Hello everyone and welcome to our first Anime review! We’re going to start off with Tiger & Bunny from Viz Anime. A little bit about Viz, they’re also responsible for such shows as Bleach (personal favorite), Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Death Note, One Piece, and Inuyasha. Any of these shows can be seen on their site www.vizanime.com. I should note, that’s not just the 3+ year old English dubbed episodes we see on cable TV. Viz streams the NEW episodes subtitled the day they air in Japan! So, not only was today the first day we could see Tiger & Bunny on the Viz site, today was the first day anyone on the planet could see the first episode period.
Well, let’s go onto a little bit about the show. First off, don’t let the name fool you. Even though the first episode was mostly an introduction into some of the cast and city of Stern Bild, its’ got a lot of action and some good humor. The show centers on Wild Tiger, one of several super heroes in the city of Stern Bild. They battle crime and compete with each other on a giant reality TV show called Hero TV. In order to be on the show, each hero needs a corporate sponsor. The heroes get points for every criminal arrested and innocent saved, and at the end of each season, the winner earns the title King of Heroes. People with super powers are known as NEXT. These people began appearing about 45 years ago, and it’s still not known how they get their powers.
The first episode opens up with a car chase involving some bank robbers. One-by-one, heroes show up to arrest the robbers while the entire chase is watched live on Hero TV. The chase climaxes with the appearance of Wild Tiger, a 10 year veteran hero. He’s also earned himself the nickname “Crusher of Justice” because of his tendency to destroy pretty much anything near him in order to get the bad guys. Wild Tiger almost gets the last of the robbers, but ends up getting saved himself by a new, unknown, and much younger hero.
The night ends with the naming of this year’s MVP, Sky High. Wild Tiger himself came in sixth. At the end of the ceremony, a new hero is introduced, Barnaby Brooks Jr, who is also the same guy that just saved Tiger earlier that night. Tiger’s real name is Kotetsu Kaburagi. He lives alone, though he does have a daughter, Kaede, who is in grade school and lives with Kotetsu’s mom. Kaede does not know that her father is a hero. There are some pictures in his apartment of his wife, but its currently unknown if she is alive.
The episode ends with Kotetsu meeting his new boss, as his old company had to sell their sponsorship of him. Kotetsu is not too thrilled having a new sponsor or about all the changes they are making. Wild Tiger is given a new costume and a partner, which is the first ever hero partnership in Stern Bild. In the end, Wild Tiger is racing off with his new gear to fight a new threat that has just appeared in the city…and meet his new partner.
All in all, I really enjoyed watching this one. If you’re a fan of anything else Viz has done, then you’re going to enjoy this one too. That goes for any first time viewers as well. It is going to be subtitled (which is what I like), so keep that in mind. New episodes will be up on
www.vizanime.com each Saturday at noon PT.
