(L) Tiger & Bunny (Sunrise)

[mechalord]

Spoiler for Episode 16:

Awesome episode. Tiger an Bunny took a really dark turn. I thought if someone was Legend's son, it had to be Barnaby.

Whoa, it turns out it's Lunatic. Lunatic is cool. The dark origin, damn.

Anyhow. Kotetsu has spent his life worshiping a guy with enormous flaws. Sad, 'cause Kotetsu is the real deal.

I don't think Kotetsu will lose his powers, this plot element is common in super hero fiction. Superman, The Flash, Spiderman... they've all gone through this.


I think he'll end up more powerful than ever and reveal his identity to his daughter in the final episode of the season.

[Fenrir_valindri]

I'm really interested in finding out whether Kotetsu's daughter will end up developing NEXT powers or not.
Episode 16 is pretty shocking all things considered, poor Kotetsu, and poor Lunatic as well.

and that preview, is that who I think it is? Maybe it is a flashback?

[Royal_Devil]

stuff went Watchmen there

What was up with the subs in this episode?

[wandering-dreamer]

Apparently the spacebar stopped working on whoever did the type-setting for this episode, I remember that Viz had this issue before (with an episode of Nura, it was much worse than this actually) but it is worriesome just how many mistakes there were.

Spoiler for episode 16:

Holy whatever-you-believe-in, now that was dark! I remember some people speculating that things might get darker once Tiger started to lose his powers but that twist about Mr. Legend and Lunatic completely caught me by surprise. I've heard people calling this show a deconstruction of the superhero genre ever since it started but early on it just seemed like a more realistic take on "what would happen if there really were superheroes?" Now it feels like it's going to become more of a deconstruction, just really loved this episode!

And it appears that Ben and Scarf-tan like the same hangout place, Heroes Bar!

[Crontica]

Dayum that dark, here's hoping that faust doesn't make an appearance.

[Elestia]

Looks like the lovable old CEO of Heroes TV might be more suspicious that we at first thought. I mean just looking at his younger self made me want to arrest him for pedophilia.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Elestia

Looks like the lovable old CEO of Heroes TV might be more suspicious that we at first thought. I mean just looking at his younger self made me want to arrest him for pedophilia.

I too think that it was suspicious that Mr. Maverick showed up to conveniently adopt Barnaby and mold him into a hero.

I wonder if he had a part in Barnaby's parents being killed. He prob played a role in the cover-up of Mr. Legend's decline.

[Narzia]

Originally Posted by Elestia

Looks like the lovable old CEO of Heroes TV might be more suspicious that we at first thought. I mean just looking at his younger self made me want to arrest him for pedophilia.

I've always found him suspicious. He has the typical design of a villain. Dem eyes, man. Dem eyes.

Well. Things turn for the darker, which I don't mind. I just hope they don't end the same way or I'll burn down Sunrise's headquarters. That would be my idea of justice.
Nevertheless it was a good episode. I can't even remember the last show where I've been looking forward to the next episode with such anticipation.

[lordshadowisle]

Great episode, really unexpected twist in events. What I also liked was the explanation for Jake's files being missing; yeah it's a cover-up, but not by whom we had first expected.

[Dann of Thursday]

Spoiler for 16:

Actually not surprised about Lunatic being Legend's son. I'd considered it a small possibility of several early on, but thought it more likely after reading the preview summary. Pretty dark overall though, though I hope we can maintain some of what made this show fun at the least. Might be a bit hard after this though.

I really do feel bad for Yuri after all this though. I expect he'll have a tragic end though. Perhaps his focus on Kotetsu has to do with his father?

Maverick being shady isn't surprising. I thought him suspicious since he showed up, though given his support of Barnaby I let down on him a bit and considered he might be a possible red herring. Perhaps he was behind the murder of Barnaby's parents after all, though I don't quite see what he could gain exactly from molding Barnaby in afterwards.

I do rather hope that Kotetsu tells Kaede soon. Mainly since I'd rather like a scene where he introduces her to everyone else. I'd love to see interactions between her and Barnaby as well as Kotetsu's reaction.

[wandering-dreamer]

Originally Posted by Fenrir_valindri

And that preview, is that who I think it is? Maybe it is a flashback?

Well, I think it's Koetetsu's wife (he did say she died of an illness and it looks like he's visiting home next episode) but clearly I've been wrong about his wife before so who knows who it is. Also agreeing that Maverick does look suspicious in the flashbacks but I don't think he's actually evil, just hiding some secrets. Finally, I also thought that the mention about Jake's record was a nice touch, even if it makes everything seem even more suspicious, wonder if Jake wasn't the killer after all.

Also, forgot to post this earlier, ANN did a video tour of Sunrise recently and the first ten or so minutes of the video talks about Tiger and Bunny and where some of the ideas came from, thought it was pretty cool.

[Jeffry2009]

Great, where was I again? *clears my head*

Lunatic was actually a Mr Legend's son! And THAT's how he became a LUNATIC after he killed his dad!

And What just happened?! Lunatic just killed 'the lady killer' just like that off-screen! What a rip-off ( I mean That's it!? We don't know what really happened after the ED credits)!

OFF TOPIC - Great, what the hell was I thinking about my last post. Jake is officially dead. It's finally over. It's only 8 episodes left. I should get on with it & move on to the next story where we've seen Tiger (Kotetsu) visiting his family. Hope he's gonna see his daughter, Kaede soon. *bangs my head*

[MeisterBabylon]

Holy crap they actually decided to take the real shit up a notch. Looks like I was wrong to think "what the hell is going to happen now?" when Jake 'died'.

[MeggieMay]

Originally Posted by wandering-dreamer

Well, I think it's Koetetsu's wife (he did say she died of an illness and it looks like he's visiting home next episode) but clearly I've been wrong about his wife before so who knows who it is. Also agreeing that Maverick does look suspicious in the flashbacks but I don't think he's actually evil, just hiding some secrets. Finally, I also thought that the mention about Jake's record was a nice touch, even if it makes everything seem even more suspicious, wonder if Jake wasn't the killer after all.

I think it's Koetetsu's wife and it's a flashback. If you look at Tiger he actually looks younger in that very last shot of him after we see the women in the hospital bed.

As for Maverick, I'm among the group who's always been suspicious of him from early on (I thought his showing up when Barnaby's parents died in the first flash back to be a bit too convenient. That said, I'm starting to wonder if he's truly a bad guy or if there is more going here on as well. Something that popped into my mind a few episodes back was that Maverick, if he wasn't Mr Legend (and we now know he wasn't), might be a former NEXT hero. I'm starting to think this even more now it's becoming more and more clear how much he has to do with the current Hero set up (creating it and the city) and how that all dovetails into Lunatic's motives (Yuri seemed to obviously be at odds with Maverick back when we first met Lunitic and along with his position in the Stine Build Justice system, makes me think he knows a lot more about Maverick and most of the rest of us, or the Heroes knows at this point).

Let's break this down a bit. I'll throw it under spoiler space for both spoilers, room, and spoiler speculation

Spoiler:

First, I noticed from early on (Ep 3? The episode were we had the building bombing and Tiger was so impressed with the statue of Mr Legend, as well as the first time Tiger mentioned Mr Legend to Bunny) that Mr Legend and Bunny (as well as some others) didn't think highly of Mr Legend. We now know why (the beating of his wife, the drinking in general, and whatever issues were going on that lead to people covering up Mr Legend's failing powers to begin with). I think Maverick and Barnaby (through being raised by Maverick) knew about how Legend died. However, I don't think either knows Yuri did it. Yuri's mom knows but it's highly likely she didn't tell anyone due to it being her son (she may be making Yuri nuts with the guilt now but back in the day she probably felt Yuri was all she had left, if nothing else). If Maverick does know, just how hasn't he put it together Yuri is Lunatic, seeing how specific his powers are?

Back to Maverick, someone covered all of that up, Jake included, and I think it was Maverick (or Maverick and a few others). That's actually becoming very clear and that does point to Maverick having a dark side to him. Either he had Bunny's parents killed or they were killed because they knew him. It could also be another scenario as well (I could see other variations of this happening, including the possibility that one or both of Barnaby's parents were NEXTs). Either way, I think he knows exactly why the Brooks' were killed and took advantage of the situation to take in Barnaby and groom him to be his son. I can see Bunny's situation taking a dark turn soon as well, when he finds out whatever it is Maverick is hiding from him [and Maverick may not have done any of this for his own gain (another variation of what could be going on here) but Bunny isn't apt to be happy to find out Maverick's known all along what's been going on and didn't tell him (and then there's the issue of Jake getting out just after Bunny told Maverick he figured out who killed his parents - another coincidence that was way too convenient IMO)].

But lets get back to Tiger's problems before I end this. First, Ben talked to someone who knows about Legend's power loss. Was it Maverick? Was it the other retired Hero we met or yet another Hero we've yet to met? I wonder who Ben talked to. Next, what do Tiger and Mr Legend have in common here that could lead to power loss? I think there is a connection going on here. The two things that popped out at me was Tiger and Legend seem to drink a lot (get a load of how many bottles of liquor Tiger has out at his place and I doubt Mr Legend didn't drink a lot before things went south - he just started drinking even more and beating his wife ) and both had run ins with Jake. After this weeks episode I'm not sure the "Mr Legend was also a 100 Powers Hero" theory totally makes sense either. We now know Mr Legend must have taken Jake down with help and just received credit for it (I'm wondering if Jake took a lot more than two Hereo's, as well?). So I think while it's possible Jake and Koetetsu could have had the same powers, we can't be certain of it. Also we can't be certain Mr Legend's powers were gone for good or might have been mutating. Yuri took care of that ever becoming known. What I do think is Mr Legend was a very flawed person and drinking or no, Koetetsu is handling this a LOT better than Legend did. I wouldn't be surprised that part of the reason Mr Legend got all the credit was because he refused to stop and Maverick and the others couldn't figure out a way to deal with other than covering up. It also could be a lot deeper and messier because the other Hereo's probably owed Legend and might also have not known how to deal with the issue well to begin with (then there's the Jake connection but that's for another post another day).

Last thing, did anyone notice that Mr Legend scared Yuri right before Yuri killed him? Yuri wears makeup - something I had wondered about because his complexion seems odd (he looked pasty white to me, compared to other fair skinned people in the show)but it's an anime so I wasn't sure if that was suppose to mean something special or not before now. While I feel bad for Yuri's situation, I don't think that excuses him from his vigilantly bull****. Killing bad people because you're on a guilt trip for killing your dad is silly, plus he's going to kill a bystander if he keeps this up and then what? He'll probably justify it but that's very wrong.

A bit of a ramble there but this episode let is in a lot more information on the universe, which I liked a lot.

[Guardian Enzo]

Blog post:

Spoiler for 16:

That was epic. It was tragic. But it definitely wasn't happy. It was really beautiful to watch all those huge revelations woven together.

[Triple_R]

I have to say that I don't like where the series is going with this latest episode.

Do we really need another dark deconstruction this year? What's wrong with a nice mix of drama with an overall lighthearted and upbeat feel? Does everything have to be cynical and twisted, where very likable major characters are frequently made to suffer and endure torment? Everything action-oriented anyway. Slice of Life shouldn't be the only anime genre offering genuinely lighthearted and upbeat content.

I find this new direction very disappointing, especially after how pleasantly nostalgic I found most of the episodes immediately preceding this one (Episode 16).

If Sunrise intended Tiger and Bunny to be a superhero deconstruction, my opinion is that it shouldn't be pulling it this late in the game, well over half-way through the anime. Sure, you had slight elements of crass commercialism before this latest episode, but nothing even approaching what we're seeing now.


There's plenty of dark anime shows this year. Madoka Magica and Deadman Wonderland, and to lesser extents Ao no Exorcist, Kamisama Dolls, X-Men, and Sacred Seven. In my opinion, what made Tiger and Bunny stand out from the crowd of action-oriented anime of this year is that it played its genre pretty straight, with upbeat lightheartedness, albeit with a touch more realism (i.e. the previously mentioned crass commercialism).


I still like Tiger and Bunny overall, and it remains one of the top Spring 2011 anime shows for me. But I really don't like this new direction shift.

[kk2extreme]

Maverick will be the final boss, mark my words

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I have to say that I don't like where the series is going with this latest episode.

Do we really need another dark deconstruction this year? What's wrong with a nice mix of drama with an overall lighthearted and upbeat feel? Does everything have to be cynical and twisted, where very likable major characters are frequently made to suffer and endure torment? Everything action-oriented anyway. Slice of Life shouldn't be the only anime genre offering genuinely lighthearted and upbeat content.

I find this new direction very disappointing, especially after how pleasantly nostalgic I found most of the episodes immediately preceding this one (Episode 16).

If Sunrise intended Tiger and Bunny to be a superhero deconstruction, my opinion is that it shouldn't be pulling it this late in the game, well over half-way through the anime. Sure, you had slight elements of crass commercialism before this latest episode, but nothing even approaching what we're seeing now.


There's plenty of dark anime shows this year. Madoka Magica and Deadman Wonderland, and to lesser extents Ao no Exorcist, Kamisama Dolls, X-Men, and Sacred Seven. In my opinion, what made Tiger and Bunny stand out from the crowd of action-oriented anime of this year is that it played its genre pretty straight, with upbeat lightheartedness, albeit with a touch more realism (i.e. the previously mentioned crass commercialism).


I still like Tiger and Bunny overall, and it remains one of the top Spring 2011 anime shows for me. But I really don't like this new direction shift.

I replied to your comment over at LiA, RRR... You raise valid concerns, but I don't think we're all the way down the rabbit hole just yet.

[Jeffry2009]

I don't get it. This anime is all about conspiracy. I mean the only superhero conspiracy that I've seen is from Zack Snyder's Watchmen.

[Kusa-San]

Holy shit, this episode was greaaat Lunatic being Legend's son. Legend not being the great everyone think he was. Kotetsu losing his power like Legend !! What will happen next ?! Especially for Kotetsu. It's obvious he can't be an heroe anymore !

Now, about Marverick, I also think that he has something to do with Barnaby's parent being killed. My theory right now : He did that because like that he can make Barnaby his puppet heroe and make him his next cash cow !

I cant wait for the next one !