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 24 2012

So Who’s Going To Watch ZETMAN?

The Spring 2012 anime chart is pretty complete already. There isn’t that much that tickles our fancy on the list, except for one title… And this isn’t directly Tiger & Bunny related, but close enough. T&B’s original character designer Katsura Masakazu‘s manga ZETMAN is getting a TV anime which starts in April.

Although we are really excited about this, we have some reservations.

  1. The staff. It seems that the director Nabeshima Osamu‘s biggest achievement so far is D.Gray-man anime. DGM anime was pretty uneven, but I think the ending was fine (I ragequit the manga at the weird zombie apocalypse arc). The screenwriter Tomioka Atsuhiro is mostly known for Inazuma Eleven and Pokémon, though he has also written stuff not aimed at kids. We’ll see how this turns out, especially because…
  2. …rumour has it that ZETMAN will be a one-cour show. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, because I am reading the manga and it doesn’t seem like 13 episodes will be enough. Of course, it’s possible they announce a S2 before the series ends, but it’s all too likely they’ll make the adaptation to cater to manga readers and leave out a lot of things.
  3. The lack of actual princess-carries (yeah I know the correct term in English is bridal carry but that’s how we roll here in Sternbild) in the manga! The original main visual of ZETMAN anime had Jin princess-carrying Kouga, but there’s no scene like that in the manga. I have a pretty good idea about who this advertising was aimed at…
  4. The PV.

Technically it looks pretty good, but the scenes don’t really connect. The colours look gritty but that’s fine considering the source material. I’m looking forward to see all those scenes animated. Aki hasn’t read the manga (and she doesn’t want to be spoiled), so here are her thoughts on the PV:

My first three thoughts were: a) great suit design (though I suppose that’s all thanks to Katsura) b) this video gives you this impression that the anime will have some nice and fast-paced action scenes and c) I like how different it feels from Taibani, since it is usually colorful and feels very “alive”, while Zetman goes the dark and edgy way. But I don’t think it’s the “bad” dark and edgy, I think they might actually pull this off and be more on the side of “epic dark” and not “emo dark”.

The cast choices seem pretty good to me. I’m a big fan of Namikawa Daisuke so I was happy to see him cast as Jin and I think he’ll be great for the role. There are a couple of familiar names from Tiger & Bunny among the cast: Kusunoki Taitem, Ise Mariya, and Yusa Kouji. Yusa especially seems like a great choice for Haitani’s role. Hanazawa Kana seems a bit typecast as Konoha, I hope she doesn’t end up annoying me.

More about what we actually wind up watching sometime later when the series have already started. I think we’ve dropped like over half of the series we started watching in the current season, so we filled some of that spare time by watching Maou (episodes 4-11 written by Nishida Masafumi). It’s good, by the way. We haven’t seen the original Korean drama that it’s adapted from so we can’t say how it compares, but it is definitely worth a watch. Like Aki said, it’s more serious than the usually goofy Japanese dramas, so even if you’re normally put off by them we’d recommend giving Maou a chance. The writing is great, and the acting is generally very good – only Ikuta Toma should lay off the caffeine since he’s over-the-top hot-headed most of the time. (Just remember to bring tissues if you decide to give it a try.)

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.)