CREATED BY: Tsuburaya Productions
STARRING: Raiga Terasaka, Runa Toyoda, Shunya Kaneko, Kei Hosogai, Sumire Uesaka, Shunichi Maki, Ryosuke Takahashi, Mao Ichimichi, Shin Takuma, Katsuya Takagi, Tadashi Mizuno, Meiku Harukawa
DIRECTED BY: Koichi Sakamoto; also by Kiyotaka Taguchi, Masayoshi Takesue, Takanori Tsujimoto, Tomonobu Koshi, Naoyuki Uchida
SCREENPLAY BY: Naoki Hayashi, Junichiro Ashiki; also by Toshizo Nemoto, Keigo Koyanagi, Sotaro Hayashi, Sumio Uetake, Jun Tsuigita
COMPOSED BY: Go Sakabe
BASED ON: Ultraman Tiga and the Ultra series by Eiji Tsuburaya
EPISODES: 25
AIRED: July 10, 2021 - January 22, 2022
So my first pubic review. Honestly feels surreal to do this. I may forget or lose interest in this in a couple months but eh, we can see how this will go. And boy oh boy, my first one is a treat...
When I was a kid on Saturday mornings, I would wake up early, turn on Fox 25, and watch some brilliant children's cartoons and anime. One of those shows that caught my eye back in the day was Ultraman Tiga. The show was everything epic and cheesy about monster films, had a catchy tune, and sick as hell effects. It was my introduction to the Ultra series, and was sadly my only entry until Tsuburaya put their legal headaches behind them to get Ultraman global. Good on them to stick it to the cheap knockoffs.
Flash twenty years later and now Tiga is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary with quite a bit of flare, albiet with little Daigo. Ultraman Trigger is the third entry into the franchise's Reiwa era, ninth in the New Generation Series, and 33rd overall. The show is meant to, as the title suggests, serve as a tribute to Tiga and the Heisei era as a whole in catering to the next generation, reviving one of the best Ultra series and tokusatsu overall in the Reiwa era. A tall task to be sure, but Koichi Sakamoto was willing to take this large task. Too bad for him that, in addition to making a show worthy of carrying the legacy of Tiga, it was coming right after a fan-beloved series in Ultraman Z.
Not helping matters is that they filmed this in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and in a time the world was not getting stabbed to death. However, they finished everything as things were settling down (at the time) so there should be no excuses, especially with the high level of quality Sakamoto boasts when he signs on to a project. With all this in mind, we have to ask this question: does Trigger live up to the fine line of his Ultra-daddy, or does he flop faster than Neymar after being poked on the forehead?
PLOT
In the present day, Kengo Manaka (Raiga Terasaka) is a botanist that lives on a colonized Mars as monsters wreak havoc on the Earth. His peaceful life comes to a screeching halt when Carmeara awakens and attacks Mars with Golba. This chance encounters leads to him discovering a statue of the guardian of light and bonding with it to become the new light that protects the smiles of others, Ultraman Trigger! Kengo is quickly drafted by Mitsukani Shizuma (Shin Takuma) into GUTS-Select, a task force led by Captain Tatsumi (Katsuya Takagi) and consisting of Shizuma's biological daughter and descendant of Yuzare, Yuna (Runa Toyoda), and his foster son, Akito Hijiri (Shunya Kaneko), to defend the Earth.
One thing that Koichi Sakamoto always excels at is high production values and fight scenes. He not only excels at his craft, he blows it the fuck up. This show once again proves just that no matter how bad or good a show is, when the man is in charge, you will see some fireworks. Quite literally. Bad joes aside, the visual effects are pleasing to the eye as with every Ultra series, but the seamless blending of CGI and live action footage is really incredible. Dare I say, TsuPro does their CG a lot better than Toei ever have. A good example is the first episode with Trigger's fight with Golba, the camera moving in all sorts of angles, ensuring that not one single part of the battlefield is unaccounted for. Only a few episodes in the show do this and I think it's pretty damn good.
Trigger's suit is incredible as well. As you can tell, it's meant to pay homage to Tiga and truly looks and feels like a new Reiwa version of him. The gold shield on the torso is an especially nice touch, which modifies when he changes to Power or Sky Type. The main gimmick with this season is its use of odd keys with the powers of the Ultras or kaiju, which is a recurring trend with this franchise. By inserting the Gaia Memory--I mean Hyper Keys, as they are called, into the GUTS Sparklence, our heroes draw out a power to use in combat which is sparsely used, or for the Ultras, "open" the gun to transform. It's a very nice kitbash of props to use for marketing. Additionally, they are the first toys to be individually electronic. Some people have actually gotten a bit skeptical at this, as many fear Tsuburaya will join Toei in having transformation devices that are a bit too chatty. I don't mind it personally, but I can definitely see where people are coming from. Just praying it doesn't happen.
Speaking of noise, the music is very nice. The ending themes leave a bit to be desired, especially the second one (though I like its use in Darrgon's final episode) which just sounds like Kengo, Yuna, and Akito chanting over a melody, but the opening theme song, "Trigger", more than makes up for it. It's an extremely jamming song that gets you in a really upbeat feel and has shades of some Eurobeat mixed in, making it feel like a Reiwa version of "Take Me Higher". The BGM is also pretty sweet, using the theme in its leimotifs for the heartwrenching and epic moments as needed, and other music used during fights is stellar. My favorite is the instrumental of Ignis's character song, "Hunt in the Dark", which is an absolute banger and really should be an insert theme. It all adds to the mystique that Tiga was known for, and really hammers it in that this is indeed the New Generation Tiga.
I hope you're still with me here... Because I've pretty much run out of nice things to say about this show.
As mentioned before, Trigger is meant to serve as a tribute series to the original Ultraman Tiga and the Heisei era, specifically Tiga and its successors, Dyna and Gaia. This is emphasized with most, if not all, the episodes containing loads of references to those three shows and at times being based around episodes from those shows. Aaaaaand that's a bit of the problem with Trigger. The show is simply an endless cornucopia of endless referencing the three shows with little to no weight or reason behind them. This is behind the show trying to go through most of the motions of being a new Tiga while attempting to be its own thing, and it sadly does not mesh well. It just seems like endless nostalgia bait with little to no reason or context.
One such example is in episode 3 when Hudram and Ignis make their respective debuts. The former summons Gazort to draw out Trigger and bring Yuzare out of Yuna. During the fight, the kaiju inexplicably mutters 'friends' for no reason, it is never explained, and seems like something that is completely random and out of context.... unless you've seen Tiga that explains the reason of it. Another prime example is Tiga's appearance and fight with Kyrieloid alongside Trigger. While I did mark out seeing this, it felt so out of place and paced so terribly. Most of the episode was focused completely on the Dark Giants' infighting, leaving little to no room for Kyrieloid, the villain of the episode, to do much besides get pounded on by Tiga and Trigger. Which is pretty depressing for a monster that, like the rest of Tiga's rogue gallery, had not appeared since its debut 25 years ago.
This brings me to another issue regarding the anniversary stuff. Only a handful of kaiju from Tiga get any sort of representation, with a grand total of five. Six if you count Deban from the clip show specials. The rest of the kaiju are all Showa or New Generation monsters we've seen before, or new suits... which are just recolors or retools of already existing suits, like Oka-Gubila just being Gubila rolled in dirt and reusing the Maga-Orochi suit for the upteenth time. For all the hype of it being a spiritual successor to Tiga, it sure didn't feel it. People can point to the pandemic being a reason for this and other safety concerns, but I don't think COVID has gotten so bad it's infected suits that are just in a warehouse gathering dust.
(NOTE: Something that I just thought of while writing this review was the suits, actually. It's completely possible most of the kaiju suits have gone missing, been misplaced or stolen, or aren't able to be used anymore. In fact, Gazort and Kyrieloid are suits that were recently used in stage shows, which may explain why only they appeared and most of the others weren't. Granted, they could have attempted to remake the suits, but if the old suits are indeed gone or unusable, then it would definitely explain why there was so little Heisei kaiju in this show.)
My biggest issue with the story is its world-building, which relies a little too hard on, as mentioned before, trying to be Tiga while also not being Tiga. The first ten episodes are not too bad, they give fairly decent beginnings for characters and show the potential for this series to get into. The Deathdrago episode has awesome character moments and development with Akito, the Z teamup was flawed but really enjoyable and got a few laughs out of me, and while Darrgon's episode was a bit cringey, it was entertaining and endearing that showed his noble traits and wisdom of understanding the strength and will of his adversaries that won him over for me and a few others. But then the world-building with episodes 11 & 12... ho boy.
During a fight with Carmeara, Trigger gets his ass kicked (which happens more often than not) and Kengo is sent back in time to the Ultra-Ancient civilization times, where he is forced to survive Trigger Dark and the other Giants of Darkness while growing a sorta-romance sorta-friendship thing with Yuzare. You can already see where this is headed, mass-headaches with time travel, self-fulfilling prophecy, deus ex machina, the whole nine yards. The whole thing with Kengo being a reincarnation of Trigger is not well-executed or explained as it seems more an attempt to justify circumstances for the sake of the plot without any weight behind it. Trigger Dark being "Kengo all along" instead of just being "Kengo's ancestor or incarnation in the past" feels forced and half-assed. Not to mention how it kills Kengo's motivation as a character with his flower (I'll get to that soon).
One arc that will drive some over the edge is the Absolute Diavolo two-parter, which was more a blatant trailer for Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroads. It shows in how the Trigger cast was seen as secondary and weak compared to the M78 Universe characters. While decent episodes for the fights and action, and gave some story progression for Kengo controlling Glitter Trigger Eternity that had debuted in the above-mentioned arc, Ignis getting the means to become Trigger Dark, and the debut of Nursedessei's battle mode... the rest is kind of underwhelming with the plot twist of the Absolutians being essentially immortal really killing the hopes of seeing the Ultra League kick their asses in the future. That is to say little of the finale, which is a speedrun of the Tiga finale but lacking any of the emotional weight and high stakes that made that finale so amazing.
Thus brings me to my biggest gripe with this and arguably the weakest aspect of the entire show: it's characters. The wasted potential of the actors and its cast of characters is a rather depressing sight to behold for many. It all begins and ends with GUTS-Select, which may be the weakest attack team the franchise has seen in a long time.
Exhibit A is our main character, Kengo, who is as vanilla as Cream's mom. He's a botanist that wants to bring smiles and happiness to everyone, which is a very noble and nice concept. But that is most of his character, especially in the early stages. And while I don't mind it, I know there's a vocal minority that gets tired of his schtick quite often. Case in point, his infamous catchphrase of "Smile, Smile", which he uses to an abusive degree in the first half of the show. Koichi Sakamoto deliberately made this a thing in order to give the kids that watched it some level of hope and optimism in the midst of a global pandemic. He likened it to his time heading Kamen Rider Fourze which also came off the heels of a country-wide dark time. It's extremely noble of him and he deserves a Nobel Prize for it. However, it can get a tad cringeworthy at times, most notably in the finale where everyone is saying it and it makes a powerful sentiment fall flat on its face.
On that note, the one part of Kengo's motivation is his flower, R'lyeh. It was the only plant he was able to cultivate on Mars' soil and wants it to bloom to see it put smiles on the faces of everyone that saw it. Those that know Tiga will know that R'lyeh was also the name of the sunken city that the final boss, Gatanathor, hid until his awakening and there just happened to be a plant monster in Tiga as well. There was a lot that could have been done for both these as well as Kengo rather than the time travel nonsense. But nope, the flower makes no impact on the story, disappears for most of the second half, and when it blooms you feel... nothing. Some will argue it's meant to symbolize Kengo's character growth but I personally can't see it. Especially when Trigger gets his ass kicked more often than any Ultra hero I have seen... even after getting Glitter Eternity! Really wish I was joking.
I wish I could say the rest of GUTS-Select was more memorable, but my mom taught me better than to be dishonest. Okay, except for Akito and Yuna, Kengo's colleagues on the ground team. They are sadly the only members of the attack team that get any form of growth or development. For most of the show, Yuna feels more of a walking macguffin than an actual character, since she is connected to her ancestor Yuzare. Most of her major appearances have her being a big part of the plot and the reason why the Giants of Darkness are targetting her, but she only comes into her own towards the end. Her father, Mitsukani Shizuma, is a bit interesting in how he is revealed to be of the Neo-Frontier universe (i.e. Tiga and Dyna's world) but ultimately isn't around enough to gauge as a character and more seems like a personification of the show's nostalgia pandering.
Akito, however, is a full-fledged character that you really start to feel for and is the most fleshed of the team. When we first meet him, he is a cold and bitter character that has a thing for Yuna and is unhappy he was not chosen to be Trigger. It was almost like a Keigo Masaki sort of character but you felt more bad for him than that asshole. Very quickly does Akito warm up despite still being a bisexual tsundere towards Kengo, but it's episode 5 that he really shines, showing his backstory and how he wanted to protect everyone after losing his family to a kaiju. His interactions with Kengo are in no way platonic, despite the show trying to say otherwise, with all kinds of gay undertones. However it works to really make their relationship click, and Akito's determination to stop Trigger Dark when he thinks Kengo turned heel, and his angst whenever he feels he's going to lose him makes him a great hero to root for and someone you can relate to moreso than the rest of GUTS-Select combined.
As for the rest of them... not so much. The only one that has anything close to a character-focused episode is Marluru, an Alien Metron that acts as a navigator and exposition dump for the kaiju. And his episode is more a Case Closed parody clipshow than anything. He has very little contributions and his story is a little... it's cute how he joins because he and Captain Tatsumi like the same show, but does next to nothing. Which is pretty much the other half of GUTS-Select, who are only there really to pad out the cast list as they could easily be taken out of the entire show and you wouldn't notice. An extreme shame as I can definitely see a large amount of effort from the actors. They are really trying their hardest with what they have... and they have absolutely nothing.
This is best exemplified in episode 18, when everyone becomes their own victims of Kyrieloid's brainwashing. The entire cast suddenly begin acting out of their goddamn minds with a variety of extreme emotions, showing how versatile they can be and how much they could have aced their roles had they gotten more to work with. Tesshin hamming it up more than normal in his limited appearances and Himari showing a lot more adorkableness is only icing on the cake for Katsuya Takagi's portrayal of Captain Tatsumi, once again playing the role of a captain of an anti-monster attack force ala Kamen Rider Amazons. His character was mostly a stern but fair mentor character who did very little, as you can guess, but one moment that came in the Diavolo arc was a subtle one in how he secretly discovered Trigger's identity by simply looking at the wounds Kengo sustained.
In the aforementioned Kyrieloid episode, Tatsumi believes he's been promoted to being GUTS commander and takes immense pride. But when things start falling apart and the illusion is wiped out, he falls into a bit of despair, again showing how great an actor Takagi is and how awesome he could have been as a character had he been given more to work with. However, he is stuck a bland captain character, and given about the same amount of characterization as the rest of GUTS-Select minus the main trio. I'm not exaggerating when I say before rewatching it for this review, I got Himari's name mixed up with the female lead of Tiga and Tesshin's name I forgot altogether. Since they are hardly mentioned by name and play little role other than flying the ships and firing the weapons. When the ending came with the whole gang taking a picture and Kengo having to part from his team, you are meant to feel sad for them all... but I felt nothing as there was next to no bonding time with his teammates, so the emotional weight put upon the ending feels a bit hollow.
Before I continue, I must address a defense for Trigger I know I'm going to get regarding the pacing: it's length. The show is only 25 episodes as opposed to Tiga's 52, so it's only around the amount of episodes that 4Kids had dubbed. I would share this belief if it wasn't for the fact that most New Generation series are also around that amount of time and tend to do far better in pacing and characterization. Hell, Ultraman Z the previous year had the exact same episodes as Trigger and had far better characterization, plot, and pacing without resorting to nostalgia pandering, so there is no excuse why this show could not. Fortunately, the cast isn't completely devoid of life...
The Giants of Darkness ended up being some of the more interesting and fun characters in the series as part of being the villains. For the most part, at least, as Carmeara is more insufferable and bland compared to her male subordinates. Her yandere schtick is amusing at first but the more she cried for Trigger and Kengo, the worse it got. Especially how it was hard to sympathize with her simping for our hero while defecating on Darrgon for doing the same. Speaking of, her comrades more than make up for her. Darrgon is one I didn't expect to really love but he turned out to be the best of the trio, with his small arc of understanding the true strength of humans (as mentioned above) and being the only voice of reason of their tribe a major highlight of the show. His tragic death in episode 23 was a great moment that hit me hard and I would hope he shows up in some form in the future.
Hudram, however, is a pure-blooded asshole that, unlike his compatriots, is completely unlikable and is satisfying to see lose. His voice actor chewing the scenery every time is a sight to behold and he made for such an incredible antagonist. I was hoping he would actually backstab Carmeara in the endgame and take over final boss duties, but it was sadly not to be. However, he does the play the best part of being the perfect foil for who I consider the true hero and the best character in the show: Ignis!
From the instant he is on screen, Ignis flat out steals the show. Kei Hosogai was the perfect person to bring this character to life, and I'm not saying this because he was in Gokaiger. He's funny, full of emotion, and so goddamn fun that it is always a treat to see him. But the real highlight is his character and how he goes from an enigmatic alien treasure hunter to the deepest and most beloved hero in this show (not that that's difficult mind you). He is the last survivor of the planet Lishuria, which was destroyed by Hudram prior to the series. His painful memories of that fuels a lot of his more heroic deeds throughout the series, even before his character development settled in and he appeared to be more a troll than an ally. Whenever he sees carnage from one of Hudram's schemes, he is extremely quick to jump in and help, because he does not want what happened to his home to happen again.
Ultraman Trigger had all the potential to be the perfect love letter to Tiga and the TDG trilogy as a whole, but fell flat on its face on the pavement in more ways than one. I wanted to really like this show, but it fell apart in so many ways. The nicest thing I can say about Trigger is this: it was a show. Not a great show, nor a horrible show; just a superhero show that I watched for six months in what was the darkest time of my life, and was a nice distraction from the shittiest year I ever lived through.
The entire series is available for free on Tsuburaya's YouTube channel as well as Ultraman Connection. For those that are curious, you may check it out, but fans may end up just wishing to watch Tiga and Dyna instead. And if the next show is indeed a New Generation Dyna as believed... don't expect too much, my friends. It's only further proof nostalgia does not make a dynamic show if that is all you have.
RATING: 4.8/10
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