Tiger & Bunny

THE STORY:
Forty-five years before the beginning of the anime people with unusual abilities, the NEXT began appearing. The story takes place in a re-imagined version of New York City called Sternbild, where the NEXT can work as heroes who handle disasters and capture criminals to earn points in the city's popular reality TV show “Hero TV”. The hero with the most points accumulated at the end of the season earns the title of 'King of Heroes'. Each hero needs to be affiliated with companies which will sponsor the hero and cover the costs of collateral damage. In return, all the heroes' outfits sport the logos of the companies that sponsor them.
The main character of the story, for once, isn't a shonen archetype, but is an older veteran hero (widower with a daughter, no less), Kubaragi T. Kotetsu, who is having trouble with his job as a hero and is treated by most as past his prime. He can't help but put people's safety first and often ends up causing too much damage to surrounding structures and effectively dives his sponsors to bankruptcy. He is forced to change sponsors and begins working under a large group which plans to make the next big hit by having Kotetsu team up with self-assured and standoffish rookie Barnaby Brooks Jr who happens to have the same NEXT power as Kotetsu.
However, Barnaby's past is clouded by the mysterious murder of his parents when he was four and the only thing driving him to live is his strong desire for finding and exacting vengeance upon the people responsible for it. Needless to say, they start out almost completely out of sync and Barnaby's cynicism clashes strongly with Kotetsu's by-the-books style, but their understanding of each other grows and they forge an unlikely friendship.
THE VERDICT:
T&B is a fresh, rationalised interpretation of the concept of superheroes. Undeniably, if the show was rated on originality alone, it would have gotten a perfect score. It plays with ideas that are refreshingly down to earth. The idea of capitalism using the heroes for advertising by turning them into celebrities and slapping product labels on them is very topical.
The plot is interesting and well-paced; neither too slow nor fast. The first handful of episodes concentrate on defining the characters, and from then onwards, the story starts to build up. Although broken down it can seem a tad clichéd, there are enough twists to keep you on your toes. Basically, you are unlikely to be able to guess which cliché will come up next and this keeps the plot from being bare-boned and makes it genuinely exciting. Although the story has almost no plot holes and ties off the most significant loose ends, a few questions are left unanswered.
The art is superb. The background designs are so pretty they should be illegal. You are bound to pause and stare at the night-view of Sternbild and bask in its bright-lit glory. Although the robot suits and other technologies used in Sternbild are futuristic, many aspects of the setting are not, and this gives the city a very pleasant old-meets-new feel. The CG can be a bit conspicuous at times but the lighting effects, fast movements and the general atmosphere are usually enough to make up for that. The sound goes both ways. The OP/ED themes are decent and although some of them are catchy, none of them are outstanding in any way.
If you are a superhero show purist, you probably won't like T&B. On the other hand, if you are anything but that, you will probably love this show to bits. Even people who generally don't like superhero shows should give this one a try. Also, I'd like to point out that although this is classified as mecha from the studio's point of view, it's really about as mecha-ish as Ironman (the 'mecha' are robot suits, after all).