzo has noticed an increase in sales thanks to Tiger & Bunny? People are still buying it to smell like Kotetsu!) Now it’s like the floodgates have been opened and stuff just keeps popping up left and right (and selling out on preorders) and every week there’s something new when I check the store listings.

For me, wanting to support the show plays a big part in why I’m buying so much merchandise. I could manage without, and I could certainly use my money for something that I need more. But there’s just something irresistible about Tiger & Bunny. And it gives an odd feeling of satisfaction to me to proverbially push my money over the counter (I buy most of the stuff online, see?) to prove it to Sunrise that the show they had no faith in is really pretty awesome, at least in my opinion. That’s also why I’m mostly buying official merchandise this time – I want my money to count.

Although I’m dying to have that shiny Fire Emblem Figuarts on my shelf, I don’t expect actually getting one. The battle for every Figuarts preorder so far has been bloody, and with online stores crashing under the flood of people wanting the items I don’t expect success in getting a preorder in. Many of my friends want especially Sky High, and I’ve got a feeling there’ll be a lot of tears and despair when he finally becomes available. Even Rock Bison who isn’t so popular among the Western fandom as in Japan sold out in minutes. In that light it’s kind of relieving to be primarily a book collector, since even though the books are selling out they’re not going as fast as the figures. There’s gonna be at least as many as five or six official source books (maybe even more) and only two are out so far, so I won’t be done with my book shopping any time soon.

I wanted to finish this post with a sip from a Barnaby coffee mug like a boss, but sadly it hasn’t arrived yet. How’s the shopping working for you guys?

Aug 15 2011

Tiger & Barnaby’s character song on Hoshizora Sunrise radio on August 21st

http://twitter.com/#!/hoshi_sun/status/102756685269049344

Tiger & Barnaby’s duet will be played during the Hoshizora Sunrise radio show that airs August 21st at 23:00 JST. According to the Twitter update, the song should play around 23:30 JST. You can find instructions how to listen to the radio here.

Tiger & Barnaby’s character song single is coming out on August 24th, more information with samples of the solo songs here.

(I’m looking forward to this!  ✧･ﾟ:*o(≧ω≦)o*:･ﾟ✧ Both Morita and Hirata are pretty good singers so I have great hopes for the duet!)

Aug 14 2011

Tracklist & cover for Wild Tiger & Barnaby character song single (Updated)

Title: TV Anime TIGER & BUNNY Character Song “Seigi no Koe ga Kikoerukai” [Buy!]
Street date: August 24, 2011
Artists: Hiroaki Hirata (Wild Tiger/Kotetsu T. Kaburagi) & Masakazu Morita (Barnaby Brooks Jr.)
Track Listing:
01: Hero Unit “T&B” Tanjuu?! (Monologue 1)
02: Tiger & Barnaby Character Song “Seigi no Koe ga Kikoerukai” [sample]
03: Kotetsu, Hero no Iji (Monologue 2)
04: Tiger’s Character Song “Hamidashimono Sanka” [sample]
05: Barnaby no Gyakushuu (Monologue 3)
06: Barnaby’s Character Song “POWER OF JUSTICE” [sample]
07: Ketsuretsu… Soshite? (Monologue 4)
(source)
Updated to fix romaji, this is what happens when I type up stuff after episode 20 while wanting to toss tables. For srs. ( ﾟДﾟノ)ﾉ~┻┻
I was pretty excited about this CD when it was announced and every time there’s updated information I get more excited. I love the cover, too, with Bunny’s unfortunate posing again.
If you haven’t heard the voice actors sing before, you can find some samples here. (My favourite tracks for them are Asterisk by Morita and Rebirth by Hirata, btw.)