Ultraman Trigger, the new Tsuburaya Ultraman series, premiered several weeks ago on YouTube's Official Ultraman channel. So far we've seen 5 episodes. This show was not as instantly likeable as last year's Ultraman Z, at least for me. However, it has gotten better with each new episode.
In the first entry we meet Kengo Manaka, a young botanist who will be the main character. After his initial introduction where he's raising an odd looking plant, the camera pans away to reveal that he's actually on the planet Mars, which has now been colonized. This was a very cool and unexpected reveal. Kengo was then shown to be a very goofy, milquetoast character who I found instantly annoying. The problem with him is that his main goal is to make everyone smile, but he repeats it so damn much that it becomes tedious and cringy. Not to mention that he repeats that phrase in the middle of being attacked halfway through the first episode. That line completely took me out of the scene as it was so ridiculous. I know Ultraman is primarily a kid's show, but I can easily imagine today's modern children rolling their eyes at such absurdity. But anyway.....
Kengo goes to a site with his mother and Mitsukuni Shizuma, founder of the Shizuma Foundation, where they study ancient alien research and space exploration. It turns out they found some ancient artifacts and a statue of a Giant of Light on Mars. While they attempt to study the artifacts and solve their origins, an evil giant of Darkness, Carmeara, is floating through space as a stone statue, when a meteor shower hits and awakens her. It turns out that she, along with 2 others (Darrgon and Hudram) had fought against Ultraman Trigger 30 million years ago and were defeated and petrified into stone statues. Now free, Carmeara and her two comrades vow to get revenge against Trigger. She shows up on Mars to destroy the statue of Trigger and brings along a monster named Golba (a combination of Golza and Melba from the original Ultraman Tiga series). While the monster attacks the Mars colony, Carmeara attempts to destroy Trigger's statue. This is where she encounters Kengo, and after whipping him, he utters that lame line about wanting to make everyone smile. The statue of Trigger grants Kengo the power to embody the Giant of Light, and he transforms into Ultraman Trigger, who defeats the monster Golba and sends Carmeara to retreat and plan future attacks with he evil partners.
Knowing that Kengo has inherited the light to become Ultraman Trigger, Mr. Shizuma brings him back to earth to become the new member of GUTS-Select, a team specially assigned to combat alien and kaiju threats. Included in the team are alien Metron Marluru, Akito Hijiri, an engineer who is initially hostile towards Kengo, and Yuna, the daughter of Shizuma, who Kengo first recognizes from a dream he had about an ancient glowing woman (Yuzare). It turns out that Yuna is the reincarnation of the ancient being Yuzare, who joined with Trigger to seal the 3 Giants of Darkness into stone. The other characters are mostly secondary and don't have much development than what we initially see; the serious captain, the GUTS Falcon pilot who commands the ship remotely and is mostly cold, except when she's piloting the ship, then she becomes overly enthusiastic like a teenager playing a beloved video game, and Tesshin, the other pilot that's a fitness nut and who's constantly hamming it up like a big goofball.
Luckily, the 3 main characters, Kengo, Yuna and Akito, have evolved and grown as the series continues. Akito is shown to be angry that he wasn't the one to inherit the light so that he could protect Yuna, and I was especially relieved to see Kengo stop with the child-like mugging and acting more serious as the threats increase; it's become refreshing to not hear him repeat that stupid line about wanting to make everyone smile as much. His character evolution is a step in the right direction. Those first few episodes were rough to watch. Everything seemed to happen very fast, including Kengo automatically knowing what to do when he first transformed into Trigger with zero explanation, as opposed to Haruki from Ultraman Z, who seemed to slowly figure everything out as the series progressed, allowing the viewer to identify better with him. But like I said, this series is getting better; I'm actually starting to get invested in the characters and story. As for the special effects work and the monsters, this is where the series instantly shines.
The series features many great fight scenes, including some underwater battles, a kaiju being blown to pieces, and a brutal kill where Trigger fires his beam point blank into the kaiju's body. I enjoyed seeing the return of the shark-like kaiju Gazort, as well as the Giants of Darkness. And like Tiga, Trigger can change forms from Multi-Type, to Power (all red) and Sky (all purple). While not as instantly enjoyable as Ultraman Z was, this series is improving as it moves along. Hopefully the progress continues in an interesting direction. A new episode premiers every Friday on the official Ultraman YouTube channel. It's nice that Tsuburaya is making these new series available for Western audiences to enjoy. I'll continue to watch and see where this story leads. It can only improve from here.
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