Category News

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.)

Jul 20 2011

Masakazu Katsura artbook up for preorders

Character designer Masakazu Katsura‘s Tiger & Bunny artbook special limited edition is up for preorders now at Rakuten, Otacute and Hobby Search. Amiami, CDJapan and Amazon.jp seem to have sold out already. It comes with a special original coloring S.H. Figuarts Wild Tiger figure.

The price might slow preorder sale a bit this time, 6800 JPY + shipping. Though chances are that it’ll be hard to get on release date if you procrastinate.

There’ll also be a regular edition without the figure but it hasn’t been made available for preorder yet.

 

Update: All preorders closed early.

Jul 19 2011

Fandom response (updated)

I think it’s safe to say that the Tiger & Bunny only doujin event GO NEXT! that was held yesterday has confirmed that this is no longer just an anime. This is a phenomenon.

These are just shoppers queueing to get in to the venue of the event. Aki pulled this picture from a Japanese blog where people were joking about how queueing requires Kotetsu’s endurance. Reports say that catalogs (which also act as tickets to the event) were sold out in advance, and many circles sold out before the end of the event all the shoppers even managed to get in. (See comments for more on this.)

Of course events like this are just one way to measure popularity, but you have to take into account that just about all merchandise is selling out on preorders weeks or even months before they’re released. Figure preorders sell out in minutes. Aki talked to her Japanese friend who estimated that Tiger & Bunny is starting to hit the same level of popularity as series like Durarara!! and Hetalia which have been around for years. Tiger & Bunny is also extremely popular among 25-40 year old females.

The overall response to episode 16 has also been amazing. People who joked about Lunatic are apologizing now and joking about him isn’t cool anymore in general. Everyone seems to want Kotetsu and Barnaby to just be bros and hug it out and everything will be fine.

Director Sato, whatever you are doing, you are doing it so right that no one can keep up. Please don’t stop.