Last time, we delved into the past of the Ultraman Series to take a look at the historic bonds between a boy and his Ultra (haha, title drop) in honor of the upcoming relationship between young Yuma Hize and the mysterious Rution, in the upcoming Ultraman Arc.
In the first installment, we went back to the turn of the millennium, to peek at the start of the friendship between young Musashi Haruno and Ultraman Cosmos. This time, we’re traveling into the more recent past, and a thoroughly different sort of dynamic — this one took a whole decade to pay off!
It all began right at the end of Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes, when the plans of the evil Ultraman Tregear led him to the airspace of the Land of Light. Though the collected New Generation Heroes were able to push him back, it was not without cost — the young heroes of the Tri-Squad, led by Ultraman Taiga, the son of Ultraman Taro, were quite literally vaporized by Tregear’s final attack, turning into glowing particles that drifted away into space. Feeling like he had sufficiently traumatized his foes, Tregear took his leave, with the Tri-Squad thought dead.
However, of course, the Tri-Squad wasn’t dead (Taiga is Taro’s son, that man literally explodes and reforms as a technique!), but instead drifting through the universe in particle form. Taiga’s light managed to make its way to Earth by some miracle, where it rained down over a young boy having one of the scariest moments of his young life.
Hiroyuki Kudo was just a boy, friendly and kind, when he met Chibisuke, the tiny infant Guesra. Hiroyuki took Chibisuke as his pet, and the two were near-inseparable. Unfortunately, Guesras are capable of growing into tremendous monsters, and so the poor creature was targeted by a Lecuum poacher. Unwilling to give up his friend, Hiroyuki held onto the alien, even as he was picked up by his ship, rising miles into the air.
The Lecuum, cruel to the end, simply pushed the interfering kid off of him, leaving him to fall to his death to the city below. Before his end, however, Hiroyuki found himself bonding with Taiga’s light, the Ultra seeing the child’s bravery even in his diffused form and choosing to save him.
However, though Hiroyuki was saved by this act, it exhausted all of Taiga’s energy to do so, and he went dormant within the boy, Hiroyuki never even realizing what had protected him. That understanding would come many years later, when Hiroyuki, now an adult, had become part of E.G.I.S. (Enterprise of Guard and Investigation Service), a private organization who acted on behalf of and against the various aliens living on Earth.
On the trail of another alien poacher — this one trafficking a baby Zandrias in an attempt to use its mother for a Kaiju weapon demonstration — Hiroyuki found himself in a dangerous pinch when a third Kaiju, the terrifying Hellberus, appeared and began rampaging, taking out the Zegun bioweapon the Zandrias had been kidnapped for, and nearly killing the baby! Hiroyuki, desperate to save the innocent Kaiju child, dug deep, trying to find anything that would help him protect the weak… and found Taiga’s light again.
Having rested for over a decade, Taiga was able to communicate with Hiroyuki properly this time, granting him the ability to take giant form and battle Helberus to save the baby Zandrias and its mother! Hiroyuki and Taiga won decisively, and, with the crisis over, were finally able to talk with one another for the first time in so many years. So would begin their partnership, not only with one another, but, eventually, with the entire Tri-Squad, Ultraman Fuma of O-50 and Ultraman Titas of U40 bonding similarly with Hiroyuki and allowing the four of them together to reform the Tri-Squad!
Ultraman Taiga is currently not available to global fans, but when that changes, Ultraman Connection will be the first to inform all you fans! In the meantime, with these models of innocence and heroism fresh in your mind, let’s all speculate — what will the first meeting between Yuma and Rution in Ultraman Arc be like? And what kind of hero will this lead them to become? Feel free to give your thoughts on our Discord channel and Twitter!
