Tiger & Bunny – 17

That sinking feeling when you realize your daughter is a rabid fangirl

It’s Overcooled! The member of Metanorn who washes her face first! Welcome to Tiger & Bunny, the Tiger-only version. Barnaby is only here for a couple of lines of dialogue, and the rest is all about Kotetsu’s visit back home to see his family. Be prepared for a lot of drama.

Kotetsu asks his boss if he can take a paid vacation to see his family and think about his steadily declining powers. Upon arrival, he gets picked up by his older brother, Muramasa. He’s gruff and straight to the point, so he doesn’t even look the least bit apologetic when he ditches Kotetsu to go deliver some alcohol for his business. He does, however, invite Kotetsu to drop by at night when the store isn’t as busy.

Dreams of Kotetsu having a hot brother…shattered.

The house is empty since Kaede is at school and Kotetsu’s mom is in the garden. He steps outside to say hi to her, and pretends to be perfectly fine. BUT MOMS KNOW. THEY ALWAYS DO. Things go downhill from there as Kaede catches Kotetsu snooping through her drawer of TigerxBunny doujins Barnaby porn. He then has the nerve to ask her to bathe with him as if she were 4 or something. Bad move.

His mom tells him to apologize for going through her stuff and being oblivious to her feelings, so he tries to make peace with her after dinner. He gives her Barnaby’s autograph, which wins her over for a minute before she gets defensive again. Feeling lost and needing someone to talk to (and some alcohol to drown in), he visits his brother’s store. Kotetsu tries to hold in his own problems as per usual, but his brother convinces him that he can’t do everything by himself. Finally, Kotetsu admits his own shortfallings and his loss of abilities to someone else. As he leaves, his brother reminds him that his powers aren’t everything and he can still live without them.

Meanwhile, Barnaby is doing just fine without Kotetsu, which leads to more drinking and sulking. As he lies there watching television he remembers how his wife made him promise to always be a hero. She told him to accept a call to save some civilians when she was sick in the hospital, but she died while he was doing his job. He downs the entire bottle and cries himself to sleep for being unable to keep his promise to her. ;_;

Early in the morning, Kaede wakes up Kotetsu in a panic. Her grandma suddenly collapsed due to back pain. She tries not to make a big deal out of it, but Kaede is extremely upset. Kotetsu tries to assure her it’s nothing as well, but that just makes her hate him even more. Without her grandma, who would take care of her? Muramasa explains all this to Kotetsu by Tomoe’s grave so he can understand his daughter and her circumstances a little better. Oh Kotetsu, you so dense.

Pshh, she’ll be fine. You won’t mind living with her in a nursing home, right, Kaede?

After school, Kaede goes to a shrine to pray for her grandma’s safe recovery. However, it starts thunderstorming so much that a bunch of trees collapse and block the door. Her family starts to worry, so they head out to try and find her. Kotetsu uses his Hundred Powers to find her with his super hearing, and then again to remove the trees. His powers actually run out while he’s moving them around, but he manages to still hoist an entire tree over his head through sheer GUTS and MANRINESS.

Daddy’s home.

Kotetsu saved his daughter just before the shrine fell down the entire mountainside via a mudslide. The next day he heads home, promising to quit and come home for good to protect Kaede. As he leaves for Sternbild to resign, Kaede activated her NEXT powers and follows beside his window to give him a picture she drew of herself, Kotetsu and Tomoe. Looks like the show will be Kaede & Bunny soon enough.

Bonus Screenshots:

Ahhh, I have to give this precious tome AWAY?! Crap, there must be some way to keep it…

By the power of derpy animation, I ban you from entering this room!

We all laughed when Kotetsu said Jake’s power was super hearing. Now what do we do?!

Who needs powers when you can move a tree?

End Thoughts: Episode 17 was really a mixed bag for me. It’s ceratinly not one of my favourites. There were a whole lot of dumb moments, but they were sprinkled with good moments too.  The drama sucked but Kotetsu’s characterization was still spot on. I couldn’t help but cringe at all the emphasis on Kaede hating her father. She has a good reason to hate the man who has ditched his family (since she doesn’t know he’s a hero). That doesn’t mean I want to be put through a whole episode of her insulting the poor guy. I love Kotetsu, and as I’ve said before, t pains me to see him basically go through the meat grinder with all these problems being thrown at him. There was that, but let’s not forget that there was a conveniently timed rainstorm and a mudslide complete with Kotetsu using his DILF powers to move a tree. Come on, that’s a bit much even for Taigs and Buns.

I spent a lot of the episode rolling my eyes, but some good things came out of it. I appreciate the attempt to derail from the hero-of-the-week theme and take an often less explored route. The hero’s family. The life before they became a hero. I don’t want Kotetsu to quit being a hero, but it’s really the right choice. What else could he do? He’s come a long way to be able to admit such a thing. It’s better he quits now instead of getting in the way or even dying on the job. I still have doubts he’s going to quit in episode 18 though. There’s still a lot of episodes to go, and a finale without Kotetsu is just…weird. I’m not sure if he’ll get his powers back or if he’ll just help his husbando in any way a normal pedestrian could. Although, even if he gets his powers back, I predict he would quit anyway to look after his daughter. Win-win situation because we get both an awesome final battle AND a fluffy, “oh look, he’s such a good dad!” ending.  That’s my prediction for now~

Let’s not talk about the melodrama, because that’s just a general problem that plagues anime from time to time. It’s just bad because it tries too hard. No no, I’d rather fangirl over some of the good moments! My favourite scene this episode, hands-down, is Kotetsu’s conversation with his brother. His brother is kind of a stock character without much depth to him, but he’s the one that gets Kotetsu to talk. To open up. This is one of the first time someone has cornered Kotetsu, pressed through all his question-dodging tactics, and forced him to give a straight answer. Even to his own brother, he was hesitant to say what was bothering him. It was a great moment for showing just how much he internalizes things and beats himself up over it.  I never realized he was so self-sacrificing to this extent. The man was crying over it, it was so bad! I can only hope Kotetsu gets better at telling people when things are bothering him, because seeing him cry all alone makes me want to cry too. Perhaps after telling both Ben and Muramasa he’ll actually have a heart to heart talk with Barnaby.

Preview: Upon returning to the city to quit his job, he finds out that Kriem has woken up. I’m guessing she divulges some important information about Ouroboros, which leads to Kotetsu staying in Sternbild a while longer. Poor Kaede.

“So…wanna draw another face on top of her head?”