Category News

Mar 24 2012

Ustream Special Lag And New Sponsors

Hirata: *photobombs*
Morita: “Ojisan!”

I did my best to watch the special on Ustream, but the extreme lag made it really difficult. Seems that they didn’t show the trailer, but I’m not 100% sure because the stream blacked out for minutes at one point, exactly when they were talking about the movie. Ozaki, Hirata and Morita were chatting and they seemed to have a lot of fun but the stuttering and constant freezes made it impossible to keep up with what exactly they were talking about.

New Sponsors

The movie will have the heroes with some new sponsors. The official movie site has them all listed with pictures of the placement, but here they are for convenience:

Wild Tiger: SoftBank, S.H. Figuarts, FamilyMart (new)
Barnaby Brooks Jr.: Bandai, Crusade, Amazon.co.jp
Blue Rose: Pepsi NEX
Rock Bison: Gyu-Kaku, HYBRID Futomen Doudou (new)
Sky High: Ustream, Tamashii Nations, T-Joy (new), MOVIX (new)
Dragon Kid: Calbee, DAM (new)
Fire Emblem: Animate, Domino’s Pizza (new)
Origami Cyclone: Takasu Clinic, Namu Kyara Ouendan, minimini (new), Bandai Visual Club (new)

So only Barnaby and Blue Rose didn’t get any new sponsors. To me the FamilyMart logo on Wild Tiger’s suit looks weird since the old advertisements blended so well with it. Anyways. Brace your wallets because you do realize what these new sponsors mean?

Yeah. Tiger & Bunny S.H. Figuarts The Movie Edition are looming in the future.

Also, Morita will be a guest in Hoshizora Sunrise radio tomorrow, and starting April he’ll also be a personality hosting Hero Radio on Ustream. (Again, region locked.)

Mar 8 2012

Breaking The Radio Silence, And Some Movie Info

It’s been a while since the last post, though I admit not much has happened, apart from Hirata Hiroaki winning a seiyuu award for his role as Kotetsu (we’re still hoping for Morita to get an award for his role, because damn he was good). Also, Aki was busy with her studies and I was sick for almost two weeks so the time&energy haven’t been on our side.

My wallet started to feel a bit better and more supportive of my shopping habit when I got a full time job for two months starting this week. Then I celebrated my new job by ordering the limited edition of Katsura’s artbook and now my wallet has a nervous twitch. (I had been lusting for that book for months so it just couldn’t be helped.) The downside is that due to my new working hours, I may miss the preorder window of chibi-arts Kotetsu tomorrow.

Ok, enough personal blogging, and on to…

Movie Info

Some magazine spoilers are popping up on 2ch, here’s what we got so far via /a/:

  • The first movie is a partially a retelling of the TV series integrating Kotetsu’s past; the movie is centered on Kotetsu’s past and the unknown side of Barnaby, and provides a deeper look into the two of them. Directed by Yoshitomo Yonetani.
  • The second movie is an all-new story, which will also contain some new characters, though the old supporting cast will be explored too. The two movies are standalone.
  • The ticket sales start on March 24 and there will be a live programme on Ustream the same day.
  • Satou will not direct either of the movies due to schedule conflicts, but he is participating in the planning.
  • The first movie incorporates a different POV than the TV series and has a lot of “behind the scenes” happenings.
  • Two thirds of the movie is new material.
  • Heroes will have their moments.
  • Matsui: We will see a different side of closed and revenge-focused Barnaby. It wasn’t seen that much within the TV series, but it has been present the whole time. I think he will be shown as an even more fascinating individual.

SOLD OUT: The Tickets Edition

Nishida on the movies:

  • Q: What should we expect from Kotetsu and Barnaby? What about the two of them would you like to show?
    N: The two movies are set at different points chronologically, so writing about the different distance between them is very enjoyable. They are bound by a very close and firm bond, but I would like to write about how their different ages and circumstances will be causing trouble.

So I was right when I suspected Satou wouldn’t be directing, he’s just too busy. I hope Nishida won’t rewrite what doesn’t need rewriting. There’s no reason to retcon anything.

Update: More stuff from Animage.

  • The first movie’s script is completely done, but Nishida is still writing the second’s.
  • Nishida not only writes the story/script, but also checks the storyboards.
  • Tamura about the first movie: The events connect to one incident seen in the TV series as well. And as the events and memories unfold and are added, the character exploration takes place. We hope that even people who have never seen T&B before will be able to say “Oh, so this is what the story was about.”

Movie site is now open!

Feb 16 2012

Tiger & Bunny Awarded At Tokyo Anime Fair

Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012 announced award winners, and Tiger & Bunny is receiving three awards: TV Anime Excellence Award (shared with Puella Magi Madoka Magica), Seiyuu Award (Hirata Hiroaki as Wild Tiger), and Character Design Award (Katsura Masakazu).

Last year’s Tokyo International Anime Fair was cancelled due to the earthquake, after all the initial controversy with the boycott threats caused by Tokyo Youth Development Ordinance. This year the actual fair will take place in March.

(Personally, I’d have given the seiyuu award to Morita, he went above and beyond all my expectations as Barnaby. Or it should have been an ensemble award, because you can’t have Tiger without Barnaby.)

Feb 13 2012

Tiger & Bunny KING OF WORKS Delayed To June

https://twitter.com/#!/TIGERandBUNNY/status/168907352739811328

The official Tiger & Bunny Twitter announced that KING OF WORKS archive has been delayed, new release date is June 29th. Due to the change, preorder deadline has been extended to April 25th.

The reason of the delay is that they are adding more content and increasing the quality. Instead of three books, there’ll be four, and the total page count has gone up from 400 to 800. They are also adding some new illustrations to go with the archive. The special calendar that comes with it has been changed to start from September 2012 and run to August 2013.

The price of KING OF WORKS remains the same.

( I was really hoping this wouldn’t get delayed. Although I am in glee of getting even more material, the increased page count will mean increased weight and thus increased shipping costs… Ouch. The calendar date change sounds like they’re padding some extra incase they have to delay it again, the calendar was originally supposed to be April 2012 – March 2013.)

Feb 7 2012

First Tiger&Bunny Movie To Open In September (Updated)

Just as Ozaki promised – more information on the movies! The first Tiger & Bunny movie “TIGER & BUNNY – The Beginning” will hit theaters in September, as it was announced today. There isn’t much information about the movie itself yet, but a few things came to my mind when I glanced at the site.

  1. There’s no actual staff listed yet. I doubt Satou is directing this time, his Ashura movie is opening in August and he was just announced to be directing the new Saint Seiya CG movie. He must have several projects going on at the same time on this rate, but that he would also work on Tiger & Bunny movies seems improbable. Ozaki did spoil on Twitter earlier that producer Tamura Kazuhiko is working on the movies and that the same studio is animating them as the anime itself. Only cast listed so far are Hirata and Morita, which is pretty much given.
  2. The title is subject to change as it says on the movie site (that’s what “（仮）” means after the title). I hope they will change it because right now it has too much of a recap movie vibe. It could just be signifying it’s the first movie, though.

As much as I’d like the movie to be all new material, I’m about 99% certain that a portion of it will be recap. Why? From Ozaki’s recent tweets, it’s pretty clear he wants more people to get into Tiger & Bunny and to enjoy it. It would be counter-productive to make a movie that is hard for new audiences to approach. These guys seem very good at marketing their creation, and that’s just pure marketing logic.

I’m fine with some recap though, if it brings more success to Tiger & Bunny.

Update: Seems I was right in my recap thoughts, this article at Anime! Anime! calls the movie a “hybrid episode” with material they weren’t able to use in the series (timeskip stuff, maybe?). It also mentions that the second movie is planned for 2013.

Update 2: Some spoilers from Newtype seem to indicate that the second movie won’t be a direct continuation to the first one – they’ll be stand-alone stories. New character(s) will also be introduced in the movies.

Update 3: I’m seeing lots of comments that maybe the movie will be a prequel. That sounds far fetched to me. Why? Because they’re called Tiger & Bunny movies. They met in the first episode of the series, and before that there was no “Tiger & Bunny”. A prequel would most likely be about Tiger’s early heroing days. I think it’d be fun to watch but it’d just be a Tiger movie, not a Tiger & Bunny movie (I’d totally watch an OVA about Wild Tiger’s early days). Barnaby’s early search for Ouroboros wouldn’t make a very interesting movie, and I doubt his academy days would either, since he seems to have mostly kept to himself and not bonded with anyone.