Tag Archives: madness? no it’s taibani!

Jan 3 2012

Getting E-mail Is Nice

I was this close to doing a spit-take at my screen this morning when I was checking our email and found this thing that Team Kaburagi sent us. (Aki on the other hand got a warning from me first, she’s thankful for that.) This suggestion for a new fried rice poster is just too glorious to not share.

Team Kaburagi wrote:
there – fixed it for you (bc crack image is… well)

Happy Year of the Dragon Kid, everyone ~!

– TK

(Just so happens I got the PASH! with the actual fried rice poster today. Nice timing!)

Nov 29 2011

Fried Rice Is Here To Stay

There are two things in Tiger & Bunny that one just doesn’t seem to be able to escape, and fried rice is one of them.

Recently, Bandai announced this fried rice set from Barnaby to Kotetsu that’s available on Premium Bandai. It was also featured in detail on Bandai Namco’s “Item Thursday” shopping program webcast, where the presenter read an excerpt from Nishida Masafumi’s blog post about the fried rice line in episode 24. Yeah, the same post that he made about Friend Rice Event Gallery. They didn’t mention the event itself in the program, but ever since then I’ve been wondering if the photos that everyone sent have contributed to stuff like this fried rice set being made. Rumour also has it that the planned Kotetsu and Barnaby Chibi-arts have fried rice plates as accessories.

The fried rice line is pretty popular also in Japan, it came in first among Barnaby’s lines in the King of Catchphrases poll that was held for Hero Awards 2011. And by the way, the Friend Rice Event Gallery still gets a steady daily traffic mostly from Japan. Like I was told on Twitter, maybe we have brought this poverty on ourselves now that they’re making all this fried rice merchandise. I regret nothing, even though my wallet has a seizure every month. Arranging the event was tons of fun.

Oh, the other thing you can’t escape?

Barnaby’s speedo. Just wait for Summer and there’ll be an official version of that speedo for sale and ready for sandy beach sandy beach~ ♪. I’m calling it.

Nov 24 2011

Bring It On, Bandai! I Will Fight!

Tamashii Nation 2011 is this weekend, and there’s already a ton of pictures of Tiger & Bunny figures on display there. Dengeki has a pretty nice report, but the official Tiger & Bunny Twitter account posted some pictures that weren’t on Dengeki.

Although I think Lunatic looks awesome, and H-01 is pretty sweet too, what really got me going was this:

Hiding there, inconspicuously in the corner like he’s taken photo-bombing lessons from Origami Cyclone… that’s an actual Wild Tiger crapsuit edition figure (maybe with a surprise bulge and dangerous underpants like director Satou wanted). I haven’t been able to find a full photo of it but if it’s even nearly as sweet as I hope it is, I’m going to fight for it. (It might finally be the figure that will make Amiami’s servers go up in flames when the preorders open.)

Aki wished me luck…

…and I think she was laughing.

By the way, Hirata Hiroaki, Morita Masakazu and Inoue Go are at Tamashii Nation on Sunday 11/27. They’ll be on Tamashii’s Ustream program at 16:00 JST with reairing at 21:00 JST, and it’s not region-locked.

Nov 13 2011

Two Tiger & Bunny movies confirmed for 2012

Hero Awards 2011 is over, and the big news is out! People had been requested to hold off posting information from the daytime show out of consideration for those who are going to the evening show so we don’t know much yet, but the movies were announced at the event with planned release in 2012. From what I could follow on Twitter, seems like the events were a lot of fun and many people were hoping they would be released on BD/DVD later. I’m hoping for that, too, because I really want to see what went on there. Also – in true TaiBani style – the official pamphlet that was sold at the main venue and the live viewing theaters actually sold out before the evening show at many of the theaters.

More on this, and also our thoughts on the movie project later!

Update: Hero Awards 2011 will be released on BD/DVD in April 2012 and it’ll also include the last episode event recording as an extra.

King of Catchphrases poll winners (full list in Japanese here):

  • Wild Tiger: “Wild Roar!”
  • Barnaby Brooks Jr.: “I’ve been learning how to make fried rice, so you have to try it someday!”
  • Sky High: “Thank you! And again, thank you!”
  • Rock Bison: “Ushi!”
  • Origami Cyclone: “All right! I made it into the background!”
  • Blue Rose: “My ice is a bit cold, but your crime has been put completely on hold!”
  • Dragon Kid: “Sorry, is it because I’m a tomboy?”
  • Fire Emblem: “Let’s show them some girl power!”
  • Lunatic: “Hear the voice of Thanatos.”

Links:

Nov 6 2011

Advertising for 13 million yen – but what does it mean?

My internet was down for most of the day yesterday so the commotion this caused almost slipped past me. Yesterday, November 5th, a huge wall ad of Tiger & Bunny appeared on Shibuya’s landmark building, Shibuya 109. What’s remarkable about the ad isn’t that Blue Rose isn’t getting a bigger spotlight than she should anymore, but that it costs 13 million yen + tax for two weeks. The series is over, and although it’s currently on rerun on several channels, an advertisement like this is a bit too expensive to promote a rerun. The advertisement will stay in place until November 19th, so this might be a sign that whatever they are planning to announce at Hero Awards on November 13th is something big.

Something big, but what? We were expecting a continuation announcement already by final episode. Instead they announced NEXT Project – which by the way is a pretty brilliant way to keep up the hype while the continuation is planned, and whoever is handling the marketing for Tiger & Bunny at the moment is doing a pretty good job. They could be planning a movie, or a second season, or OVAS… Though if I had to bet, I’d put my money on NEXT Project Stage 2 – whatever it is – because I don’t think they are ready to put a S2 into production yet. I could be wrong though, but I remember Ozaki talking about “three steps” in NEXT Project somewhere – I just can’t find the quote for it right now, it could have been in some of the Japanese webcasts he’s appeared in.

By the way, the second set of official books (Official Hero Book 2 and Hero TV Fan vol.2) got pushed back three weeks from October 25th to November 16th. They’ll come out after Hero Awards 2011 event, possibly so they could include some promotion for what they’re announcing there. Even if we don’t get a confirmed continuation to the series yet, if they play their cards well they can keep us interested in Tiger & Bunny for a long time. After all, Hero Awards 2011 sold out in minutes and the live viewing event for it had even more theaters added recently.

We want more and Bandai wants our cash, so they’ll give us more… eventually.