Tiger & Bunny Movie 2: The Rising

The second Tiger & Bunny movie, "The Rising", is definitely for the fans. Being a big Tiger & Bunny fan myself, I was very excited to see this movie. While it is not a perfect movie, it did a good job of being true to its source.

Story: The movie's plot is very straightforward: we rejoin the heroes some time after the end of the TV series. Kotetsu and Barnaby are part of the Second League, but that quickly changes when a new owner buys Apollon Media. What follows is a predictable, but still entertaining story.

While the TV series can be seen as "Barnaby's story", the ... new movie is more focused on Kotetsu. Watching him come to terms with his new lifestyle is very heartfelt. The heroes' struggles against the new villains doesn't have as much emotional investment as the series, but is still action-packed.

While the overarching story of The Rising is mediocre, the sub-plot involving Fire Emblem is amazing. It may be that the producers/studio realized that having a hero who is transgendered, but a successful business owner and his own sponsor was an amazing positive message. Even if that is not the case, the movie goes into a touching back-story revolving around Fire Emblem's past insecurities, and the harassment he was forced to endure. It is a moving and very touching story, and adds more depth to his character.

Art: The 2D animation is great, very fluid and sharp. It seems like the 3D hero suits have been given an upgrade as well. The 3D suits are not as jarring and out-of-place as the TV show (they weren't even that bad in the show, in my opinion). The 2D and 3D are almost seamless. The new suit design for Golden Ryan is also good, incorporating lion themes to contrast Wild Tiger.

Sound: A lot of themes from the show are remixed and reworked for the movie. It was great to hear familiar tunes, but it is always nice to hear new things as well. The voice acting was fine, on par with the TV show.

Character: The new hero, Ryan Goldsmith, is an interesting character. Equal parts conceited and confident, and a level-headed point-oriented hero, you don't know if you want to hate him or love him. Ryan points out to Barnaby that he "sounds like his old partner", and even says similar things that Barnaby said as a rookie hero. Ryan even knows that Barnaby needs Kotetsu as his partner. While he doesn't have any development, he serves a purpose in the movie, and he does his job well; Ryan reassures both the audience and Kotetsu and Barnaby themselves that there is no one else who could possibly replace a member of this team.

The rest of the heroes get a great amount of screen time. It is fun to see what the heroes have been doing since the end of the show, and how they have changed. Small humorous bits with Rock Bison, the Second League Heroes and Kaede keep the movie from being too dramatic. While Lunatic does make an appearance, he did not get any further development, and that was a bit disappointing.

Overall: If you love Tiger & Bunny, you will enjoy this movie. It is a fun, fanservice-y movie that has a good balance of old and new. If you are not a fan of the show, you might not enjoy this movie as much; many characters are not given much of an introduction, and the interactions between characters are what really drives this movie.

TL;DR 5 words/phrases to describe Tiger & Bunny: The Rising
fanservice, mediocre main story, great character back-story, visually pleasing, funny

Tiger & Bunny Movie 2: The Rising... I think it would be more accurate to call it "The Falling"; not because of the film's quality compared to the anime series, but the themes in the movie are more consistent with falling than rising...

Story: 6/10

Like any film, the story had its strong and weak points. The plot mainly went into further detail about Kotetsu's insecurities as basically a back-up hero, but the detail was rather lacking when it shifted focus onto the other heroes and how they fit into the story. It was almost as if they had to be given excuses for appearing.
We ... see some new backstory from one particular hero, whose name I won't spoil, but I think their history could have been fit into the story better than it did. Granted, it is harder to make a compelling story in a full-length movie when the anime was so strongly focused on an overarching plot.
The scene snippets that appeared as the end credits rolled were good though, and they helped tie together some loose ends.

Sound & Art: 7/10

Not much to say about the art or the sound. Many explosions, and the usual visuals seen in the anime. The ost was fine and both the op and ed suited the movie.

Characters: 7/10

"Lion & Bunny" would also be a more appropriate name for this film because as far as things go, Kotetsu and Barnaby didn't really have that much of an interaction with each other, rather the focus was mainly on Barnaby and his new partner Golden Ryan: a ring in from another city with great confidence and the power to back it up.
Besides the main characters, there wasn't much noteworthy character development from the other heroes and supporting cast, however, they were all still consistent in their portrayals.
The antagonists were fine, but did not leave any lasting impressions.

Enjoyment: 7/10

The film had a decent enjoyment level. I've always loved the dynamic relationship between Kotetsu and Barnaby so although there wasn't much of it in this spin-off, what we saw was still good enough. Kotetsu's struggles between balancing hero and family duties were also continued from the anime, and I particularly enjoyed the scenes of him alone in his apartment- they've always been good indicators of his current mental and emotional state, both in the film and anime.


Overall (7/10), I think this film was worth watching, even just for the sake of seeing more of the Tiger & Bunny world after having enjoyed the anime. As a standalone film, it isn't quite noteworthy, but as a continuation from the anime, well it really could have been a lot worse so I won't fault it for that.