A Unique Partnership | Moral Ethics Of Being Omnipotent - Tiger & Bunny
Preface
Welcome to my Moral Ethics of Being Omnipotent series, where I pick animes that deal with people having certain kinds of power, both mental, physical, and elemental. To put it easily, the animes I talk about deal with characters that have certain superpowers or use giant instruments like mechas to fight their battles. Heck, I could even throw in an anime where people just shoot each other and only runs being grounded to reality.
And today's post is going to be about Tiger & Bunny. Taking place in a fictional global city where heroes carry their daily routine of saving lives, but also need to maintain their top 10 ranking positions to give each other a bit of healthy competition. That could sound like a bad idea, but here it works.
Being a hero of such noble traits doesn't come cheap, so companies sponsor them, and television networks captures their heroic stunts to boost their ratings. But also provide them more lenience to continue what they're doing while the money is put into R&D for better technological advancements. Heroes do have superpowers, but the anime has an intricately established flaw that can limit their usage.
This show was conceptualized by both Keiichi Sato and Masayuki Ozaki. With Sato directing and being produced by Ozaki, both wanted a show where heroes deal with mundane real-life problems in a corporate world. Where they are held back and pressurized by the industry itself to maintain its image. Sounds like a certain Amazon TV show that I've watched earlier.
A select number of people receive genetic mutations that give them different kinds of abilities. They are called NEXT and are ostracized by the rest of the world for being different, so in order to find a place for them, they seek ways to use their powers for people's benefit, to help them out in the worst of situations, by also being beacons of hope.
But based on its name, it is primarily about these two major hero characters. Wild Tiger and Barnaby. One's a veteran superhero(the brunette) who's slowly losing his powers, while the other is his partner, a rookie(blondie) raised by a silver-spoon deciding to become a hero to seek vengeance. He's also a NEXT.
Neither of them gets along at first, as boy-wonder happens to be the strict poster boy for the hero league, while the other guy just makes light of everything and is a complete goofball. Eventually, they learn to get past their differences and work together to fight against anything that has been thrown at them.
The show on the surface is a comedy-drama, characters do a lot of silly things, and are very expressive of it. Thanks to a diverse range of personalities, and depth of endearing characters, it's easy to enjoy watching a show where you start caring about them not because of their eccentricities, but also how well written they are.
The hero league, despite looking like a serious crime-fighting unit, deals with a lot of internal struggles. They have to find workarounds between their private lives and their jobs, deliberating whether it's worth being a superhero in this stressful environment, and often separating their emotional griefs with their moral compasses.
These aspects are also reflected in modern-day sensibilities where people are quick to judge and easy to alienate. Because of this, the NEXT people either choose to rise from the occasion, decide to do better things in the world, or let the terrible sentiments get to them and become would-be antagonists against the world order. One prime example is the anti-hero Lunatic, who kills evildoers instead of apprehending them as he sees the world's judicial system as largely flawed.
All these elements serve well as background lore in this stylized, action anime that is grounded but also fun in many aspects. I guess being fun and grounded works well thanks to the art style by Masakazu Katsura, who has previously worked on mangas like Zetman, of which his style kind of adds this grimey undertone to a flashy anime about crimefighters.
The two main characters often rant against each other in silly anime fashion, but even their conversations would give out these gay undertones, and it would seem plausible, were it not able to put a stop in-between just defining it as something more platonic and silly banter for added charm.
Because of all this, it does a good job of validating its theme of "regardless of how bad things get, good will always find ways to triumph". Even if it's weak in some segments of its messaging. This was released in 2011, back in the hay days of Sunrise animation with Gintama, and them still making Gundam animes. Maintaining their standards for good storytelling and characterization.
And man, this anime doesn't hold back. People do die, either because of terrorist attacks, or older people get murdered just for the grand scheme of things. It adds a more gritty tone to create not just realism, but add to the relatable conflicts of trying to keep the world safe. Would have done even better if it didn't have a weak twist villain in the end and left the ending in a cliffhanger.
Season 2 just premiered a while ago and it feels great to see that they haven't lost much of their touch with the strong elements of the first season.
My Hero Academia came right after this, and to put this in a way to straighten the record, the hero trend in modern animes were first set by Tiger & Bunny, and it was a pretty good start. This anime falls short of a few things launching it to greatness, but it is still a damn worthwhile watch.