[Switchblade]

What are we doing here?

We're doing a "Member of Tokunation watches a tokusatsu and comments on each episode" thread. If you somehow missed the existence of any of these - either by Kamen Rider Die or anyone else who was inspired by them - that is quite frankly on you.

Specifically, this one is dedicated to Ultraman Tiga and is part of an intended in good-faith effort to watch and discuss the entire Tiga/Dyna/Gaia trilogy from the late '90s. Hence the name for this project: "Down with TDG."

Why?

Combination of two reasons. The first is that I did my very first "Switchblade watches" thread this spring/summer over at TFW2005 where I watched Transformers Victory for the first time. It took me about 6 months to get through all 39 episodes (minus the clip shows), but it was a lot of fun and I decided it would be neat to find another show to do something similar with.

The other reason is that this year is the 60th anniversary of Ultraman and a few months ago Tsubaraya started putting some of the older shows on their Youtube channel. This included the first episode of Dyna. I saw that go up and thought to myself "Hey, I could watch an episode of Dyna a week, that sounds fun. Also, this episode has a ridiculous amount of direct references to Top Gun and I feel that needs to be commented on." Then the next week they posted episode 24 and I realized that we were not going to be getting the complete run. That started the wheels turning for this project and then, because I have a tendency to make things more complicated for myself, I decided to expand it to the whole trilogy.

Who are you?

I go by the username Switchblade in most places because I was in my 20s once and thought it sounded cool. I've been a member of Tokunation since it went public and I am primarily known for my Year in Review threads, my constantly ignored advice on when to stop watching Kamen Rider Hibiki, and the occasional minor critique of Kamen Rider Ghost. My tokusatsu pipeline was Power Rangers to Kamen Rider to Super Sentai to Actually, Let's Not Do Super Sentai After All to Ultraman.

My experience with the TDG trilogy is that I watched not quite half of Tiga like a decade ago, watched not quite half of Gaia marginally more recently than Tiga, and have seen maybe two episodes of Dyna. I love the era, though, with the commitment to more model work and practical effects, plus the reliance on original kaiju instead of constantly recycling old designs.

What can I expect from this thread?

For a start, don't expect daily updates. I'm shooting for three episodes a week and there will definitely be times when I don't hit that target (maybe also times when I do more, but I wouldn't put money on that). I've failed to finish two of these shows already, but I'm hoping that forcing myself to write about each episode motivates me to finish the project.

For the thread, I like the approach I used with TF Victory: snappy opening then a bullet point list of thoughts. Expect an uneven mix of rough plot summary, insights into things that stand out to me, and commentary that I personally find funny (YMMV).

When do we start?

Right now! Just let me open up the first episode of Tiga on Tubi!

"Content Unavailable"

...

Later this afternoon! Just let me find where I left the DVD drive for my MacBook!