Tiger Mask W

Two men fighting. A setup that drives countless fictional stories, and one which Tiger Mask W delivers in spades.

If you are browsing this and ordinarily enjoy a good battle shonen, just go watch Tiger Mask W, you need read no further. Pro wrestling - at least as it's portrayed here - is basically the same thing with more spandex. They still have attacks with cool names and take implausibly large hits, but there are no gruesome deaths or spirit bombs on display, just an occasional "they'll never fight again" killer move to raise the stakes. It's a Toei series, so the quality is typically choppy ... and relies a lot on "classic" compositions with a static camera against dynamic still poses, but it's well-directed and sustains a feeling of movement for an extended period. Pretty much every fight is easy to follow, flows well, and engrosses the emotions.

OK, you say. The fighting is pretty good. What else is there? The other important part of a series about fighting, of course: giving the characters good reasons to fight. The main plot of Tiger Mask W is a straightforward revenge story, and many of the subplots are roughly as predictable. But like the fighting, it manages to juggle a fairly large cast and develop them at a steady, easy-to-follow pacing. Everything ties together in a neat, by-the-book fashion, which is in keeping with the "throwback" feel of the visuals. You've seen it all before, but rarely with execution this strong. It's not a twisty, meta, or philosophical type of show, it just delivers the goods on satisfying setups and resolution, over and over. Most seasonal anime could stand to learn from this example.

I actually started watching Tiger Mask W with its final episode, which was a chance happy accident: the conclusion to the main plot was in the previous episode, and this was more like an OVA-style epilogue that acts as a teaser for a possible new season or spinoff, with a focus on side characters and stage-setting for new plot arcs. I really hope they go through with producing more of this series, because it's like comfort food to me.

you take a what is pretty much a japanese legend and turn it into a anime and you get this. you have two tigers with the same goal but trying to achieve it in different ways. one picks the more villain like route an the other a more heroic one kind of like a split of the original tiger mask, which started as a villain but saw the effect it had on the children that watched and became the hero.

This show is very outdated and in turn makes me feel like a kid again. but i that a good thing as a viewer yes ... but as a critic no. for today's standards the story is bland, the animation is choppy and bad, the characters can be a hit or a miss but i really enjoy it. the music is really fun and i can listen to the op all day. compared to shows when this should of been released it is really good. if your looking for a classic feel 9/10, otherwise 5 or 6/10.

Alright, as a wrestling and anime fan, i feel the need to review this show. (First review ever, so dont judge too harshly. or dont. who cares.)

So, Tiger Mask W. Whoof. This series had some massive ups and downs. As a wrestling fan (particularly NJPW) it had a lot of good fanservice, but that's almost it's downfall. I feel like one of the selling points of TMW is that it has so many references to real-life wrestlers, but if you're not at least tangentially aware of who these people are (Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi) you're gonna miss a lot of content. Okada's first appearance in ... the series is treated as a big deal, but if you're not aware he's the current longest-reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion, it's going to mean nothing to you. There's even a joke later on in the series involving Tanahashi that you wont get unless you're in the know. But i digress.

Being a Toei production, the animation is all over the place. At the least, it's good when it counts in the fights, and that's all we can really ask for. Even so, it means that we dont have a fully fantastic animation quality, and that's sad.

The Story, while cliche, is a fun story to follow. Naoto fights to get revenge for his father figure, while his childhood friend does the same, with different means. It was a fun story, but nothing inherently special. The characters are probably the best thing about the series, even if they are also nothing inherently special. Haruna was probably the best part to me, her energy and sense of humor was the best thing that kept the series fun to watch at any given time. The rivalry between Naoto and Takuma was engrossing, if a bit cliche. Obviously there was also the frequent cameos of real-life NJPW wrestlers, which was a great source of making the series feel grounded, even in the impossibilities of the wrestling shown.

Overall, if you're a wrestling fan (especially a NJPW fan) you'll likely get a good amount of enjoyment out of Tiger Mask W. It's DEFINITELY cliche by anime standards, it's story being a very old-school style of storytelling. But even so, it has heart. It may have gotten a 6/10 from me, but it kept me enjoying it, if only for it's over-the-top style and it's fanservice. Give it a try if you're a wrestling fan, but i'd probably stay away if you're not, or are into shounen that try new things.