Tiger & Bunny Achieves Mad Men-Level Product Placement

A new animated children's show in Japan titled Tiger & Bunny is pushing the envelope of branded entertainment.

The anime series, which debuted this month, features a futuristic urban world inhabited by a number of superheroes. Each superhero competes on a show called Hero TV, racking up points for saving the day, and the top hero of the season is crowned "King of Heroes." Now here's where it gets interesting: The show's primary superhero characters are sponsored by brands, some of them real.

The Placement page on the show's website breaks down the main characters and their respective sponsors. These include Bandai, SoftBank, Calbee, Gyu-Kaku, DMM.com, Ustream and Pepsi

The logos are not "woven" into the heroes' uniforms as much as they are plastered across them, NASCAR-style. The sponsorships go beyond just the plot too. Pepsi's sponsored hero, Blue Rose, is featured in a Pepsi tie-in commercial.

So far the series has achieved viewer popularity and also critical acclaim. The Anime News Network review summed it up:

"Great premise, great writing, great characters, great execution all around. Obviously created with the tastes of Western fans in mind, Tiger & Bunny not only sidesteps the mountain of clichés that have slowly consumed anime as a medium over the last decade or so, it also manages to set up a really clever superhero premise that mashes up both Eastern and Western comic book sensibilities, adding a couple unique twists that give the whole thing a great satirical edge."

In that sense, the show (available on Hulu) isn't unlike another series that has achieved similar product placement magic: U.S. series Mad Men. By incorporating corporate sponsorship so tightly into their plots and maintaining a quality story not beholden to those sponsorships, both T.V. shows are breaking new ground, proving that product placement doesn't always mean a sacrifice to entertainment or quality.