Oct 18 2011

Opinion: “But why is it not TaiBani?”

So… Summer season ended, and Tiger & Bunny with it. Fall season started, without new Tiger & Bunny episodes. This presents a “tiny” problem.

None of the new anime feel that exciting. Aki and I actually had that problem the previous season with the new series that started then but it wasn’t such a big deal because hey, we had Tiger & Bunny! We still ended up watching some series against our better judgement and for shits and giggles. Now there’s nothing to distract us from the fact that the new stuff is pretty damn stale. All the series we had decided to check out for this season have started and we’ve seen at least one episode of each.

So what’s wrong, really?

It’s hard not to compare the Fall anime to Tiger & Bunny when we’ve practically lived and breathed it for six months, and still are. Both of us have become a lot more critical of the anime we watch after – and during – Tiger & Bunny. I was actually thinking of blogging a series this season, but nothing really gets me interested enough to put the same kinda passion into talking about it as we feel with T&B. In fact, the usual proceeding after watching something that is not T&B is that we go back to talking about T&B within minutes.

The biggest problem this season has is that everything even remotely interesting has defaulted back to the angsty-teenager-high-school-student-protagonist with a backing cast of teenage classmates regardless of genre. Anime is just a medium as any other, but most of the anime produced today hasn’t grown up with the audience and it gives this feeling of “haven’t I seen this before?” Take Guilty Crown for example. It is a pretty obvious mix of Macross (songbird chick), Persona (social linking gone bad) and it tilts heavily into Code Geass. Did I mention it has an angsty teenage protagonist? This is just the impression from the first episode, so it’s a bit too early to judge the entire series based on it. First impression still isn’t outstanding.

Of course, clichés and stereotypes are easy to handle and safe bets. Although I’ve been watching the generic stuff for years, it only took a few months with Tiger & Bunny to kill my interest for it. The older protagonists and a diverse cast where everyone is a personality and not just a stereotype makes T&B much more interesting to watch. In fact, we can talk for hours about how complex characters Kotetsu and Barnaby are. For example, it’s easy to miss many finer points of Kotetsu’s character development if you aren’t putting a little thought into it.

Note that I’m not saying that Tiger & Bunny is how anime should be, because I can acknowledge the fact that it wasn’t flawless and there were a lot of things that could have been done better – and not just QUALITY gym time. What the creators of T&B did was that they dared to take the risk, and dared to do things differently and that is what made it stand out. Both of us want to see more of this kind of risk taking – not just anime that tries to imitate Tiger & Bunny but that takes its own risks and turns them into success.

Didn’t I just say that we end up talking about Tiger & Bunny all the time? I was supposed to be blogging about the anime this season…

What does Sunrise do?

Since Tiger & Bunny is a Sunrise product, it’s only fair to check out what they’re doing this season, right? I watched Sacred Seven in its entirety on the previous season, just to see what they expected would be the better seller. When it started I said I’d watch it until the first BD sales were out, and it was only later when I realized I’d actually have to complete the series before that. I was pig-headed enough to hold out. Needless to say I wasn’t impressed, though S7 had its moments… most of them provided not by the series itself.

We’ve checked the new series from Sunrise this season and it’s kinda like S7 all over. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere is so bad it’s not even funny, and although Phi Brain sounded good on paper it sunk into mediocrity and couldn’t even hold interest for more than one episode. Gundam AGE is just a glorified gunpla ad, clearly aimed to capture a new generation to buy the plastic. I doubt we can sit through it for many more episodes.

What are we watching?

As much as this post may sound like whining, we do enjoy watching anime. (The lack of good anime this season has just made us watch more live action stuff for a change.) We’re both big fans of Persona games and especially Persona 4, so we’re watching Persona 4 the Animation. It’s not super awesome, but it’s still fun. Mirai Nikki (don’t spoil, we haven’t read the manga!) and Ben-To are the surprises of the season, maybe because we had no expectations for them. We’re also watching Mawaru Penguin Drum from the previous season.

Bottom line: There’s no point to this other than none of this anime is Tiger & Bunny, and it can’t be helped. At least there are penguins.

Oct 14 2011

Poll Results

I’ve been running some polls for fun, but I remembered I never posted the results of them all. I have to admit the results weren’t always hard to figure out, but it was still interesting.

Poll #1

This one I ran in July, after 2nd cour had started. It seemed pretty obvious at the time that we’d get some continuation, but we still don’t know what. I’m kinda tempted to run it again and see if the result would be different. I think I voted for a movie myself, but now I’d vote for S2…

Poll #2

This one was in the sidebar of the main page in August, when I was feeling particularly spendy. I still want that Fire Emblem Figuarts like burning but I’m not sure if I’ll survive the battle for it. It gives me a bit more confidence that Wild Tiger’s already gotten a reprint but even that has sold out in minutes at the places it’s been available so I have a really bad feeling about my chances.

Poll #3

This was also in the main page sidebar for the past week, and the result pretty much reflects my own preference when it comes to the character songs. The Duet (yes I type it with caps, it deserves it) totally steamrolled all the other songs. It’s the one song that always makes me drop what I’m doing and just sing along like a dork when it comes up on shuffle. And hey, the soundtrack is coming out next week so we’ll get the full version of Natsu no Koi wa Otsukare Summer!

Oct 3 2011

Animation comparison charts

Animation comparison charts rom both cours, pilot, and TV to BD/DVD comparisons (via Otanews). Most of the BD/DVD fixes may look weird at first but they actually look way better once you see the animation in movement. Click for full sizes, and more under the cut.

(I was going to post these earlier but I had already been pretty bloggy the day I found them so I forgot… Derp.)

1st cour comparisons

Continue reading →

Sep 25 2011

Calm before the storm

What happened to my Saturdays?

First Saturday that is not Superhero Saturday in the past 6 months was yesterday. It just felt so wrong and… not Saturday at all. It also feels really weird to not write an episode post on a Sunday. On the other hand, it’s not like this is over yet.

It couldn’t possibly end here

I’ve seen a lot of disappointed comments about continuation – whether movie, OVA series or S2 – didn’t get announced yet. You have to take into account that these things do take quite a lot of time, and even more so in the case of Tiger & Bunny. Japanese corporate bureaucracy can be pretty slow, and no one expected the series to be hit. If you take a franchise like Gundam or Sengoku BASARA as comparison, they have existing fanbases and are pretty much surefire sellers. The studio can plan for S2 even before the first episode of the first season has aired, and have things ready to roll the announcement out by the end of the series. Many staff&cast members may also have signed up for other projects – they can’t just sit around waiting and hoping for a continuation – so there’s the issue of scheduling. I think it was Nishida who mentioned in an interview the other week that when/if a continuation is made, the earliest a movie could be ready would be 2012, and the earliest S2 could be ready would be in 2013.

Satou Keiichi's Tiger & Bunny scripts

In the mean time, the series will start reruns on Japanese TV in October. The schedule was updated on the official site yesterday (sadly no Saturdays).

Tokyo MX from Tuesday 10/4 at 23:00 JST
BS11 from Friday 10/7 at 18:30 JST
Animax on Mondays at 22:00 JST

No idea how good these time slots are because I don’t usually watch these channels. The BS11 time slot seems pretty primetime, though.

Stuff to tide us over

Chibi Arts Blue Rose

There’s plenty of stuff to keep us busy for the wait, although no doubt things will slow down a bit also here at This is Sternbild. We’re determined to do our best during the wait, and with two manga serializations, manga anthologies from three publishers, official books, BDs and their drama CDs, soundtracks and character songs, merchandise, figures… Well you get the picture, we’re not running out of material just yet!

The release dates list has been updated, too. There’s finally Katsura’s art book as regular edition available for preorder, and the Tiger & Bunny Character Song Album (name subject to change) is also available for preorder in some online stores. No word yet of what will be on the CD, and the only confirmed artists are Hirata as Wild Tiger and Morita as Barnaby. (Please let there be another duet!)

The end of September is going to be pretty busy with books, the first two manga anthologies from Asuka Comics are already out (mfw mine were supposed to ship already on the 22nd, but they didn’t get collected by Japan Post until the 24th). TIGER & BUNNY GO! GO!! 1 anthology from Movic should be out on the 30th. Both Roman Album and Hero Gossips are coming out next week. Hero Gossips has been really popular on preorders, by the way. It was sold out even on Amazon Japan when I checked a few days ago. I’m really looking forward to my copy, the contents look like it’s gonna be the most bang for the buck when it comes to information about the characters.

Information from the source books should start trickling in soon, so even though I’ll probably have to wait a week to get mine there’ll surely be tidbits to keep us busy until the mailman comes.

Until then, see ya!

Sep 21 2011

BD/DVD vs TV comparisons from volume 5

The 5th volume is coming out tomorrow, September 22nd, but comparisons have already started popping up. They fixed the episode 13 yaranaika face… but it does look much better now. Also Chuckman’s moe eyes were fixed and the word is they’ve added blood to some scenes. Just a few comparisons so far but I’ll add more if/when I find them.