[SHINOBI03]

Ultraman Taiga thoughts: I call it "A series of poorly executed ideas"

To recap, Ultraman R/B was a series I wanted to get over with as quickly as possible to reach Taiga, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Ultraman Taiga on the other hand is a series I was excited to start but ended up wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.

Where to begin... How about the premise? It's a series starring the son of Taro, one of the original six Ultras and only the second son after seeing Zero; the son of Ultraseven getting most of the spotlight for the past several years. This series barely plays that as a factor.

Ultraman Taro, who was a major character appearing in previous shows as a main or supporting character is also barely a footnote. I find it hard to believe that he never once noticed or heard about his son going back to life or even attempting to pay one visit as soon as he heard the news or giving him any advice to carry for his quest, when not that long ago he was happy handing toys to random Ultras from alternate dimensions. Instead, it's ZERO who pays a visit and it's only because he sensed Belial and his meeting was a coincidence.

Then there's Tregear. A villain who didn't even debut here and yet I feel like I know less about him than in the R/B movie. I thought he was an interesting villain, but the more the series goes the more he loses my interest, His shtick got boring and we still don't know his real deal other than he was a scientist and Taro's former friend. Okay, but why did he turn evil? What made him believe the light was the true evil and his way was the truth? 25 episodes and the series never answered this question.

The Tri-Squad is another wasted gimmick to set this series apart. For all the talk about being a "team" they never fought as a team. Instead of having a true team of 3 Ultras fighting together they limited them to your standard multi-forms of Balance/Strength/Speed. Not even for the series finale they managed to pull something to have a true team fight of all 3 against Tregear. They were just taking turns fighting from start to finish.

EGIS as a team could've been more interesting if it was comprised entirely of aliens. 3/4 are already aliens so I feel they should've gone with that openly and turn this to an alien agency that serves both aliens and earthlings seeing the big theme of this series where it's very open about the tension in relationship between the races and the xenophobia it tackles, which is sadly undermined when most of the "alien" characters go for a human disguise without even showing what they look like (damn you budget restrictions) as for the conflict itself, it's only in the last 5 or so episodes when it starts to turn to a really big issue among earthlings and aliens. Wish the series always had this attitude from the very beginning to make the ending more rewarding