Tiger & Bunny – 23

Almost as bad as that one time he woke up and couldn’t find John

I have something horrible to tell you. The ‘m’ key of my laptop isn’t working. I have to copy and paste every single m you see in this post. It’s happened before, but it resolved itself after I gave it some time. It’s a real annoyance, but I guess it doesn’t count as horrible news. ‘Tiger & Bunny has been cancelled’ would qualify as horrible news. So I suppose we should all rejoice that the universe just destroyed my m key instead of glorious T&B!

Kotetsu and Barnaby continue to duke it out, with Kotetsu mostly defending against Barnaby’s attacks. His only real hit is a punch that knocks Barnaby’s helmet off. He tries to remind Barnaby of all the times they spent together yet again, but he’s too angry to listen. Kotetsu then tries to slap him to see if his memory of pain would bring back the memory of that one time he slapped him. Once again, Barnaby takes it in the worst way possible and just beats Kotetsu up even more.

At this point, Kotetsu has tears streaming down his face and is begging Barnaby to remember. Just as the blonde goes in for one final kick to end him, Kotetsu just happens to quietly mutter one word that makes Barnaby halt. Bunny-chan. Upon hearing that, he reflexively says “Bunny ja nai, Barnaby desu!” and regains all of his memories. They hug and make up in an “awwww” moment before they realize that Maverick still needs to be dealt with.

Ben and Saito show up to help them rendezvous with the other heroes and then take on Maverick. As Saito provides them with their old suits (he didn’t make the dark ones, and that’s a big reason not to trust them) he tells them that Agnes and the Hero TV crew still seem to be under the memory-alteration effect of Maverick. The news gets worse too. Maverick gives them a call and tells them he has all of the heroes held hostage. If they meet him at the top of Justice Tower to settle things, he just might release them.

It’s a trap. A huge trap. But they go anyways, with their only secret weapon being a camera on Kotetsu. Once they step into the room on the highest floor, they come face to face with the Dark Kotetsu. The real Kotetsu pries off the face guard, revealing the identity of Dark Kotetsu as…a robot! Then he accidentally squishes the camera and kind of ruins everything. The guy who made Cis, who I will still call Rudolph, was taken in by Maverick and offered everything he needed to make a robot even better than her. The robot is so good, they want to replace ALL NEXT with robots like this to keep the city safe.

Not only does Rudolph make super robots, he also makes rooms with spikes and explosive collars. His super robot was enough to take out all the heroes so that he could put them in spiky rooms. He threatens that if Kotetsu and Barnaby lose, they will all blow up. However, if someone presses the switch on their collar, they will live while everyone else will blow up. If Kotetsu and Barnaby win….we don’t know what will happen, but he’ll probably try to blow them up. As for the spiked walls, well, I guess he planned to originally crush them but then ran out of time to implement a crushing mechanism. Kotetsu and Barnaby will have to hurry if they want to save the heroes and Kaede.

Bonus Screenshots:

OHHH I HATE THIS SUITTTT I WANT TO FEEL YOUR SOFT LOCKS IN MY FINGERSSSS

This camera is perfect! I’m totally blogging about this.

Barnaby likes his foreplay on the rough side

…and to make it worse, I’ll play Boku no Pico on the TV screens! AHAHAHAHAHA!

End Thoughts: Oh thank goodness, I can watch this show now without my heart being torn to shreds. I’m so glad that Barnaby remembered Kotetsu so they could team up and kick some ass. However, I’m not so deliriously happy that I can’t roll my eyes at how Barnaby remembered Kotetsu. Barnaby hears Kotetsu murmur “Bunny-chan” under his breath and suddenly stops a full power kick from the stratosphere in a kneejerk reaction? I think the laws of momentum aren’t quite so…lenient. It was one of those things that was way too convenient, even for T&B. The good part about their little stand-off was seeing Kotetsu cry. I’m a broken record with what I’m about to say here, but seeing a nice guy like Kotetsu getting hurt just really pulls at my heartstrings. It’s amazing how much sympathy one can feel for an anime character being pitted against his former partner.

Of course, they couldn’t let us feel that sweet relief for too long, and decided to have one last over-powered character for the to take down. Just when I thought maverick was an idiot for even trying to have his stupid robot fight all of the heroes at once, he surprises me. I should have known it was a robot to end all robots. In a flamboyant plot twist, they’ve also got all the heroes hostage with Battle Royale bomb collars. Afterall, WHY KILL THE NOW SO NOTHING CAN GO WRONG WHEN WE CAN WAIT AND SEE IF FATE INTERVENESSSSS. Good anime villains are hard to come by these days, I suppose. It’s not a bad turn of events, it just reminds me what kind of show Tiger & Bunny is. With all the action I started to forget about the melodrama.

They really did save the budget for these last few episodes. The animation was notably well-done compared to usual, and all kind of CGI badassery took place. I can only assume this level of quality will continue since we’re entering proper finale territory. 24 will probably wrap up the battle with Kotetsu perhaps glowing orange again and using up the last of his powers in a super boost OR with Lunatic popping in to save the day. Then 25 will probably be a cool-down episode AKA an episode to shut up the fujoshi with a lot of bromance. They might leave enough hanging so we get a next season, maybe with Kaede too. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Mostly because I’m dying for an ending where Kotetsu and Barnaby retire to raise Kaede. SUPER DAD ENDING. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Preview: This preview is kind of lame. It just shows Kotetsu and Barnaby getting the stuffing beat out of them by the Dark Kotetsu. The other heroes watch helplessly. TENSION. DRAMA. ACTION. ROBOTS.

About Overcooled

A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.