Hello and welcome, Ultraman Connection readers! Over the past several weeks we’ve examined many different parts of the Ultraman franchise, its heroes, villains, the trials they’ve faced and the lessons they’ve learned along the way – or not.
Light and darkness are two of the most integral concepts across Ultraman, used in many different ways in the various series. The visual iconography of the Giants of Light, and the oppressive darkness of the evils they face, create many memorable moments throughout its history. Two series especially contribute to this striking duality, Ultraman Tiga, and its New Generation successor, Ultraman Trigger. When faced with humanity’s darkest challenges in these shows, the main characters who exemplify the virtues of light struggle not just to overcome their foes, but also to lead humanity into the light as well.
It’d take far more space than I have here to explain the many ways that light serves as a beacon of hope in both of these series, and the ways in which our protagonists exemplify that light throughout their battles. But this week we’re going to focus on a very specific idea shared between Tiga and Trigger, illustrating just how powerful that beacon of light can be – powerful enough to save themselves from the darkness.
Major spoilers for the Ultraman Tiga series and movie, The Final Odyssey, and Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga are dealt with below. Let the reader be warned.
At the beginning of Ultraman Tiga, Daigo Madoka was only given a vague assurance that he was a descendant, an inheritor of a power that was passed forward into the future from a doomed civilization 30 million years in the past. Readers, I’d be understandably frustrated too if my only guidance to this earth-shattering new power of fate was a ghostly apparition from the past. This messenger, Yuzare, had more history with Tiga than the audience – or Daigo – realized at the start though.
Later on, during the events of The Final Odyssey, more of Tiga’s past was revealed. The “Giant of Light” didn’t always fight on the side of the light, and in fact was one of the strongest champions of darkness during a war in this ancient civilization’s past. Not much is directly shown of Tiga’s actions from this time, but seeing the respect – and the fear he commanded from the other resurrected Dark Giants speaks to the power he must have wielded alongside them in the past.
Why give up that power though? Well, we know that Tiga didn’t just command respect, he also was loved by the Dark Giants’ other leader, Camearra. In the modern day, with Tiga’s power reborn as Daigo Madoka, she also revives with an intensely jealous vendetta, trying to win him back to the dark side with her. From these events, we learn that Yuzare was the one who brought Tiga back to the side of light. Did Tiga return to the light out of love for Yuzare, instead of Camearra? She certainly sees it that way, but we never learn for sure.
Much of the lore of Ultraman Tiga remains shrouded in the past, relayed through ancient myths or second-hand recounts from other characters, who have their own biases and agendas. Regardless, we do know that even after returning to the light, Tiga and his comrades were unable to stop the true catastrophe, the arrival of Gatanozoa, from devastating the world 30 million years ago. At that time, all Tiga managed was to secure his power to be passed into the future, entrusted by Yuzare, and eventually handed on to Daigo Madoka. And you know the rest of the story.
Even though we don’t learn much directly of Tiga’s past, let alone his own thoughts on matters from that time, I think that look into the future, to leave a legacy of light for others, was at least one of the reasons why he turned away from his own dark past. It’s hard to imagine how the Dark Giants could have secured the same power to stand against an even greater apocalyptic darkness, either in their own ancient time, or in the modern day. Maybe Tiga and Yuzare came to that realization together.
In contrast, we learn a great deal about Ultraman Trigger’s past, because we get to see it directly, through the perspective of Kengo Manaka himself. Like Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Trigger once was a Dark Giant who fought alongside his own dark allies, but was swayed to the side of light in part through the influence of Yuzare.
The audience – and Kengo himself – finds out the rest of the story after the Dark Giants revive and paradoxically engineer their own defeat in the process of their schemes. The Dark Giants’ leader, Carmearra, casts a curse on Trigger in the present day, trying to separate his power from Kengo. It backfires however, sending Kengo back to the ancient past to see the moment when Trigger Dark turned to the side of the light. It wasn’t just Yuzare who caused this change, Kengo instead reaches out and wakes himself inside of the Dark Giant.
Unlike Tiga and Daigo, Kengo and Ultraman Trigger are one and the same being. Trigger’s power in the future, after awakening to the light, doesn’t just exist as a supremely powerful being above humanity, but as a human himself, sharing his own place on the defense team GUTS-Select alongside his friends and fellow comrades. Those bonds of friendship, more than his own power, are able to truly defeat the ancient powers of darkness which threaten the world.
In both of these cases, the decisive moment, the crucial turning point which brought both Tiga and Trigger back to the light, didn’t have anything to do with their own power, or the power wielded by the light’s representatives. Instead, it was this hope for the future, to see their dreams of peace realized by others that convinced them of a better path. Even then, neither of their journeys were easy. Tiga himself failed in his own time, and Trigger still faced numerous challenges both from their world and beyond, even after accepting the light. But such a future wouldn’t have been possible if they had remained in the dark.
