Dorkfest 2022 continues, as Tiger & Bunny pretty much doesn’t miss a beat in trying to turn back time. This is not a sequel that seems to be going for a major update of the premise (or even a refresh). Rather it’s an attempt to disprove Thomas Wolfe, and so far pretty successfully. Right now we’re at the stage where everyone in the cast is seemingly getting an episode focused on them, with Barnaby and Kotetsu being the only constants (not counting the Ouroboros twins, who show up in every post-credits scene so far).
This time around it’s Rock Bison and Origami Cyclone who get their turn. Antonio has always been a fairly important character since he’s Kotetsu’s best friend, but he really plays the Barnaby role in this partnership in the sense of being the one in the foreground most of the time. That’s one reason (though not the main one) why Ivan is so hurt when a drunk Bison (this is not a rarity) says he’s more like a “soft breeze” than a typhoon. Origami has a more personal reason too, which he later shares with Barnaby.
Tiger, as always, can’t resist getting involved in other people’s problems. In this case it’s pretty understandable given that he and Bison are best buds, but neither really has a clue how to defuse the situation. Subaru makes a meal of it when he tries to get involved, which is pretty funny but not as much as Barnaby’s reaction to being lumped in with the “old men”. Eventually Origami convinced Bunny to pass on his origin story to his partner as he’s too embarrassed to do it himself, but this only leads to Subaru screwing things up more.
Honestly this is not exactly an earth-shattering crisis, more like a tiff. But then, a lot of the personal drama between the heroes in Tiger & Bunny has always been of that sort – the series likes to show off the human side of its cast, for all its fragility and pettiness. It’s only a matter of when those two patch it up, not if, and it’s a conveniently-timed bank robbery that leads to reconciliation. It’s interesting that Ivan actually impersonates Barnaby when he wants to calm down the hostages in the bank – betraying a little lack of confidence in his own image.
It looks like Tiger and Bunny taking perpetual rain checks on that drink after work is going to be a running gag – this time around Bunny begs off to have dinner with an old neighbor named Mattia (there’s clearly something darker going on there). I may be making too much of it but I wonder if this could be foreshadowing future tragedy – the two of them passing on the chance to get closer until for whatever reason there are no more chances to be had. T&B doesn’t necessarily seem like that sort of show, but it wouldn’t be all that much of a stretch.
