Tiger and Bunny (Volume 6) Manga Review

Reviewed by: Young Jeohn

Author - Masafumi Nishida
Illustrator - Mizuki Sakakibara
Pages - 162

STORY

So what's your favorite tv show? I bet it's the one where you can watch the city's super heroes fighting actual crime. It's fantastic how you can see and hear everything the bad guys are saying through the little cameras clipped to the heroes - and see how the battle goes - in real time!

This is the future of Stern Bild city as humans watch as their favorite NEXT heroes on the HERO TV channel (as all super powered humans are called) fight the bad guys; all the while, advertising their corporate sponsors.

In this volume, several NEXT prison escapees who think they're superior to all normal humans (and believe they should have the run of the city) attempt to take it over as their own. The superheroes are all divided up trying to track down where they went until the mastermind, Martinez, blocks all communication links in the city and takes over the mayor's office. What will the heroes do? How will they infiltrate the heavily fortified building and save the mayor and other hostages?

THE TIGER & BUNNY WORLD

In this fantasy world, any beings with special non-human powers are known as NEXT, with abilities varying from simply changing their skin color to controlling the forces of nature to the utmost extremity. It's much akin to the X-men except heroes are sensationalized on tv and they promote corporate interests to some level (probably similar to how Michael Jordan "promotes" Nike basketball shoes.)

STORY TELLING

The story wasn't easy to follow due to insufficient panel cues and confusing layout. Honestly, I spent half my time trying to figure out what was going on and wondering if I was reading the same story.

Panels would suddenly jump to different scenes without notice or cutaways, so even if you started with book one and knew all the characters, you'd still be confused. There was even a point when the simple issue of the heroes walking up a flight of stairs got lost in translation. I had to re-examine the panels very closely before I got it. It was actually pretty funny, but the clumsy way it was depicted didn't make what was happening very obvious. Examples like this severely cut into my enjoyment of reading this manga... and it got worse, having had to go back three or four times before giving up and just moving on.

ART

The artwork itself was ok, but facial expressions were repetitive and I found myself wondering if I hadn't seen the same hero's bead of sweat, angry face or smirk on the previous page's villain... or indeed on every single character I've come across thus far.

The character designs and personalities were fun and different, but I can't say the same for the mecha (the designs were pretty uninspiring with helmets that looked like toasters outfitted with chrome bumpers of cars from the 60's, and pieces of armor and weapons that didn't seem to fit well together.) I did, however, get a good sense of location with scene art when it wasn't being replaced with blank skies or attack/movement lines.

CONCLUSION

Tiger and Bunny has a lot of potential, but is tedious to read.

This manga was adapted from a hit anime, but the translation from screen to written form doesn't seem to have transitioned very smoothly and could use some work. In terms of readability, it literally brought tears to my eyes as I forced my way to the end of the comic. Six volumes later, it still seems like there are kinks to work out.

FINAL SCORE

3 out of 10 / D