Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Animal House.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 21, 2013

The increasing homogenization of modern culture can be kind of distressing. Is there even such a thing as “local flavor” anymore? Anyone who has ever traveled to any major city within the United States is probably already aware of how largely interchangeable these metropolises’ airports, hotels and restaurants can often be. Sadly, even supposedly unique features like parks or individual tourist attractions often seem varnished over with a kind of blandly generic quality that one guesses is meant to make these attractions more “easily accessible” to anyone who visits them. This tendency has also tended to creep more and more into popular culture, with any number of music “artists” sounding like virtual clones of someone (at times many ones) who have gone before and had some outstanding success that this particular person wants to cash in on. And of course television and film are not immune, either. There’s always been a cookie cutter proclivity in both of these media, with (much as with the music business) a sudden success sparking a glut of imitators hoping to capture the same brass ring. All of this said, there has usually been a rather noticeable difference between Western animation and Japanese anime, well in evidence not just with regard to aesthetic stylings but more often than not content as well. And so we come to Tiger & Bunny. This 2011 series from production house Sunrise has a distinctly Western animation style and point of view, and even its basic set up is at least a little redolent of a number of high profile Western properties like Kick-Ass and Watchmen. Mix in a little influence from the ridiculous (Branded) to the sublime (“Logorama” from the recently reviewed ShortsHD Presents: The Oscar Winning Short Films Collection) and the result may not necessarily fall within the purview of what longtime fans might call “traditional” anime (whatever that might be, considering how hugely disparate the genre is), but which in fact turns out to be a rather entertaining series after all.

A lot of the description of Tiger & Bunny will sound pretty familiar to anyone who has seen any of the properties listed above. In a sort of indiscriminate future, superheroes have become a part of everyday life, and in fact there’s a television network devoted exclusively to their adventures. Hero TV covers what might be thought of as an American Idol-esque competition between these characters, as they race to resolve issues and defeat bad guys around Sternbild City, accumulating “hero points” and hoping to emerge as the victor of that particular season. Each of the superheroes has corporate sponsors whose logos are emblazoned across their costumes in the manner of NASCAR drivers (and these are real logos, by the way, which brings up the interesting idea of product placement, corporate branding, and how much if any moolah Tiger & Bunny received for utilizing said logos).

Cop buddy shows have been a staple of television from time immemorial, even if the partners’ names weren’t always part of the shows’ titles (think Dragnet versus Starsky & Hutch). Tiger & Bunny follows in those august footsteps by focusing largely on two superheroes, one who’s been around for a while and another newbie who’s just getting his superpower groove on. Both of these characters actually share some salient traits, including their particular superpower, which increases the competitive spirit between them. The older character, one whose “has been” quality might remind some of the latest incarnation of James Bond in Skyfall, is Kotetsu Kaburagi, whose alter ego is Wild Tiger. The new guy on the superhero block is Barnaby Brooks, Jr., who becomes known as Bunny due to the Donnie Darko-esque ears on his headpiece as well as his rabbit-like reflexes.

There’s just a tad of the X-Men Trilogy mixed into this stew as well, for it turns out a more or less unexplained set of genetic mutations has caused this new “race” of superpowered beings to crop up over the past several decades, a race which is called NEXT. Added to that is a fairly standard Odd Couple pairing of, well, Tiger and Bunny that gives the show its main focus as well as some of its more outlandish humor and action elements. Tiger’s tendency to destroy first, think later also is kind of a running gag in the series, and in fact Tiger’s rather nonchalant attitude toward wreaking so much havoc creates repeated tensions between him and Bunny.

It may sound from the write up that Tiger & Bunny is just a sort of “greatest hits” assemblage of pieces from other properties, and while it certainly can’t be denied that there’s a déjà vu aspect to a lot of this series, it also can’t be denied that Tiger & Bunny is its own animal (pun probably intended), especially with its emphasis on the Hero TV angle as well as the corporate sponsorship. The creators probably didn’t have a lot of social commentary on their mind when they crafted this series, but there are certain inevitable conclusions that appear as the story unspools. And on of the most salient is how modern marketing techniques are indeed one of the prime instruments of the growing global homogeneity of our contemporary culture.

Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tiger & Bunny is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Viz Media and Warner Home Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an extremely engaging series from a purely visual angle, one which combines some nice looking CGI with more traditional elements. The bulk of the series features extremely sharp line detail, great clarity and very robust colors within a wide and varied palette. Occasionally there are missteps along the way—one of the first episodes as Tiger supposedly walking off in a huff, but even though his body moves, he remains resolutely frozen in position with regard to depth of field, as if he's walking on a treadmill. It's probably indicative of the rush the staff was under to get the series ready for broadcast, but it's just one example of what are occasional sloppy moments sprinkled throughout the series. The good news is these examples are fairly rare, and they're more than offset by a really nice variety of styles, including a lot of supposed television broadcasts of various Hero TV escapades that frequently have horizontal lines running through them as well as "crawls" along the bottom of the frame to differentiate them from the other footage (see screenshot 6 for a good example). Character designs are extremely well done and the ubiquitous use of real life logos adds to the feeling that there is in fact an actual resemblance to our contemporary world.

Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tiger & Bunny features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes in both the original Japanese as well as an English dub. This is a series that really could have benefited from an immersive surround mix, and my hunch is a lot of audiophiles are going to be at least minimally disappointed that there is none on this Blu-ray set. That said, what's here works surprisingly well, and there is some occasionally wide splaying of stereo separation, especially in some of the action sequences. Fidelity is excellent, and voice work is always cleanly presented and offered well out in front of a sometimes quite busy mix. Dynamic range is also extremely wide.

Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Tiger & Bunny (1080i; 24:02) features some fairly interesting interviews with various production staff. There's some good information imparted on the show's blend of CGI and more traditional animation. A funny moment occurs early on when the unseen interviewer asks why men in the 30s would want to be doing a show like this. In Japanese with English subtitles.


• Production Art (1080p)


• Special Logo Art (1080p>


• Japanese Trailers (1080p; 4:13)


• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 1:30)


• Clean Ending Animation (1080p; 1:30)

Tiger & Bunny: Set 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tiger & Bunny is indeed kind of assembled from pre-existing parts that intentionally or unintentionally were culled from a number of other properties, but in this case the whole is definitely more than those parts. There are some fun relationships forged not just between the title characters but also a gaggle of "supporting heroes", and the series is graced with a really great looking animation style, one which in fact is much more in tune with Western animation than traditional Japanese anime. This Blu-ray set therefore pops excellently from a video standpoint, but it really would have been great to have had a lossless surround mix. Supplementary material is slight, but the documentary is quite enjoyable. Recommended.