Tiga: Why was it so successful?

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ray243
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Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by ray243 »

As the blog discussion the production history of Ultraman Tiga has shown, Tiga was not a series that had been carefully planned out.

https://ultrablogdx.wordpress.com/2020/ ... n-history/

Instead, it was just a bunch of ideas thrown together by different writers that somehow manged to make the whole thing worked. There was no in-depth background lore, no overall story arc and a lot of ad-hoc storytelling. Not only did it work, it remains one of the most popular Heisei-era Ultraman series to this day.

https://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/research/art ... votewidget

Tiga is my favourite Ultra-series, yet I have to ask myself why did I enjoy Tiga over all the other Ultra-series. It's not as dark or mature as Mebius, not as light hearted as Dyna and many other Ultraseries, it lacks a developed overarching plot or a main villain to speak off. In my opinion, perhaps one of the biggest strength of Tiga is its focus on the human drama at the heart of its storytelling. Without an overarching arc, almost every episode is its self-contained movie. Moreover, the fact that Tiga does away with traditional stories of Ultraman's origins helps to shift its focus on the human characters. We are reminded again and again that Ultraman IS Daigo, a human controlling Ultraman's every action. Unlike other stories where Ultraman merge with the human, Tiga's struggles is a human struggle. Also, Tiga had no back-up from any other Ultraman in outer space, with the origin of Ultraman being kept a mystery for most of the series.

In addition, I think Tiga hit the sweet spot in having a decently sized secondary cast that allows more human drama to be told without taking attention away from the hero himself. Daigo is a pretty uninteresting character by himself, but its his interaction with the rest of GUTS and TPC that helps to enrich the storytelling. Its secondary characters are all very fleshed out, from the GUTS team members to the senior staff of TPC. Tiga really managed to explore humanity's relationship with Ultraman in a way few other Ultra-series have managed to. We managed to see the perspective of humanity in reaction to Ultraman from multiple angles on a scale few other series have managed to. It feels more akin to a western sci-fi series than most Ultra-series imo.

What do you think? Care to share what are the reasons you enjoy Ultraman Tiga and why do you think it managed to be so successful so many years later?

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Re: Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by Gigantis »

I mean, it WAS the show that finally brought Ultraman back to the main spotlight after so many years in hibernation after 80 absolutely flopped, made way for the New Generation series we have now with Tiga's transformations which could be seen as a predecessor to most modern ones, and all in all, it has nice characters, great new monsters, good story, and just a plain badass Ultra.
Last edited by Gigantis on Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by LegendZilla »

Both Takami Yoshimoto and Mio Takaki are very beautiful.

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Re: Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Hello, I'm thinking about re-naming this thread the Ultraman Tiga Discussion thread, and probably will soon.

I recently have been watching Tiga. I'm 18 episodes in, and I get why it's successful. I think despite being a crapshoot of ideas, based on what the OP said, it's just got some really solid production design and it's learned how to make both tense and interesting stories. Unlike modern ultra men series, it doesn't have an overarching plot, but it uses re-occuring ideas (Goza returning) to great effect, and understands that characters at the core are important. Tiga has transformations, but they never get too much focus or viewed as a Deus Ex Machina.

Episodes 15 and 16 were both character driven episodes. One revolves around a demon that has been resurrected by thieves accidentally. A mystical swordsman takes control of one of their bodies and helps Ultraman Tiga save the day after a relatively unique fight. The following episode, while not the best action wise, has an interesting alien invasion that intertwines with an old woman who misses her dead husband. Ultraman Tiga understands it's not just about having callbacks, but also having characters and using those characters to tell interesting stories and does to to great effect. I'm enjoying Tiga a lot and recommend it to anyone that hasn't seen it.
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ray243
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Re: Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by ray243 »

LSD Jellyfish wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:42 am Hello, I'm thinking about re-naming this thread the Ultraman Tiga Discussion thread, and probably will soon.

I recently have been watching Tiga. I'm 18 episodes in, and I get why it's successful. I think despite being a crapshoot of ideas, based on what the OP said, it's just got some really solid production design and it's learned how to make both tense and interesting stories. Unlike modern ultra men series, it doesn't have an overarching plot, but it uses re-occuring ideas (Goza returning) to great effect, and understands that characters at the core are important. Tiga has transformations, but they never get too much focus or viewed as a Deus Ex Machina.

Episodes 15 and 16 were both character driven episodes. One revolves around a demon that has been resurrected by thieves accidentally. A mystical swordsman takes control of one of their bodies and helps Ultraman Tiga save the day after a relatively unique fight. The following episode, while not the best action wise, has an interesting alien invasion that intertwines with an old woman who misses her dead husband. Ultraman Tiga understands it's not just about having callbacks, but also having characters and using those characters to tell interesting stories and does to to great effect. I'm enjoying Tiga a lot and recommend it to anyone that hasn't seen it.
Tiga has some really good human drama. If anything, the main character of Tiga is humanity itself. Human actions and choices are the key themes that is driving the narrative and conflict within the series. All the main attack team members are given interesting character-centric stories to flesh their characters out.

I don't get people who find Tiga boring just because it does not have serialised storytelling. What Tiga does is that it uses a good anthology format to tell interesting stories about people from all walks of life, not just on the hero. What is interesting is how people react to Tiga, rather than the story being simply about Tiga/Daigo himself.

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Re: Tiga: Why was it so successful?

Post by Major sssspielberg! »

Tiga is successful because there's an episode where they have to fight vampires. If hollwood circa-2007 has taught us anything, it's that vampires=fiscal success.
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