Ultraman Tiga

Distributor: 4-Kids Entertainment, FUNimation
Original Story: Tsuburaya
Volumes: 4
Rating: Not Rated
Anime Code: F

It's the future. The Earth's under a self-governing body called the TCP. When super-powerful monsters start appearing, the peace-keeping agency G.U.T.S. moves into action but their technology proves ineffective against them. A time capsule from an ancient race reveals that the stone giants must be awakened for the Earth to be saved. It's G.U.T.S. Officer Daigo who awakens one of the giants in the Pyramid of Light (no relation to the one from Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie) and turns into Ultraman Tiga. Now Daigo must fight monsters as both a G.U.T.S. officer and as Ultraman Tiga while at the same time keeping his double life from his fellow officers in G.U.T.S. and unraveling his destiny.

Review: This wasn't anime either, but I found it in the anime section so I'm going to review it like it was an anime show. When the show first aired during the Fox Kids Saturday morning lineup, I thought the dubbing was a little weak. The American voices didn't match their Japanese character. Now, 4-Kids and FUNimation released the show as original Japanese subtitled episodes. All 52 episodes on 2 2-disk DVDs and 2 1-disk DVDs. The Japanese versions are much better than the Americanized versions. They make more sense plus there are episodes that Fox never even bothered to air. Some of the episodes are a little weak but not a whole lot of them. They're expensive, but worth it.

Action Level: 4/5
The monster battles get repetitive at times but they always throw something new in.

Romance Level: 4/5
You can't tell it at first, but after G.U.T.S. Into Space, Rena begins to show some affection for Daigo. I predict that she'll probably get upset when she finds out that Daigo's hiding something from her. Two romantic couples that I haven't caught onto until I listened to the unaired episodes was Field Commander Munankata and Captain Iruma and G.U.T.S. Officer Yazumi and Shinjoh's sister.

Comedy Level: 3/5
Most of the comedy of the series falls on Horii's shoulders although the others have their funny moments.

Adult Level: 3/5
The only adult feature I've seen so far is a woman in a one-piece bathing suit and an episode that plays like an ancient Japanese play.

Drama Level: 3/5
They can be overdramatic or underdramatic at inappropriate times but at least they exercise it in the original version.

Overall Level: 4/5
The Japanese re-release version of the show is much better than it was when it aired on Fox. It's expensive, but if you really want to see a live-action Japanese series for a change, then for over the 32 dollars and get it. The starter box contains an Ultraman T-shirt so that's worth it.