[Fish Sandwich]

Back in July, probably a few days before Trigger's premiere, I was being kept up at night by an upset stomach, and I decided to watch the show's preview special thing just as something to try and take my mind off that. And you know, those things are the definition of filler – like watching clip shows of a show that hasn't even aired yet – but man, let me tell you, listening to Maxwell Powers narrating about Ultraman stuff in that smooth voice really hit the spot at that exact moment in time.

This was the start of me enjoying Trigger more than I enjoyed Z. These things aren't always rational.

Because, you know, it's not like I'm going to come in here and tell you Trigger was unquestionably some underrated gem. The issues with it are pretty glaring and hard to argue against. What I more want to say in its favor is just... I don't really care? So Trigger didn't live up the standard of the show before it that won a Seiun Award, or the one it's based off of that *also* won a Seiun Award. Maybe it's okay not to live up to that pressure? Heck, I ain't even seen Tiga to compare it to, so while I don't doubt the iconic, revolutionary franchise reboot that catapulted Ultraman back into the spotlight was better than this, there's not much chance of that souring my own personal opinion on Trigger.

I have put a bit of thought into what the fundamental differences are between it and Z though, and I came to what I think is a solid conclusion. When I (and maybe you!) think of Z, I think of like, coveralls and sweaty, crowded hangars. A lot of emphasis on the grounded mechanical nature of STORAGE's day-to-day operations. Details that breathed a realistic life into the fantastic adventures of the cast, along with a ton of very naturalistic dialogue. It's the kind of drama modern audiences have an easy time sliding into, and I think all that was a key part of the show's success. When I think of Trigger, it's pretty much the exact opposite. I think of extremely slick, clean rooms filled primarily by lens flares, and a small group of characters, only three of which are ever allowed to leave them. I think of a deliberate, conscious focus on extremely theatrical fantasy lines a person would only ever say if they were a main character in a television series. The kind of conversations most shows nowadays would feel the need to undercut with irony and jokes to avoid looking "cheesy" to audiences who prefer a more delicate touch.

But I just can't bring myself to do anything other than love Trigger for exactly those reasons. Again, opinions aren't always about raw logic. I remember especially those first couple weeks, and just being really surprised by how thin a lot of the character writing felt, just like it seems most people were, but like, Kengo's cute, the action is awesome, the drama is still serviceable even at its worst... I was having fun! Trigger makes me smile for some reason, and as it went along, I think it found more of the strengths of its own writing, and those issues we all pegged it for immediately stopped bothering me in the slightest.

I guess one thing that might explain my weird attraction to this show is that I feel like it's a huge oddball entry in the franchise because of that writing style? I feel like in its whole run, it only ever faintly cared about the typical anthology approach Ultraman takes, with episode plots almost exclusively grounding themselves entirely in the recurring players. There are only a handful of aliens or monsters who show up to drive smaller stories with their unique personalities, thanks to the dark giants having the antagonist role so firmly secured, and indeed, more often than not, the side-characters get downplayed in favor of a focus on that core trio of Kengo, Akito, and Yuna, with varying degrees of assistance from Ignis.

And the show does some nice things with all those characters eventually, but it definitely seemed like Trigger was most interested in pushing the amount of action in a given episode to the absolute limit, and I feel like that's where it starts to become apparent the issues with this show aren't as black and white as it being "bad" or "average". When it came to having a sense of a threat that escalates throughout the episode, with events growing more and chaotic as the heroes scramble to pull together a victory in the end, I think Trigger was massively successful, especially in how it made so much room for the people filming that action to do what Ultraman does, and deliver a lot of insanely detailed and visually interesting fights. Some episodes just straight up open with fight scenes before even bothering to establish the context. Especially with Sakamoto as a main director, adrenaline was obviously a priority here, and I will readily commend Trigger for keeping me on the edge of my seat with that alone.

But you know, not *totally* alone. For as awkward as a lot of it was, I did find myself enjoying the whole big arc with Trigger's backstory. The way stuff was gradually revealed was well-paced, broadly speaking (the biggest revelations coinciding with Glitter Trigger's debut is very smart placement, for example), and the show could get clever in the weirdest little places, which, again, was highly endearing to me. Like, come on, how I am not gonna love a throwaway gag about Kengo somehow being able to tell the facial expressions of characters who don't emote evolving into genuine dramatic payoffs with both Trigger Dark and Carmeara? (Also, the Z and Ribut guest spots were both handled utterly fantastically, and I want to make sure I mention that somewhere.)

That's where I stand on Trigger, at the end of the day. When I look around, it seems like the people who didn't enjoy it are focused on what it didn't do, which is fair enough when it's literally calling itself a new Tiga, but I mostly look at what it did, and that was rarely if ever completely without merit. Trigger was a great time week after week for me, and while I won't exactly be rushing to recommend it to people the way I would Z, I definitely think it'll find its own audience, if it hasn't already. I've been saying for years that New Generation Ultraman shows simply ARE good, no exceptions, and I don't see a need to revise that statement just yet.