When Tiger showed up out of nowhere to catch Barnaby, that was really lame. I laughed out loud; it looked like a cheap employee bonding moment: “Now, guys, I want you to turn away from your partner and fall back. Trust your partner to catch you! This is a trust-building exercise!”
It turns out that Jake can read minds. As a result, he can anticipate his opponent’s attacks with perfect ease. Tiger realizes this, but also realizes that he can’t just tell Barnaby that Jake can read minds without Jake also catching on. So Tiger pretends that Jake has super-hearing instead. Tiger then hands Barnaby a “super-sonic” grenade, but it’s really a stun grenade. Fooled by the ruse, Jake detonates the grenade, stunning himself and allowing Barnaby to essentially knock him out in a single hit. The whole thing felt a bit anti-climactic.
The only nagging issue I have here is that Tiger must have really convinced himself — at least for a short moment — that Jake did have super-hearing. You’re telling me that the entire time he’s telling Barnaby how to beat Jake, the thought never crept into his mind that “Yo, I don’t really believe this”? Maybe… it just seems a little far-fetched to me.
Jake tries a last ditch effort to get away, but Tiger and Barnaby stop him and Kriem this time. There’s a huge explosion and everything, but in superhero stories, never assume the villain is dead until… shit, even if you see the bodies, never assume they’re dead.
The entire world cheers… for Barnaby? Oh, I guess the camera didn’t notice the whole part where Barnaby had a dokidoki moment with Tiger on the rooftops. The CEOs and politicians milk the hell out of the good ending, Barnaby gets his revenge (though we never find out why Jake killed his parents), and Agnes proclaims that this is the best episode of HeroTV yet. Most importantly, Tiger and Barnaby are in love trust each other.
End series.
No, wait, there are episode previews for next week. It’ll be called “Love is blind” and it looks to feature Blue Rose. Ugh, she’s a kid. Way to ruin a good feeling! Her eyes look kinda weird there… hm.
Stray observations:
• I can’t help but think Barnaby is really a dumb pretty boy as he fought Jake.
• So it turns out that Rock Bison and Sky High were taken to the hospital too; the show just didn’t bother to show their fates. The only problem with this is that it kinda blunts the impact of Tiger’s fight. We’re supposed to think that Tiger’s getting the worst of Jake’s rage and Tiger’s a standup guy so why is this happening to him! — but hey, everyone ended up in the hospital.
• So out of nowhere, Tiger goes SSJ and gains super recovery. Eh. Not a big fan of sudden developments.
It wouldn’t have necessarily hurt the plot either if a heavily injured Tiger still snuck out of the hospital just to support his partner.
• Fire Emblem: Let’s show them some girl power!
Blue Rose: “Girl?” One of us doesn’t quite fit that description.
Dragon Kid: Sorry, is it because I’m a tomboy?
Blue Rose: I’m not talking about you.
Fire Emblem: What? You’re saying I’m not one of the girls?
• Okay, this angle on Blue Rose’s ass is a bit much.
• While Barnaby battles Jake, the “girls” must quickly dismantle the Mad Bears, but why did no one think the bears would have some sort of alarm system on them? Like honestly, Kriem would just let them sit there idly.
• Barnaby’s dad looks kinda like Michael Keaton…
• After Ano Hana’s ending, Barnaby’s crying really didn’t do anything for me.
Not necessarily Tiger & Bunny’s fault — just bad timing, bro.
• It didn’t really help either that Barnaby resisted Tiger’s suggestion just to whine about trust like a petulant teenager. Holy shit bro, is now really the time? “YOU NEVER TRUSTED ME, DAD.”
• I’ll give Barnaby credit for showing mercy to Jake without Tiger’s help. That surprised me at least; I was half-expecting Tiger to say something about how this isn’t how heroes act, blah blah blah.
• When Tiger told Barnaby that he always knew Barnaby would trust him, that is such a page out of the guidebook on how to tame a tsunderekko.
All that’s missing is Barnaby blushing and stammering out “I-it’s not like I wanted to trust you.”
• I’m just gonna stick this right here:
La la la, I have nothing to add.
I think we have to assume that either Jake can only read one person’s mind in one go or that they were too far away from him to hear Kotetsu’s thoughts, or it’s just another plot hole. I was pretty shocked by how easily Jake was beaten following the grenade scene – he seemed to crumble after receiving a single hit… Lunatic and his tea made me laugh though.
I’m sure logic doesn’t really matter in the world of T&B. It’s just fun to nitpick. I was gonna say the lack of Lunatic taking action disappointed me, but I guess it slipped my mind while writing the post.
I absolutely loved this episode… but then, I was a huge comic book fan growing up, and the shoutouts to Batman and Joker in this were simply great for me, lol. So I am biased.
I’ll certainly admit that some scenes and plot points in this stretch believability a bit, but that tends to be a common drawback of superhero stories, so I’m going to mostly let it slide here.
One slight defense though… Jake’s body is probably perfectly normal aside from the fact that he’s decently buff. He can create energy barriers, and read minds, but that doesn’t really give him extraordinary durability at the skin level (i.e. behind the energy barriers). That’s why Jake kept dodging a lot. So I can accept and believe that one hard well-delivered kick can do real damage to him.
The barrier thing never really made much sense to me. Why wouldn’t he have a barrier up at all times? Does he need to actively use it at the moment of defense? Does it only last for the second that it’s up? Was something lost in translation cause I’d think shield if someone says “barrier.”
“Ugh, she’s a kid.”
I swear officer, she told me she was 18.
Tiger was still in a far worse state than Rock and Sky so I still see it as he got the worst of Jake, I mean he had open wounds even after using his super healing powers. Now a wounded Tiger sneaking out of the hospital would had made me feel like Jake didn’t rough him up as much as we were lead to believe.
To me, it just feels like “Tiger got beat so hard! — he had to go to ICU!” But then the other two chumps are there too.
Too much bromance. But, that’s how the series goes, I suppose. I wonder if Ouroboros will make a comeback and I’m expecting Lunatic to interrupt the bromance.
I wrote about the series and its look at the media & heroes. You can read it at:
http://www.mangatherapy.com/post/7058545573/tiger-and-bunny-heroes
What do you think of the supposed Tiger/Blue Rose teamup & possible relationship that Episode 14 might be encouraging?
Sunrise knows where their bread is buttered if they’re not gonna focus heavily on female fanservice.
I don’t think Ouroboros will return. I think they’ll gear up to make Lunatic the villain.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I have faith that T&B won’t actually pair the two up. As typical of light comedic series, the next episode will probably be just a series of misunderstandings.