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Episode 3 - "The Devil's Prophecy"

In which a character who isn't Tiga's host gets the most focus, you should never trust a man with a paper fan, and we have fun with international music rights.

• I want to start this one by talking about music. Tiga's opening theme was "Take Me Higher," performed by the band V6. V6 was a Japanese boy band that formed in 1995 and apparently only broke up four years ago. One of their members was Hiroshi Nagano, the actor who played Daigo, making Take Me Higher one of a small but not insignificant number of tokusatsu theme songs performed by the show's main actor. Normally this is just a cool piece of trivia. In Tiga's case, it turned into a headache for the show's distribution rights.
• I've already mentioned how Johnny & Associates made it difficult to use Nagano's image, forcing Tsubaraya to edit around Daigo in clip shows. That extended to his song, too. Take Me Higher would also be edited out of clip shows and replaced with cover versions on music compilations. It also led to the song being replaced on the US DVD release...
• Except on this and one other episode. For reasons that I do not know, Take Me Higher appears as both the opening theme for this episode and during the fight against this week's monster.
• It's a pity that the song had right's issues, because while the replacement is fine, Take Me Higher is an all-time classic. Not only was it a #1 hit in Japan in 1996, but it was also covered in English by Dave Rodgers (aka Giancarlo Pasquini), V6's manager and one of the song's composers:
• As far as I know nothing has ever come of this, but if Rodgers or V6 wanted to sue the German Eurodance band Cascada they'd probably have a good case:
• In matters unrelated to the theme song, the episode opens with Captain Iruma giving an interview on a Japanese talk show. Iruma really takes center stage here in a way that would feel very confusing to someone who only knew Tiga from watching Trigger.
• The interview goes nicely up until the point where the host pulls her best Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters impression, announcing an imminent attack from the Kyriel.
• On cue, a building explodes outside the studio. This leads to Iruma being called up to a conference of TPC officials, one of whom takes major issue with Iruma speaking in support of Tiga. This is laced with enough misogny to make him clearly a bad dude, but just to drive the point home he also carries around a paper fan to cool himself with. No one who carries around a paper fan is ever not a villain.
• A round of aerial forensics from the GUTS Wing shows that the building wasn't destroyed by a conventional explosive.
• Iruma is visited in her office by a representative of the Kyriel, who demands that Iruma pay tribute to them. To drive the point home there's another building explosion, this time one that's not in the abandoned warehouse district.
• The Kyriel's representative disappears, but not before leaving behind his fingerprints. Iruma uses the police database to track the man down.
• In a move that feels more dystopian than it was probably intended, Iruma finds the man's house and uses her GUTS authority to demand updates on his whereabouts from the house's security computer. It's one of a few reminders we get that this episode aired in the 90s but was set in the 00s.
• Two quick side notes: One, the man has this really neat blue LED waterfall fixture in his apartment. I want one.
• Two, I love all of the footage of characters moving around 1990s Japan on this show. The era feels less modern than what we see in the current shows, but less historical than what we see in the Showa series. This may be less of a culture shock to Sentai fans who have a lot of series set in this period, but as someone who's mostly into Rider and Ultraman, 80s and 90s Japan doesn't get a lot of screen time.
• The security computer announces that the man has been dead for three years, which probably confuses it when he materializes in the room. Fortunately for Iruma, Daigo followed her and is able to chase the man off. Unfrotunately, the third bomb is set to go off exactly where they're currently standing.
• Despite an unhelpful visit from fan man, GUTS was able to figure out how the explosions work and sends out the GUTS Wings to prevent the next one. The area needs to be evacuated, though, and Daigo's barely able to get people out in time. He ultimately needs to call on Tiga to save Iruma.
• With Tiga on the scene, the Kyriel announces his goal and it is really fucking petty. Apparently the Kyriel have been living hidden among humans since even before Tiga's original arrival. They like to think of themselves as humanity's guide and are butthurt that Tiga is back and getting all of the attention. That's it. That's their whole deal.
• The Kyriel summons the Kyrieloid to fight Tiga.
• As someone who's been watching Zeztz, I'm highly amused by the positioning of the giant glowing thing on the Kyrieloid's chest.
• The show makes it clear that this is not what the Kyriel actually look like, it's just a form chosen to battle Tiga.
• We get our first showdown between Tiga and a humanoid monster, which allows the fight to feel a little faster and more focused on martial arts than wrestling.
• The fight doesn't go great. Multi Type is too slow and Sky Type is too weak. Unfortunately for the Kyrieloid, Tiga is able to draw on the most powerful weapon an Ultraman can access: the emotional pleas of people who believe in it.
• He can also access an Ultraman's second most powerful weapon: random new abilities that he pulls out of his ass. This time it's an ice bomb that freezes the Kyrieloid and sets it up for Tiga's first Zeperion Beam.
• The episode ends with the ominous warning that more Kyriels may be lurking out there. Will they ever return to menace GUTS again? Well, there's a monster called the Kyrieloid II so make of that what you will.