Tag Archives: tiger and bunny

Jun 21 2012

Just according to Ozaki’s keikaku

The above tweet from Nikkei Marketing Journal quotes Bandai Namco’s CEO Ishikawa, who said that they are putting effort into Tiger & Bunny and new toys and games are in development for the movie premiere this Fall.

Executive Producer Ozaki retweeted it with a short response:

Yes. He said “just as planned”.

What this means (apart from the fact that they want the money we so willingly shovel at them) is that Tiger & Bunny is selling really, really well. It has been – along with Gundam UC – a focus franchise of Bandai Namco for the past year. At this point Tiger & Bunny is not funding just itself, it and Gundam UC are also helping to financially cover for the franchises that aren’t making any profit. Some people might get upset over the money they spend on Tiger & Bunny paying for Sunrise’s flops (Gundam AGE, I’m looking at you), but this is simply how business works. I’m going to keep my business nerd restrained so I won’t bore you to death, but according to the so called 80-20 rule, 80% of profits are created by 20% of the products a business sells (or in this case, maybe 80% of profits come from 20% of the customers could be more accurate). Bandai Namco has many, many franchises, and although Gundam UC and Tiger & Bunny are just two lines on the long list of titles they’ve produced, they are currently the big selling ones. The big sellers allow the smaller, niche franchises to continue existing and keep the fans of those titles happy. This 80-20 rule isn’t applied just to making anime. It has many other applications, and not just in business. If you’re interested in learning more, look up “Pareto principle”.

I’m stating the obvious, but Tiger & Bunny is a true success story, considering how new it is and that it is an original anime. That is also why the merchandise sales are so critical for it, because the related merchandise is exactly where the profits are. BD&DVD sales are critical only to a certain breaking point. Speaking of BD sales, the anime BD&DVD sales in Japan are generally low because of their high pricing system. It’s not just anime that suffers from high prices, a Hollywood movie released in Japan on DVD costs easily twice as much as the European release. An anime title that sells over 10 000 copies per volume can be called a hit. (For the record, Tiger & Bunny sold around 25 000 copies of each Limited Edition BD volume.) “Why the prices on DVD and BD media are kept so high?” is a question I don’t have an answer for. If someone has an answer, please do share~

This post was actually longer first, but then there was a herpderp and I lost the whole thing. Also, at first I was going to just blog about Ozaki being “keikaku doori” and my initial point was that they seem to be investing proper money in the movie production. Instead it came out this way. I guess it couldn’t be helped. And I guess we might never see QUALITY gym again. *knocks on wood*

(TL note: keikaku means plan)

Jun 18 2012

Kotetsu & Barnaby chibi-arts PV

I’ve posted this on our Twitter and on our Facebook page, but I’m going to post it here too because… because…

BECAUSE I CAN AND BECAUSE IT’S SO UNBEARABLY CUTE.

All I have in my head after watching this is kawaii fluffy things and I think I’m making “uguu” sounds. I can’t help it, I want to roll in the cuteness.

Update: Some lovely person got to the translation before we did.

Jun 13 2012

Derpchan goes to Desucon 2012 – Report!

Cuddly moral support team. Many people asked where I’d gotten these guys from, and the answer is “Japan”.

I’m still recovering from my trip to Desucon 2012 which was held June 8-10 in Lahti, Finland. I don’t think I’d be so tired if I didn’t have to travel there from practically the other end of the country, 12 hours on the train wears me out even if it’s a night train and I can sleep. Anyways, a quick con report before I forget everything.

This was my 3rd time going to Desucon. My loyal side-kick for the weekend was Mineko who also took most of the photos because I had my hands full carrying around my moral support team (Kotetsu & Bunny plush dolls) on Saturday. I cosplayed on Friday and Sunday, Mineko spent the entire weekend getting into trouble as Scarf-tan.

To everyone who wondered where the plushie heroes were from: I ordered them from Japan, you couldn’t find these guys at the dealers’ room although there was some Tiger & Bunny stuff this time. Continue reading →

May 25 2012

Tiger & Bunny first movie to premiere in the UK on September 22

As I recall, Ozaki talked about wanting to bring the Tiger & Bunny movies to the West. And he has hereby stood behind his word.

MangaUK tweeted this image earlier today and when I saw the “Movie 1 Premiere” on the poster I thought “it couldn’t be…” but the U.K. fans – and consequently European fans since this brings the BDs and DVDs closer to our reach – are getting a really good treatment. The first BD/DVD combo volume is coming out October 29th in the U.K.

(I also noticed that Blue Rose is gone from the promotional poster. The poster looks so much better without her that it just underlines how pasted on she was in the previous version.)

I know I can’t be the only one planning a trip to the U.K. in September, right?

Update: According to The-O Network, Viz’s North American release of Tiger & Bunny on DVD and Blu-ray will be early 2013. It could mean that the dub will first be broadcast on TV in the USA, and it goes straight on DVD in the U.K.

Of course, the dates could be subject to change…

May 22 2012

Let’s talk dub cast

Viz has started to trickle announcements on the Tiger & Bunny English dub cast on their official T&B Facebook page. So far we have:

At the current speed (announcement every other day) they can drag this on for weeks – and Kotetsu and Barnaby’s VA’s will probably be the last ones to be announced.

We don’t usually watch dubs, and the American voice actors we recognise we have learned to know from game dubs. Because of that we don’t really have any expectations, other than that we don’t want to hear Vic Mignogna in any role, and we would absolutely love to hear Yuri Lowenthal in some role, preferably as Ivan.

What do you think of the cast choices so far, and who would be in your dream voice cast?

Update: More cast announced.

  • Laura Bailey as Dragon Kid/Huang Pao-Lin
  • Kari Wahlgren as Blue Rose/Karina Lyle
  • John Eric Bentley as Fire Emblem/Nathan Seymour

I don’t know if my google-fu is failing or if John Eric Bentley hasn’t done notable anime work before, I only found an IMDB page that seems like it’s the right person.

Update 2: Another cast announcement adds…

Update: Back to the heroes (and crushing my casting hopes) with…

Ivan was the only role that I really had someone in mind for, I was hoping for Yuri Lowenthal… I’ll still keep hoping he’ll appear in some other role. Now the only heroes that haven’t been announced yet are Wild Tiger and Barnaby, and we’re also still missing Lunatic.

Update: Tadah! Another cast announcement, and they’re still hoarding Tiger & Barnaby…

Update: I think we are nearing the end of the announcements! Today adds…

A very good choice indeed in my opinion. Maybe the next announcement will bring us Kotetsu & Barnaby.

Update: Viz issued a press release about T&B panel at Anime Expo and it included the following cast announcement:

Personally I wasn’t 100% sure if Yuri would be the right Barnaby but then again, I didn’t really think Morita was the right Barnaby either before I heard his performance. In any case, Yuri Lowenthal is our #1 favourite American VA here at This is Sternbild and WE ARE EXCITED, OH YES WE ARE. Now they just have Kotetsu to announce and the main cast will be complete.

Update the FINAL: And the cast is complete.