Hero Station special on BN Live TV

So, yesterday there was a 3 hour long special broadcast on Bandai Namco Live TV, all about what’s going on with Tiger & Bunny. To sum the whole thing up in one picture:

Yep. I think I need to work on my stamina, I was starting to be really out of it after the first two hours. I was gonna write this all down yesterday but I’d promised to do some stuff in the evening and I just couldn’t brain any more Japanese at that point anyway.

A lot of stuff they showed was things we’ve seen before or already knew about, but there were a few new and interesting things:

My Private HERO iPhone/Android app. Basically you can have Kotetsu or Barnaby in your smartphone and he’ll react to things, like movement. If you poke him, Kotetsu will laugh and Barnaby will act coldly. Ozaki himself showed the app. I’m really hoping it’ll be available on Android market because DO WANT. (They also showed actual gameplay of the PSP game and it does look really good!)

They showed videos from the stage play rehearsals and video messages from the cast. The important thing about the stage play TIGER & BUNNY THE LIVE is that you can pay to watch it online. (I’m ashamed to admit I actually completely missed this fact during the broadcast, I think I was trying to save a screencap when they talked about it and I was too distracted to notice it.) After poking a while around the site where you’ll be able to watch it I concluded that you’ll need to make an account at Bandai Channel before you can order it (which is pretty simple process) and you can then pay the ticket by credit card. I am not sure if the stream is region blocked, though. Normally Bandai Channel is only available in Japan, but Bandai Namco Live TV is also available overseas. The player on the stream page loads for me, so that seems to indicate it’s not restricted. The stream is of the performance on September 1st, and it’s a live stream as far as I can tell, so it won’t be available on demand. If you buy the ticket in advance you get a discount.

There’s going to be a live viewing event with the Tiger & Bunny -The Beginning- World Premiere, and it’ll include performances by the artists whose songs are featured in the movie. But that’s not all, there’ll also be a Hero Song Live, with the character songs.

Ozaki had a report of his trips to Anime Expo (in the US) and Japan Expo (in France), and they showed the same sample clip of the English dub we’ve seen before. They also talked about Namjatown cafĂ© event, and merchandise and again merchandise.

If you missed the stream yesterday, there’s a recording of it available here. The caps I managed to take during the broadcast are in our Facebook album.

Cute cast being cute.

New content = new books

The upcoming stage play and movies mean that we’re getting new source books. I’ve had to redo my September orders twice already because the publishers keep announcing new stuff every week. Here’s what’s available for pre-order so far (dates based on what the shops have announced), though I may have to edit this list soon because this is only stuff from Kadokawa Shoten.

TIGER&BUNNY THE LIVE Official Visual Fanbook
ISBN: 9784041102886
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Release date: September 13th, 2012
Notes: Visual guide to the stage play. I don’t own any other stage play books so I’m not sure what all this’ll include, but there will be cast interviews for certain.

TIGER&BUNNY -The Beginning- SIDEa
ISBN: 9784041204405
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Release date: September 26th, 2012
Notes: Manga of the first movie, art by Ohno Tsutomu. I’m not sure how many volumes this’ll be.

Theatrical Edition TIGER&BUNNY The Beginning Vol. 1
ISBN: 9784041102879
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Release date: September 20th, 2012
Notes: Movie novelization, this will be at least two volumes. The writer is Takahashi Yuuya, based on Nishida’s scripts. (I’d have preferred if Nishida could have written these himself, but I think he’s too busy at the moment.)

That’s the stuff for the stage play and first movie, but there are also new books for the TV anime. I’m still debating whether or not to get these because I have KING OF WORKS and they don’t seem to offer anything new.

TV Anime TIGER&BUNNY Scenario Document Vol. 1
ISBN: 9784041102848
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Release date: September 20th, 2012
Notes: Scripts for first cour (episodes 1-13) of the anime.

TV Anime TIGER&BUNNY Scenario Document Vol. 2
ISBN: 9784041103098
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Release date: October 20th, 2012
Notes: Scripts for second cour (episodes 14-25) of the anime.

I order my books usually from CDJapan, but these should be available at most of the usual stores that sell other T&B and anime merchandise.

There’ll also be a new one-shot manga by Katsura Masakazu and Nishida Masafumi, the latest issue of Young Jump announced that Katsura has put ZETMAN on break so he can draw some Tiger & Bunny.

Update: Miracle Jump’s T&B serialization volume 1 has appeared on Amazon Japan.

TIGER&BUNNY The Comic 1
ISBN: 9784088794228
Publisher: Shueisha
Release date: September 19th, 2012
Notes: Manga by Yoshida Erika (story) and Ueda Hiroshi (art), published in Miracle Jump magazine.