And let me tell you, it was excellent.

OMG! Tiger & Bunny was the BEST! I'm so glad I'm so selective about the anime I watch. Sometimes I worry that I miss the good stuff, but I think it works out in the end. If you want to see the concept of superheroes done in a level and even-handed (a.k.a. Fair and mostly balanced) way, I'd tell you to watch TIGER & BUNNY! It's fun, it addresses problems and hardships of all kinds, but no one's story gets in the way of the main theme.

Awesome, just awesome. 9.5/10 in its own genre and execution thereof, 8.5/10 on the scale of anime I've seen overall.*

(‎*note: I don't give 10/10s. Nothing's perfect.)

This show just does everything right. Concepts, plot, pacing, character archetype distribution, story time vs. character ratio, everything. I can't say it's the absolute best I've seen, but it's up there. It's definitely a contender with the likes of Gurrent Lagann and Madoka Magica.

The premise is kind of like the mutant angle from X-men - but there are a lot of things that were done differently.

NEXT are beings who have developed super human abilities, and while some people may have the similar powers, most of them are different. The NEXT, although shunned and discriminated against at first, managed to gain popularity because they were marketed as possible heroes to the community. HERO TV was born, and now there are academies dedicated to training NEXT so that they can become heroes.

But it's a double-edged sword. They only allow a certain number of official Heroes at a time, and they all have to be approved by the Justice Bureau. In addition to that, to have state of the art equipment (to compensate for areas that someone's powers might not cover, including suits, etc.), you have to be sponsored.

Yeah. So it's quite a precarious balance. A lot of the heroes have to deal with satisfying their sponsors even though they want to save people more than anything else. All the suits have logos and labels branded on them. It's part of the deal.

But the fame that NEXTs have is relatively recent, and those who were persecuted as children/were affected by the negative stigma still exist. A NEXT can discover their powers at any time, they're not all heroes or even trying to be, and in addition to that, Heroes have to figure out the powers of other NEXTs to fight them properly.

So the show focuses on an "old school" hero being partnered up with a younger fellow, and their struggles as they try to work together to take down thieves, villains and ever deal with vigilantes. But there are a lot of interesting characters, plots, and reveals, and all of the side characters get their time to shine. The plots are very thick in this show, so I don't want to ruin it, but I really encourage you to get off yer bum and go watch Tiger & Bunny. It's super awesome.