AWTY 143 - Silent Science (Tiger & Bunny)

Hello and welcome to our week. There yet in exploration and editing, education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dee hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime. Peter Parker and Peter Cotton Tail.

Nice.

I understand one connection, unless I very understood, misunderstood the powers of this other man.

This might be a deeper cut back to the spiderman anime series. In the she, she calls him Tiger. Mary Jane Watson calls Peter Parker tiger all the time.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Happens once in the toby mcguire movies. And that's what I remember.

For some small weird reason, I was thinking he's usually associated with a different animal.

What animal is that?

I don't know.

We're nearly 150 episodes and I'm struggling. I only got so many of these.

It'll be a few more episodes until you just say and I'm Brendan.

I just stop the bit entirely.

Just abruptly stop. You key up something and then change gears and just go with your own introduction.

I'm your anime the third host. Yes, I love it.

But what do we have going on this week?

This week we are watching a show called Tiger and bunny. Yeah, it was popular, I think during my tumblr days because it has handsome men in it.

Yes, I checked. This came out 2011, so that lines up.

I definitely have heard the name before, but I feel like I've never seen any of it. But I mean, I was also not very prevalent on tumbler, so that might be why.

Tumbler?

Tumbler.

It's one of those shows where it's like this is a terrible comparison off the bat. It's like fanny and stalking where it's like the characters precede themselves or whatever the word is. And so that's what gets super popular is like the designs and the characters. So the plot kind of falls by the wayside in terms of fandom and everyone's just like, look at these men.

Yeah, I know. I mean, we've seen it time and time again with stuff. It's like you get a good design character, people are going to latch on regardless of what the context is. And then people get like, oh yeah, I know this character, I see them all the time. And you watch it, it's like, oh wow, that's a different character. I thought they'd be but everyone loves them because of the design. So design can really carry stuff. But yeah, I think the blues plot of it like a blues premise of it and like that's about it and I've seen like almost nothing of it. So like, I don't know, I guess it was decently popular at the time.

I was reminded of it because I saw TikTok. Someone bought some very nice figurines. Yeah. So I was like, oh yeah, yeah.

This is something I had only seen the title of like in context, talking about anime, but never no art. I was relieved to find out it was not a furry show, so that's good. But, yeah. Apart from that, I know what it's not and not what it's were.

You really relieved that it's not a furry show?

Well, it's a mystery.

Oh, well, shall we find out what this is?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're gonna watch the first three episodes.

Let's jump and pass on in.

I wish this was furry and not superhero.

The duality of man. Hey, it's not furry this time. I wish it was furries.

I always wish it was furries.

Please. It's entertaining.

An episode one. There's, hero. TV Breaking news. Some mass criminals are fleeing from the cops. And the news announcer says that no heroes have arrived at the scene yet. And we get the explanation that Hero TV gives, like, a play by play of hero action. And at the end of the season, they award the best hero king of the heroes like a sport. And so after the opening, a hero arrives. Fire emblem. Sure. Which character?

I love fire emblem. Three houses.

I love fire emblem. And we see, like, the producer in the control room is, like, setting up the shot. She's like, yeah, get close in on Fire emblem. Whatever. And he is catching up to the criminals. He reads his attack. He hits them. They lose a tire. We just are introduced to all of the players in the Hero TV season. So then we get rock bison. The announcer says that he's been struggling in the rankings this season. He's just a big metal man.

The resident him bow.

Yes. He gets his horn stuck in the front of the truck and he can't catch the bad guys because he can't remove himself from the truck. The criminals steal a taxi. And then another hero shows up. Dragon Kid. She has lightning powers. She gets them. And then in the background, we see another hero. His name is origami cyclone, and he just kind of is hanging out. And that's just his deal.

Three episodes, and the only thing we know is he photoboms any chance he gets. That's it.

I suck at heroing. I'm origami. I'm literally paper strength so I can be in the TV show. That's as much as I could do.

Please don't make me fight anyone.

He's a dead political convention that's running around trying to get in as many.

Pictures as possible but completely silent. Those guys are typically very loud. Not so she didn't catch everyone. One of the criminals is hijacking the monorail. And the people in the control room consider ending the broadcast since innocent people are involved now, but the producer doesn't want to. And then Wild Tiger arrives on the scene. And the producer tells him to hold for a 32nd commercial, but he doesn't want to wait because if there are actual people in danger, he's not going to wait. So we get a hint that he's more into being a hero than he is for the TV show. Yeah. So they keep the cameras rolling because he's not going to stop. He uses his power, which makes him 100 times stronger for five minutes, and he, like, bends up the monorail track. But the criminal has already escaped into a blimp. The chase continues, and then Sky High comes to save the day. Another title.

Other references.

Other one. He's the reigning champion, and Tiger is not happy that he's shown up. He's like, I just did so much hard work, and now you're here, and the audience already loves you. bullshit.

We love Mary Elizabeth winstead.

So skyhigh gets shot at. He avoids it, and then the missile is heading toward Tiger. We also see that skyhigh has wind powers. Like I said before, the audience loves him. The blimp is going to crash, and Tiger is ready to save the criminal, take him to the police. But the criminal jokes that he'd rather wait for Sky High. And then the blimp approaches a boat. But thank goodness, Blue Rose stops it with her ice powers. She's cute, and she has a catchphrase. And then Tiger complains that she's only in it for the points, while he is the one who actually caught the guy. The guy shot him, but he's okay because he's 100 times stronger than the average person, baby.

Boom.

Boom. He the criminal grows running for Blue Rose, but she just runs away. She really is just in it for the publicity and the points. She doesn't care to fight.

She made her entrance. She's done.

Yeah, she's good. And then tiger's power runs out. And as he's falling out of the sky, someone catches him, someone new. Even the announcer doesn't know who this is. So this guy gets the bad guy, and he reveals his face, which is unheard of. He's very handsome. The audience loves him because he's very handsome.

Beautiful boys. Check.

Yeah, he has a super cool, awesome name, right?

Yeah, we'll get to it. Super cool. And then we see Blue Rose, like, performing a concert. solidifying the fact that she just wants to be famous.

She's a horse girl, and she won the race. She's obligated to do a kpop concert.

So Tiger asks this new guy who his sponsor is, and he says, I don't have one. I saved the guy. Who cares? Or got the guy, not saved him. And Tiger reprimands him for showing his face, and he says, It doesn't matter. You got to keep up with the times, old man. So even though they look like they're the same age, it established that Tiger is older.

Tiger has facial hair, which means he's 35 and jaded.

So it's time to announce the winner of the season. All of the heroes are on stage, but tiger's manager is scolding him for messing up the monorail track, and he might not have a job if he keeps this up. And then he runs off to the ceremony. So Sky High is announced to be the winner again. He thanks the general public, which is with his catchphrase, which I guess is just thank you. Cool. And then the CEO of whatever comes out to introduce this guy in a red suit. Who could it be? And it's the hero from before. His name is Barnaby Brooks Jr.

But what's his hero name?

That's it.

Accountant man.

So he has the same power as Tiger, but they also say that he has the power of youth, which is just to say that he's younger than Tiger.

Just brioche.

Fuck you. Just the power of their show for so long.

So then the CEO does, like, a little info dump about Next, which is, like, the generation of people who got powers because of some mutation. Same old stuff in most superhero anime. Powers caused by a mutation.

Damn.

Magic.

Zoomers.

So Tiger takes the opportunity to leave. He stops at a magazine stand. He reads the back of his trading card. It says he's past his prime.

Just real shit.

Yeah. The general public is like, we're done with you.

Thank you.

And he notices that others are sold out, so he buys ten of his own. And then he gets a call from Rock bison. He says he's surprised he's not at the after party. He's got a schmooze, got a mingle. Yeah, but Tiger is not about that. He's like, nah, I'm going home. So we see the heroes schmoozing. Blue Rose has, like, dropped her facade, and she's talking to her agent about her catchphrase. Sky High is just like, kissing ass. The producer lady goes up to the CEO. Turns out she was just promoted. She says she'll stop at nothing to create a spectacle.

We love a hard driven news reporter that's willing to let people die just to get the story. hooray yay.

Tiger is home, and he gets a call from his daughter. She says she has a recital, and he's going to be there. He swears he's going to be there. His mother, who is with his daughter, takes the phone and tells him that he should be more careful. It's at this point we find out that his daughter doesn't know that he's a superhero, and she doesn't want to have to be the one to tell his daughter when he's dead. So she's worried about him. And then Tiger goes to his manager's office, but there's a huge notice on the door, and it turns out the agency has been bought out. So his agent gives him a business card saying that the guy on there is his new manager, and that on the next season of Hero TV, only the seven biggest corporations will be sponsoring heroes. So Tiger asks if anyone else knows, and then he realizes that he's the last to know because he's just not with it in any capacity, which is.

Kind of weird because they never draw attention to it. But origami cyclone was lower than Tiger in, like, the rankings, but we still see origami Cycle running around like the next two episodes. I don't know if he got bought out by but he still do ozzy. He might not be he might be freelance because he doesn't do shit. He just stands around. So who knows if he's actually a hero?

Yeah, he's with the extra department, not actually with the actual hero department.

I actually don't think he has any dialogue in these three episodes. So that's entirely possible. Yeah.

I think the only thing we hear him say is like, yes, I'm in the shot.

Yeah.

So his manager, he asks his manager what he's going to do. He's like, yeah, I'll be fine. And you will be too. Tiger, I'm going to misrepresenting you. I'm your biggest fan. So that's sweet. And then we see Barnaby walking out of a building. As Tiger walks up and barnaby peepo. Barnaby walked past a kid who had lost his balloon in a tree. So it's like, oh, he scoffs at this child. He's not actually interested in helping people. What's his story? But Tiger shows up and he helps him, gets his balloon out of the tree. And as he's doing his cool flips, all of the cards he bought of himself fall out of his pocket. And the kid is like, yeah, I understand you're a fan because you're both old.

You both like classics.

Yeah.

Both pastor prime. Clearly.

So the kid offers him a Tiger trading card saying that he's more of a sky high fan. So he doesn't need it. And he just makes it. So he goes in to meet his new manager. They had said tiger's real name before. It's Cotesu. But for he's just going to keep calling him Tiger. He tells him he still wears a.

Mask in his normal everyday life. So he's still a hero. So, yeah, he's just tiger.

Yeah. So the manager tells him to go to the design department to talk about his new suit. And then there's an alarm. A giant statue is attacking the bridge. Luckily, the new manager does already have his suit ready to go. And he's not sure if he can do it. He doesn't want to wear the new suit because his old suit was everything he represented, which is, yeah, not great. And his manager loves to say, if you don't do this, you're going to be fired. We hear that a lot. So he gets out there. He's in like this high tech new suit. He's riding a motorcycle. And we find out that the manager is pairing him up with another hero. It's going to be the first hero duo ever. So he's out on the field and he sees Rock bison and he's like, is it you? And then the episode ends. I'm going to say right now, the pacing in this show is super fucking weird. Super weird.

I feel like there was something missing from this episode because sorry, skip ahead. Next up, it starts and it reveals it's. Barnaby but we never saw that. Like, that was part of the flashback of, like, the previous episode, but we don't see it.

Yeah, it's framed in the first few seconds of the second episode, as if it is like a previously on so I went back to the end of the first episode to make sure there wasn't an after credit scene. And there's not.

Okay. Because there is a third episode.

Yeah.

There seems to be missing stuff in this episode. anyways, so we'll get to both of these.

Yeah.

So we immediately start seeing yeah. That scene where they're like, oh, no, it's this other guy. It's like, all right, you just meet with bison, but okay, sure. Thanks, reliable. narrator so Tiger and Barnaby are paired up. That's just such a weird fucking sentence. Okay, I just got very self aware for a moment.

Sounds like we need to put, like, Christopher Robin and rabbit. It's like, what?

Yes. So they are on the bridge chasing down this statue. They're on barnaby's moped motorcycle, and Tiger is in the side car, naturally humiliated. So, yeah, I wrote down Brooks. I don't know why I keep calling him Barnaby. That's much more of a mouthful. So, yeah, I'll call him Brooks.

I just wrote down bonnie.

Yeah. Can you get that? He's going to get the nickname bunny soon. Okay, cool. But yeah. Brooks bunny. They race in to fight the robot. Tiger wants to jump in immediately, but Brooks is like, wait, no, hang on. We only have five minutes of our powers, so we got to wait till showtime. So they have to wait for the cameras to go live because it's all about the show, remember? So on the scene, all the other heroes are arriving as well. Blue Rose just pulls up in her idol wagon in a door concert venue that folds out of the side. And she's like, all right, how are you doing tonight? I'm opening for a statue. My career is going great.

We get a lot of like all the other heroes are Iron mans. They're all iron mans. And then the two women are marketable. And it's like, yes, cool.

The treatment of the women heroes and just women in general. And the show is not great.

Okay.

But yeah. So they try to time out their attack, and Tiger is like, I don't have time for this grappling hook. But he's in a new suit. He doesn't know how it works, so he's struggling with it. He aims to grab onto the statue, but, oh, he shot just where Brooks jump to. So they grapple each other and they're all tied up. wacky. They're an odd couple, aren't they?

I get that reference because I'm old.

Yes, I think Tiger would get it too. Well, the show would let you know. But they're grappled together. They're all tied up. They're on the robot, and they see the giant fist of the statue coming to crush them and they're in the agent's office. What? Oh, thank goodness. That statue ran out of moving. Juice jetting about to get crushed. Thank you. Thank you for not animating that not complex sequence and telling us about it 2 seconds later. All right, cool.

Let's jump ahead so we can jump back. So we can jump back ahead. You could have just linear could have just gone right away. All right.

No, truly, I think the animators were like, we have no way of making a statue stop moving. Again, interesting. Just have someone say it. That is cheaper than us doing this boring sequence. But the agent is like, you two are dipshits out there, but the camera loves you in Hollywood. And he's saying, Tiger, you're obsolete. This is your only chance of still being relevant and a hero. You have to be his sidekick or you're fired. Don't forget it. J. jonah jameson. So they go and have him talk to the scientist who made his suit. This is just a very confusing sequence in every language. So what they show us is he goes in to figure out why his suit wasn't working great. And he goes and talks to a scientist who's very soft spoken. He's so soft spoken. There's no recorded audio for this man. He just says nothing. His mouth is moving. There's no, like, stage whisper. It's just dead air. It's the weirdest fucking thing I think I've ever seen.

Yeah, I legit thought I was like, going crazy. Why bother happening right here?

I had closed captionings on and it was just translating that as whispering. Helpful. So at the recommendation of G, I went to the Japanese audio with the English subtitles not enclosed captioning. That again was whispers, but going to the actual English provided track. And there is where we get the actual useful information in the scene in which the scientist is like, hey, I'm the edna Mode here. I'm not even going to try. Here's your new suit. Your old one was bullshit. This one is much more fire resistant. We're going to stress test it, show you all this, take buzz blades to it. But this is all text. This is no audio and it makes no fucking sense.

Yeah, I was like, okay, so this really is just the bit that we don't get to hear him speak English first. We just don't get to hear him speak. We get the implication of what he's saying through Tiger. But then when I switched to Japanese with the subtitles and he was actually saying things that mattered, I was like, what the fuck? Why was this the choice?

And in the Japanese, there is someone talking. But I maxed out the volume on my computer in every way I could, and I still couldn't understand what he was saying. Just the rue. I also don't speak Japanese, so that probably could have been a hurdle. But I could still barely even hear what he was saying. Well, in the context, I'm like, why was this done?

Yeah, this is weird.

I was cranking up my studio monitors. I'm watching it at my computer, and it just nothing. I was cranking it, and I was like, no, if tiger comes on screen, I'm going to kill my neighbors.

I can yeah. blah. It's so weird. And like, it's the comedy bit. I don't get the joke. It's just a really quiet person. I don't get what the punchline is here.

They're not going for, like, shy scientist nerd type because the dialogue provided is, like, very general. Like, yeah, here's old school dogs. Yeah, it's fine. anyways, super weird. I don't get it. But they get to the great silent comedy routine. Bit of a new feature in your suit. It's a watch. But tiger sees the time. And who could have guessed he forgot about the recital beans? Oh, man, I wonder how this is going to resolve itself. So he immediately calls his daughter, and you've seen this scene a million times in a million different genres, but you're not going to make it. Aren't you just like the last time? blah, blah, blah.

I'm on my way.

Yeah. She's like, there's this weird hot ice skater here. He's popular. Okay, cool. But he's like, all right, I'll be there. Yes. So as he's on the phone with his daughter, that statue reactivated. Okay, he's got a is he going to make it? Who knows? But he rushes to the scene. He's like, all right, got an hour. I have plenty of time. We'll knock this out real quick. I can only do five minutes of work anyways.

Hey.

Yeah. But he gets to the scene with Brooks and oh, the statue has a kid. But Brooks is like, hold on. Does the kid have a statue? And tiger is like, no. dancel in distress. He's a boy. But then weird pacing. Flashback time.

Perfect time.

Yeah, like a flashback. We get a flashback to a bank robbery where a tiny baby tiger is being held hostage when a superhero comes in. An even older superhero, the first hero, mr. Legend.

All my.

Out of shape alma.

Mr. Incredible. Literally, Mr. Legend.

That's a better one.

Bad guy sticking up on Mr. Legend. But, oh, this boy glows, and he stops the bad guy. And Mr. Legend is like, oh, boy, you saved me. You're a hero yourself. He's like, oh, me? I just get kicked around on the playground even though I can beat the shit out of him. But he's like, hey, stick with it. You'll be a great hero one day. And he does it's. Tiger.

So I never understand this trope, especially in superhero stuff, but it's always like, all the other kids make fun of me because I'm different, because you have superpowers, and you could murder any of them at any moment. I wouldn't make fun of the kid that can murder me. By blinking. I know kids are dumb, but why?

Chihuahuas will try to fight bears, but he sees in addition to this hero oh, wait, no. They got grabbed by the statue at some point during the flashback. So they're being held by the statues. Their powers aren't activated yet, so they're actually stuck. And while they're in there, we get the first reference to Tiger calling Brooks bunny because he has Pinkle sticky up parts in his helmet that look like years. He's always bouncing around bunny. But no, I'm fighting the name of the show. This is going to go well for me. But as they're fighting oh, they're being told a stone lion from downtown also came to life because the statue stopped moving. And oh, no. Wouldn't you know it, it's going towards the ice skating rink where his daughter's thing is. Oh, boy. So bunny is like, the statue can come back to life at any time. I'm going to chill here and not use my powers yet. And Tiger is like, all right, fuck you. Uses his powers and leaves him there. So he goes to the ice rink. Oh, as he's flying downtown, the show producer calls and is like, hey, I know what you're thinking, you destructive motherfucker. If you destroy that statue, which is a historic landmark, you have to pay for it. So he's like, all right, good. Property rights, whatever.

Yeah. lenovo makes every show fun. bureaucratic red tape. Love it.

Love a good restriction. Yeah. We have an unlimited hero. Let's stop him with legalities.

That is incredible. Fuck. Damn it.

They did it better. It's fine. So he gets to the ice rink, the statue crashes into it, and we see. Okay, this was like one of the things I liked in this, one of the few. Like my notes are crossed out several times because they actually caught me off guard. Feeling enjoyment, he flies in and sees his daughter on the ice rink and scaffolding is falling. So I wrote down his daughter almost gets crushed. But then he keeps flying, getting closer. He's not fast enough. Are we going to watch his daughter die? And she's crushed. I was like, oh, damn. Okay, cross that out in my notes. And then he stands there. We linger on this sad moment where he's like, I failed my own daughter. I can't be a hero anymore. And then 5 seconds later thank you, Mr. Brooks. And saved his daughter. Just swooped in and the last second so fast that even he didn't see it.

How could this be possible? Don't ask that question. Who cares how?

But yeah, I will give the show that one thing.

Okay.

My question is, why didn't he use his wire, which grappled onto Brooks earlier on that episode and proved that he can pull someone to what did I say?

Don't ask questions.

So, yeah, his daughter is safe. Cool. So we see. Like, everyone has run out of the ring at this point. We see bunny and Tiger talking to the kid on the lion. And they're like, hey, stop. He's like, no, I'm a little freak boy with powers, and everyone hates me. So I'm going to show them the thing standing up for myself. I could do this small scale, as it happens. But no, I got to make a city incident out of it. He was going to fight that popular kid from before. Who cares?

They knew each other. They were roommates.

They were roommates. Yeah. So seeing the same thing that was happening to him, but like, stopping the villain arc, tiger is like, hey, kid, i, too, was the same way. I was a little next weirdo that everyone hated, but used powers for good, not for murder. And kids like, you really believe in me, Mr. And bunny's like, hey, don't inspire him. If we don't arrest this kid and throw him in prison, we don't get points on a TV show.

They really make Barnaby a really unlikable piece of shit.

He's like, oh, no, let's not do that. Let's save someone hero stuff. morality. So Tiger talks him down, and he's like, all right, we'll just stick on the light side, kid. We'll talk to your parents and get this all sorted out. So they go outside. Everyone's cheering, situation resolved. But the building is collapsing. Oh, no. But all the heroes are here at this point. So they all fly up and grab the building. And just as they grab it, they're like, oh, no. My five minutes are up. I'm not going to have all this strength to stop this building from falling so the kid can control inanimate objects. So Tiger shouts down to him, hey, kid, this is your chance to be a hero. deem yourself. This is technically your fault, so you kind of owe us. But he's like, but what if people think I'm weird? And they're like, hey, we're all heroes. goddammit, do this. A does it. So, yeah, day is saved.

The giant metal statue from downtown. That was five minutes away. It's here now. Suddenly, wow.

Yeah. It grabs the building. I kept forgetting about that part. I was like, why? You can just grab you've dealt with a stone lion. Does it have to be anthropomorphic? Or can you just grab this building?

I thought he was going to lift it with his brain.

Yeah, situation resolved. They go back to the agency, and the agent's like, no, you're fired. Just kidding. teamwork is actually working out. You're actually getting ratings and attention. So keep it up, man. So Tiger calls his daughter and is like, oh, weird. I got stuck in traffic. I couldn't make of that thing that got stepped on. Sorry. But she's like, it's okay. I have a new hero. And it's bunny. And he's like beans burns. And that's episode two.

To be fair, it didn't go where I thought it would with the recital. I thought he was going to miss it because of work and then his daughter's disappointment and he has to regain instead, it was just fucking destroyed. So, like, he technically didn't miss it. So it didn't go how I thought it would.

It's not my fault, sweetie. The giant robot ruined it.

Also in that episode we see, we find out the kid was being bullied by the fancy boy ice skater. We see ice skater earlier, knock into tiger's daughter, like, knock the phone out of her hand and keep skating and, like, looks back, acknowledges that he did it and keeps going. And at the very end of the episode, when the kid is being taken away by the police, the ice skater runs up. It's like, hey, Tony, you're pretty cool now and not a freak. I'm like, he didn't even apologize.

Why do we care about this shit?

I think let that kid die, that it sucks.

You're getting positive attention. I latch onto that.

This kid is just like, we got good anime ice skater boys. Fuck this kid. I never want to see him again.

My parents don't love me, so somebody has to.

I hated this kid so much. I'm like, you're on screen for 3 seconds. And I hate it. Every moment of it.

Yeah. The good news is that he probably never comes back.

I hope not. I hate anyway. Episode three starts off with Tiger and Bunny getting shot at during a firefight. They're taking cover behind, like, a building. It's kind of like broken down around them. They're like strategizing like, all right, we'll sneak up on the shooters on the left side, and we'll ambush them. Bunny is like, no, there's mud on that side. It'll be more tactical advantage to sneak up on the right side. And then Tiger says, I don't care what side we go. And if Bunny says, okay, if you don't care, let's go on the right side. And Tiger goes, no, I want to go on the left side. It's like.

Fantastic.

Going out to dinner and so on. It's like, I don't know what I want to eat. I get the chicken fingers. Like, I don't want chicken fingers. They clearly, you know what you want to eat. It's not chicken fingers. Oh, I hate it. This fuck the fuck out of me. This unlocks something I didn't realize was in me. And so Tiger stands up out of COVID and says, no, we're going to left side. Because I say so. We see all the laser scopes on the guns, like, lock onto his face. And he goes, as the opening sequence, standard opening sequence montage, all the characters and all that stuff. Nothing really special. And then we come back and Tiger is on the ground. And it's like, I guess he got shot. And then Bunny walks over to him with his mascot. And he's like, that's why I said we should have gone to the right side. You blew it. And the simulation, it's like, odds. A simulation. That's why he wasn't murdered by the guns shooting him in the face. So we see. Yeah, same old stick. bunny's mad, trying to get the work done. Tiger is incompetent. As bunny's leaving, he's being followed by the hero TV film crew. Unfortunately, they get a lot of attention in this episode. And while they're talking to the frontal and they're like, yeah, we're just trying to follow you around, see what you are in your day to day life. Just get coverage, baby. News content. And while they're filming in, we see Tiger has a flashback to his new boss lecturing them about how the duo is terrible pretty much solely because of Tiger. He's like the only flaw, and everyone hates him, and he's going to get fired. And we love corporate bosses and our content. And the boss recommends that they do a simulation to improve their teamwork and improve their worth. And then we cut back to present day and the producer wanting to talk to Tiger. Yeah, come on out here. Get out of simulation. We got to talk to you for a bit for an interview. And then we cut to the news team interviewing all the other heroes, sky High and Rock bison and Fire emblem, everyone's there. And Fire emblem is just a delightful oversexualized caricature of a gay man, which is.

Find your Krepresentation, right?

And then they get to Tiger and they're like, what do you think about bonnie? And he's like, I have nothing to say. He's your partner. It's like, you can't say anything nice. Don't say anything at all. And the producer starts chewing them out, saying like, you fucking idiot. You can't say anything. I'll just write your lines for you. And then we'll just film you saying that. And then we see the two guys on the film crew, like the camera guys following bonnie around. And they following me back to his apartment. No, we just want to see inside your apartment. You expose your identity to the world. Now we are owed every second of your waking life. That is what it is to me to be a public figure, right? So they follow him back to his apartment. And as he walks in, bunny really quickly hides something on his computer. And one of the camera guy comes over. He's like, oh, I get it. I'm a single guy, too. If you find any good porn out there, let me know. It's like, wow, you went real creepy real fast.

Yes, pornography. You're porn.

I leave pornography open on my computer at all times.

It's a power move.

Oh, God, there's some sociopath out there that thinks it is, and he's probably doing great in the business world. That night we see barnaby. Finally, bunny. Why would I use his real name? We see Bunny by himself, finally, alone. And he sits down and turns on the news and he sees his boss talking about like, we're unveiling this new statue of Mr. Legend, the first hero, and he's just doing a big spiel. And Bunny remembers back when he was a wee child, and he's in a burnt down remains of a house and his rich tycoon parents were assassinated. And that's why we see his boss swoop in and adopt this young child to exploit for his own profit. And we see Bunny open up the logo and the news clipping of his parents dying, the obituaries and all that stuff on his computer. So he's clearly still searching for the killers, whoever they may be. There's some weird logo or something.

He's a detective, like Batman.

They do have powers, right? It isn't just the suit. It's hard to tell because like I said, all the guys are just in mechanical suits. So I don't know if any of them actually have powers or it's just the suit.

Well, Tiger had his powers in either suit, so that's true. We know probably it's them.

Oh, is are we just watching neon jen galen again? You're unplugged five minutes.

Yeah. There is a part later in this episode where they'd use their power to outside their suit. But it's just like, why does everyone look like a fucking robot? It was very unimaginative, in my opinion, on the sides of the characters, except for the two women. I liked. What was it? Electric dragon, kid. Dragon.

Dragon kid. Whatever.

Her and Rock bis. And I'm like, Hell, yeah. Everyone else, I could do without these. Anyway, next day we see Tigers being forced by the film crew to go and hang out with bonnie and act like their friends. And he's like, hey, let's enjoy some leisure time, amigo. And they're just like, you're terrible at this. He's like, yeah, because I hate this. I'm not going to act like I'm good at this. And yet we see him walking around. He still has his secret identity, but he's just wearing a little robin mask where it just covers the eyes. And it's like, gee, I wonder who that is. I don't know why he only has.

One luigi suit anyway. recognizable.

Yeah, he's a pretty unique looking guy. And we see them walking around spending the day together. bonnie's taking pictures with fans. And of course, origami cyclone shows up and does nothing else. And then that night they go to the big tower where the Mr. Legend statue was in the news broadcast yesterday. And they're like, oh, yeah, we'll get some footage with you in front of the statue. And then we'll go up to the restaurant on the top floor and get a big scenic shot of that around the city. And as they walk to the elevator, a maintenance guy walks out of the elevator. And Tiger is like, hey, what are you doing in the elevator? It's like, I don't know if you're using it. It's a big tower. And the maintenance guy is like, oh, I was just greasing the wires. And Tiger says like, oh, isn't it a new building? Why do you need to be fixed? He's like, it happens. And the guy just walks, wink, like vary on the nose. And then while they're up at dinner at the top of the tower, all the staff is guessing about bonnie waiters and waitresses coming up asking for pictures and stuff still. And they're trying to have a conversation to get good broll footage. And it's just very rigid. And Tigers not loving it because he doesn't enjoy it. It's like, what's that building? I don't know. What about that building? He's like, fuck if I know. And just like, it's real engaging conversation here. And then all of a sudden, the alarm goes off and they freak out. Security guy runs up and they're like, it's okay. You can tell us. We're superheroes. He's like, oh, we got a bomb threat called in. So we got to get everyone out of this building before it explodes, even if it's not real, we don't know. But we gotta get him out just in case. And then all of a sudden, Tiger remembers elevator and runs off. He's like, you get everyone else out. I'll take care of the bomb. Runs off. And sure enough, it's in the elevator. And sure enough, there's a timer on it. Why do they do this? And it's got 17 minutes left on the timer before it explodes.

Exactly how high the stakes should be.

Good visual attention for this media.

Yeah, some something's going to happen in about 16 minutes.

Oh, the episode will end. And we see bonnie leading the evacuation. Everyone's running downstairs come back. And we see Tiger running back to him saying like, cool, good. Everyone's out. There's a bomb in the elevator. We got to take care of. And we see the hero. TV crews like, we got to stay. This is high stakes drama. We got to film all of it. And both heroes are like, no, you're a citizen. Get the hell out. And it's like, but the producer woman is like, this is my job. I got to do it. I'm willing to die for it. And it's like, no. And funny suggests like, hey, what if Tiger just films it because he's not doing anything anyway? Because he's all washed up in old and dumb. It's like, fine. So then news crew finally leaves. And then we see all the other heroes evacuating the rest of the people in the tower. Apparently, anytime there's any incidents, all of the heroes are at the ready to help out.

They've got nothing better to do.

Seems like it's like New York City and the Marvel Universe, where it's just like there's just like 50 heroes at any given time ready to jump in action. And if it's so high stakes drama in that city and dangerous, why would anyone fucking live there?

What if they all have kids, and they all relate to the same recital.

What if they realize there's a recital and none of the superheroes show up and someone makes the connections? They're like, hey, isn't that guy wearing a dumb little mask of superheroes? Like, yeah, probably. So they evacuate, and we see the news crew go back into their truck. Down at the bottom of it, we see Tiger and bombing. Get to the bomb, and there's ten minutes left. And Tiger says, the workman from earlier was suspicious. So I checked this location and found it. bumpy is like, all right, cool. I'll disarm it. You know how it's like, yeah, it's standard practice for a hero. Any idiot would know that. dumbie.

Yeah, it's not a bomb with an alarm clock attached to it and dynamite.

You're old can't just cut the wick, and we see. Bunny says, I'll handle this. You run off and get out of here and get to save to yourself tires. Like, no, but if I'm going to be here anyway, I might as well film me. And he like, Clients, and takes out the camera he's given, starts recording all the footage, and then we cut back down to the news crew, and there's a woman in the control center speculating. Like, Tiger said he found the bomb, but we didn't see it. And Tiger has been kind of low in the ratings lately. What if he made up this bomb threat just to get attention? And it's like, that's a shitty thing to speculate lady. And the producer ladies like, no, no, no, whatever. Just go back to like, we're live. We got to focus on this stuff. And doesn't address it, but I assume that's going to come into a later episode. And there's two minutes left on the bomb, and bonnie's having a rough time. He's like, I got it down to two wires. It's either his top one or his bottom one. And I don't know which one it is.

All riveting nail biter.

Tiger says. He's like, Just go with gut. Go with gut answer. I say the bottom one. And they argue back and forth, being like, you can't trust your gut answer. You got to have logic and figure out exactly what and then you got answer. You waste a minute and a half congratulate 30 seconds left. And then Bunny goes to cut the bottom one. And at the last second, Tiger says, Go high, and then activates his powers. And then we see bonnie also activates powers, and it would cut to them in the elevator shaft, like reclining, chilling. And he asked, like, oh. Tiger asked like, oh, why'd you end up listening to me? barney says, Excuse me? bonnie says he's like, I guess you could just call it a gut instinct. I just I went with my, you know, gut reaction. And while they're talking, get a panic shot of just a hole through the ceiling above them, like something shot through the ceiling above them. We see a helicopter flying over. And then all of a sudden, they see the news showing footage that Tiger got while he was in the elevator shaft holding the camera. And it shows him punching a hole through the ceiling and telling Bunny to kick the bomb up to him. That's what he meant by saying, go high. So instead of disarming the bomb, they just kicked it out of the building and it exploded above the tower. I don't know why they tried disarming it if they just ended up doing that. If that was always an option, you probably could have saved the 17 minutes and taking the bum further away from the city.

Yeah, you could have walked up the stairs in that time to the roof.

And then done that, just thrown it or, like, into the water. There's a lot of rivers and water nearby.

There's options because it seemed like Bunny knew like, he knew how to defuse a bomb, but he waited until going through all the process to be like, ah, yes, the inevitable 50 50% change. So, yeah.

And the hero TV news crew was like, oh, should we use the other other footage that Tiger got for us? And like, no, we won't show that. And then it shows us, the audience, what it is. And it's just them arguing. We've seen it for the last three episodes. It's not a new. Then it's ending. And we got a post credit sequence of Tiger going to a fancy bar, meeting up Rock bison out of uniform. And they're talking about the bomb. And they're like, oh, what was the bomber like? What was the bomb like? And Tiger was like, it was a very sophisticated bomb. It was a C Nine bomb. And then they see on TV Tiger talking about how great god, my notes are messy. While they're at the bar, the TV is playing on in the background. And they notice on TV, it's Tiger from the earlier news footage that they recorded saying how great bonnie is. He's like, oh, boy, I sure do love my partner. He's amazing. And it's clearly the fake lines that the producer wrote for him. And then at the bar, there's a pianist. And we see her playing. And then she stops playing, looks at Tiger, panics, and runs away. This is blue rose. I think that's her name. So I guess that's leading up to next episode. And that's episode three of the worst case scenario of my hero academia being controlled by sponsors and the media. There's literally an arc in my hero academia of like, all these heroes are shit, and they're controlled by, like, sponsors. And I'm going to murder all of them. And everyone's like, yeah, this is a great arc. This is a good storytelling. And then this show is just like, what if we made that the show, though? What if that was the whole show?

Yeah, the shitty hydrox to an actually good oreo, which is that's funny because.

This and Hydrox both came before both.

Yeah, but like, what if hydroxy deserve to fail?

There's a reason Hydrox isn't as popular even though it was first.

I think that this concept is interesting enough with heroes competing for rankings and whatever, and like, the reality TV show aspect of it. I thought that was kind of interesting, but this show is just so poorly executed. The pacing is bad, the writing is bad. The music makes it feel like there are no stakes. The acting makes it feel like there are no stakes. It's very strange to watch.

Yeah. I feel like there's stuff they could work with here, like sort of a Running Man. What? Brain fart running man, the story by Stephen King where it's like the actual story is a guy's, like a fugitive on the run, and it's all a game show and it's all commercialized and stuff, and like, that's interesting, but they could have done something like that. But with superhero, it was like, yes, there's something to work with here. To be fair, we're kind of like to get to the beginning, we're kind of burnt out on superhero stuff, and we're super burnt out on giant corporate re destroying our fucking planet stuff. So I don't know when a good time for this story would be, but I agree, there is something unique and interesting there. But they didn't highlight that. They didn't go with that.

Yeah. The time for this, in fairness, was ten years ago.

It's our fault.

Yeah, it's definitely the bias of just being beaten over the head with superhero media and oh, what if twist. They're corrupt. Like, oh, weird. Like yeah, the 2011 okay, this is a fine concept at that time where you have, like, one big team up thing and it's like, okay, big blockbuster we can work off of. This is the start of a phenomenon. So they got in on the ground floor, I'll give them that. But at this point, it's kind of a numbers game of, like, we see this concept over and over again at this point, and just so many better versions that if we saw this ten years ago, okay, writing is fine, but, yeah, it works. But now at this point, where it's also generic design and just sitcomy concepts we've seen over and over again. Yeah. It's just unnecessary.

Yeah. I think we also, like, for the past couple of weeks, we've been talking a lot about showing versus telling and how it's done well and not, and this show somehow does neither. But also, it's not good ever. I can't imagine, even when it came out ten years ago, I can't imagine ever thinking that this was well done.

Just to cut away from the high tension moments. Like, cut away and then immediately cut back to it. But like, 5 seconds after it already happened, that happened a few times, and I don't know why.

Yes. Such a weird choice.

Yeah, because they're always like, this is an anti climactic moment. We're cutting away. We just rode ourselves into a boring corner.

Yeah, it's weird.

It's an interesting take, but the men are so handsome.

They're so.

Except for barnaby's. Just like, I get pretty he's got a weird style. He's definitely got a lot of volume in that hair and it's flowing. A lot of Fair faucet sort of tips to it. But for me, and I get what they're trying to do, he's the young, upcoming upstart who follows the corporate rules, and eventually he's going to break out of his mold and be more loose, and Tiger is going to teach him how to live his life. Like, I got that story. He's just so unlike. There's not a single redeeming thing about him because we already saw all of his serial motivation is motivated by publicity scoring points. So even when he saves tiger's daughter, we know he's just like, I got to make sure my teeth are brushed for the cameras. wink. Like, we know there's no genuine interest in any of those images.

And it's not like he knew that it was tiger's daughter, so he wasn't doing it for a personal reason either.

Yeah, it's just like, hey, camera crew is going to be outside. I got to be ready to show off. And it's like, I have zero interest in him at all.

Yeah, that empathy point is the like, oh, he's losing publicity. He has no privacy. It's like, yes, you went out there with your own name. People have forever had superhero names for this exact reason. You're just dumb and realizing after the fact, oh, this was a mistake. So I don't feel bad for you on that front.

Yeah.

It happens. No, just recounting my nose. Like watching I was like, it's pretty standard to superhero anime. Like, it's what I expected it to be. But after recounting my nose for the weekend, I was like, I kind of like, maybe I don't like, I kind of hate this.

None of it makes sense.

I didn't realize until I said it out loud. But I will say, because I just read a chapter of it this morning if you're interested in this dynamic of young rule follower and kind of washed up old guy but kind of trying to relive his prime, there's a manga and showing a jump called kaiju number Eight, which is still young, still pretty early, but pretty good and like, fun. And like, I care about the characters. So it's a very similar dynamic. But instead of superheroes, one guy turns into a kai chu.

Neat.

Yeah, I'd recommend that instead, but yeah.

So what do we have going on next week?

Next week we're getting patriotic. It's going to be our 4 July episode. So we got to celebrate that. Red, white and blue the only way we know how we're watching wakfu, the French anime.

Yay.

Because America wouldn't exist without French.

We're really having a freedom fries moment here. But, yeah, if there's a show you the listener would like us to watch, you can send your recommendations to us. Our email is areweebetheret@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at rweebethere on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan, where they're pretty dead these days, but that's from a brain. But yeah. You can also listen to other podcasts I do like besides now, or echoed locations.

You can find me on Instagram at honey period D on Twitter at honey. D eight and Honey D art, or on twitch at honeycore D. And Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. Find me on Twitter.

At a BTS brendan. If you want the occasional retweet of chainsaw Man or Final Fantasy Nine art and A 03:00 a.m. Questioning of why did I eat this food? I knew it would make me sick. You can also find me Almost Better than Silence, which the video game podcast I also do.

Thank you to camille ruley for artwork, and thank you to Louis zong for our theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

What if it was a furry superhero anime?

Hang on, hold on. That would be much worse. You can see visually they're not fucking Iron Man. They're something else.