English Dub Season Review: Tiger and Bunny Season Two Part Two

Overview: Kotetsu (Wally Wingert) and Barnaby (Yuri Lowenthal) and the rest of Sternbild’s finest track down the culprit behind the supposed Next contracted disease, X, in the psychotic criminal Gregory Sunshine (Robbie Daymond) who is lead by Sigourney Rosicky (Julie Nathanson), rank 2 member of the seedy organization, Ouroboros.

Our Take: Mugan and Fugan were just the beginning with Ouroboros continuing to wreak havoc between Next and non-Next alike. Gregory Sunshine and the Ouroboros organization are worthy follow-up anarchists in causing mass hysteria and division between the two factions of the city with a fictitious Next spread disease. Thankfully, it is not unrealistically one-sided in the sudden distrust of Superhero society with multiple Sternbild citizens continuing to support and aid the heroes. That only extends to the citizens, however, as the police force acts as a contrived roadblock in their ill-conceived chip on their shoulder.

The villains themselves are enjoyable though like the crazed Gregory in his unpredictable lunacy. Sigourney Rosicky, an Ouroboros higher-up pulling the strings, is also intimidating in how much influence and hidden agents she and the organization have in play across various industries. She gets an attempt at a backstory in order to justify her reasoning in causing societal division but it is too half-baked to leave any sort of meaningful impression with it middling overall. The heroes piecing together their plot to seed fear and paranoia is an incredibly enthralling cat and mouse investigation that became more intense as they inched closer to truth the audience was already up to speed on. There are also some brief cameos of past villains from previous episodes and movies, making for nice callbacks.

What was less pleasant though were the few odd English dubbing audio issues that came up with voiced lines being completely omitted with silent mouth flaps occurring during conversations. On the visual side, there are various instances of shoddy looking art during non-action oriented affairs, a sign of how troubled of a schedule the anime must have had. Animation is average looking, it is nothing too bad motion wise but never amazes, lacking any real deep intricacy or bounciness to character motion. Although, ironically enough, it does manage to fill in that gap using detailed character art with minimal motion but only during integral battles and when the movement is not up to speed, so at least there is that. 

A hero is only defined by his challenges, how they push through that adversity to the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s only so many avenues you can take with it, but Tiger and Bunny 2 tackles it exceptionally though in the difficult  thought provoking hurdle of our heroes facing what fighting spirit is left when one’s actions are not officially sanctioned with their role being controversial in the eyes of the general public. The strong, uplifting spirit from the two main heroic leads, as well as the other heroes, in their resilience in spite of those struggles, while nothing new, is brilliantly executed. There is a great evolution of Barnaby and Kotetsu’s strong friendship that have them relying on each other more than ever, a testament to how far they have come and how much the series honors that. The story does not have them running into the same trust issue pitfalls, not going for more low hanging drama.

Beyond the two titular heroes, the other duos also get conclusions and/or development to their arcs. Karina gets closure in navigating her feelings for Kotetsu, which leaves it just open-ended enough that hopefully it is not the definitive end for a hopeless romantic like myself. Thomas and Subaru properly bond together as teammates and learn to trust each other through compassionate cultivating experiences, like getting to know and helping Thomas’s sister, Ruby. Kotetsu deals with the deterioration of his power, learning how to move forward through that painful hardship. Lunatic’s confronts his internal demons surrounding his abusive father, Mr. Legend, and his own code of justice. Lara reaffirms her independence from her mother and trust in her partner, Pao-Lin. That is just to name a few too. The show does a superb job of not leaving any hero out, giving proper finality to their current arcs, cultivating them further while nicely fleshing out their buddy chemistry, adding to the hopeful tone and ideas of the show. 

With Kotetsu’s position as an upstanding heroic icon of Stern Build being forced to evolve, it shakes up the status quo of not only his own superhero standing but his partnership with Barnaby as well as his role as the rock of the city’s protectors. It does all this while preserving the underlying uplifting message with the whole cast for a powerful finish that feels like it is far from the end and that hopefully won’t have us waiting another ten years for a third seasonal entry.