Tiger & Bunny Movie 1

"We love it when big anime companies repackage the same damn thing in a more consumable product instead of getting more of we loved!" -said no anime fan ever, but in all honestly I'm willing to give this one some incredible leeway... Yes I am a fervent fanboy of this particular series, but at least this one manages to give it's fans so much more than most of the same breed has done in the past. *coughberserkcoughrurounikenshincough* Tiger & Bunny The Beginning is, to sum it up simply, a directors cut of episodes 1 and 2 with a lost episode included. Not an actual lost episode, butsomething that would've appeared to be a planned to be an ova rather than a part of a longer running feature. And by directors cut I mean this movie offers more content to these episodes, to the point of showing brand new material with mixed in with the old. Fans are sure appreciate this, though the issue here is, this is still just a recap of the first two episode, in fact it's really just a re-airing of the those episodes in order. Meaning that the first 40-50 minutes of the movie is stuff that isn't terribly different from the tv series. So, with that out of the way, what new's to experience in this movie? A little bit of detail into Kotetsu's internal anguish with the lost of his wife, an event that happened before the series starting point. It doesn't struggle him with grief (As that would make him into a rather unenjoyable character), but it sheds some light on him and makes him an even more relate-able and sympathetic character (And thankfully gives me some material to fight back the crazier fujoshi fans with). Unfortunately for Barnaby, we're stuck with the beginning's less likable pre-good character development. Which isn't all that bad, that just means we get more of the great banter between them. But with even more good news, the side characters get a lot more screen time in this than they normally would in the series. Even Rock Bison, who until this movie, gets some more details revealed like what is his powers exactly. Production wise, this is barely an update of the tv series, even the new material looks as good as the better parts of the series. Which isn't in any way to talk it down, the tv series was competently well made and so is this. So at this point you're probably wondering what the rest of the movie unfolds out to be. The new material doesn't come in until pass the halfway point of the movie (Though the villain has a small cameo earlier in the film). Basically it's like this: A Next with teleporting powers has come to Stern City to steal a valuable object and the whole gang has to stop him in an amusement park. Plays out like a Saturday morning superhero episode plot, which we expect it to. The villain is pretty crafty with his powers and is pretty enjoyable to watch him outwit everyone with admittedly useful powers (Useful in a way that Origami Cyclone wishes his was). And the conclusion is while predicable, is written well enough to rank up with the best of the solo episodes of Tiger&Bunny. It's just unfortunate that I have to say that it still doesn't quite deserve to have a movie made just for it. It would've worked out better as an ova or material for one or two episodes of a second season. But despite knowing what that was going to be, this was still a much better end product I expected it to be and I have high hopes for the second movie where apparently some big shit is going down.

Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning is one part recap and two parts new material. The film reuses scenes from the first few episodes and adds new content to expand the story and characters. Story: 8 - the main event explored in the film is the starting point of the show: the beginning of Bunny's career and Tiger being forced to become his partner. When I first watched the show this did feel a bit rushed, so Sunrise choosing to address this feels like a good move. The scenes that are reused are mainly the action and comedy ones, and almost all the new scenes focuson the characters, giving them some much needed development (in the series most of the heroes received one episode to establish character and that was pretty much it). The new story content is a whole new NEXT villain the heroes have to deal with the same day Tiger & Bunny make their debut. More of a gag villain than a heavy hitter, the situation is mainly created to force early cooperation between the heroes early on. Art: 9 - the expected 'Sunrise Smooth' standard, CGI looks better than in the TV series. Sound: 10 - one of the areas where the film excels, the voice work is very well suited to each character, and both the music and sound effects keep to the pace of the action very well. Character: 9 - the main new addition of the film is the expansion of the characters, with some characters having as much screen time as civilians in the film as they did during the entire series. Each of the heroes received an extra layer of depth, making me much more invested in them than I was during the series. Enjoyment: 10 - a great mix of action, comedy and character development. Only loses traction once, and very briefly at that. Overall: 10 - this film has added much to the setup of the main series, and I'm very excited to see what direction Sunrise will take for the next entry to the film series.

Pfff. Another recap from Sunrise. They sure want their money well... NO, wait. This is all new and.. and different? And better? What the shit!? Tiger & Bunny The Beginning is like Tiger & Bunny tv series in the beginning, except this movie isn't lost. The problem with the start of the tv series was that Sunrise had not decided what to do with the series when they started with it. It was a mess, ugly and basically one rough diamond. What Tiget & Bunny The Beginning movie does, is polish that diamond, and it polishes it good. The story starts off the same, the idea isthe same as in the fist 2 episodes. We have some scenes from those and the same plot, but, in this time, made into a solid packet with neat pacing and rythm, and all in all, better execution. While this is recapturing in a way, I would say these are around 10% similar to each others. The movie is well worth the watch, offering more new material than fans of the series would expect, and actually matching the MAL's describtion of an "alternative version" of the tv series. Without raping the series like is a general habit, but instead making it all better than it was. Yes. As a person who end up loving the original tv series, I recommend this movie to all the other fans, but not only that. I recommend this to people who didn't care about Tiger & Bunny's start, too, because this is just so damn much better.

This is a much better version of the first two episodes of the series, but it's polish on a turd. By cramming all the backstory elements into the beginning—where they should have been all along—it managed to set the series up better in 1 hour than the series itself managed to in 10. It also paused to answer questions that should have been answered in the show itself. "Why doesn't Sky High fly to solve all their problems? If flying is his power, why does he have a jetpack?" (His power is just floating.) "When did Barnaby train to become a hero if nobody had everheard of him?" (He actually went to the Hero Academy that we saw in the show and was Steel Samurai's classmate.) "Why did the villain with the crazy eyes suddenly decide to attack during the show when he'd been stewing for decades?" (He saw Barnaby on TV going purely for points and not helping people.) "What the fuck even is Rock Bison's power?" (He can harden his skin and have super strength. This is completely obscured by his costume in the show and here, so they put a little moment in where he used it on Kotetsu.) It also showed the heroes being less than co-workers for once. In the show, they're basically always shown as friends and we are informed that they are not actually friends. Here, they are much more explicit about being rivals only. And the resolution of the original story in this is a much more direct reason for Barnaby to start softening towards Kotetsu than anything the show offered. This all should have been in the show. But it wasn't. And an hour and a half is only enough time to fix the first two episodes, so knowledge of where this whole thing is going kind of puts a damper on it. Especially since these characters don't have what little development they got during the show yet, and most of them were dysfunctional at this point in the story. But that leads to the worst part. Although they gave each hero at least one moment where they showed a personality. Fire Emblem's moments (plural) were gay panic sexual harassment. I remember that early on he appeared to be a bit of a gay (perhaps trans-spectrum) stereotype, but I watched the show dubbed and he gets SO MANY great moments where he's just a character who happens to be gay, including one or two that accentuate him being particularly BLACK and gay and perhaps trans. I don't know if those were changed for the dub, but there is none of that energy in this movie. It's a character assassination. The last thing I'll say is that the Hundred Power is literally the worst power in the show and it's just absurd that they even let Kotetsu be a hero, let alone Barnaby. Every other character has access to their powers permanently, and those powers are way stronger. The joke characters from the Superhero Academy episode during the series had better powers. It only lasts 5 minutes and takes 1 hour* to recharge? Fuck outta here. *or whatever suits the plot