A kid inherits a mark his dead ancestor carried, and suddenly he's the only person on Earth who can pilot the one mecha that kills the things destroying his city. The show doesn't waste time on whether he's ready. He gets thrown into it anyway, and you're watching him figure it out while the clock runs down. This is 1989 mecha sci-fi that understands momentum: introduce the threat, introduce the kid, introduce the machine, then never stop moving.

When three Dragonites with enormous destructive power appear in Kushiro, Hokkaido, in 199X, they attack the city and break the holy seal holding the evil Jashin Drago. Two hundred years ago, a holy warrior marked with the Liger imprisoned him there. Believing that warrior dead, Drago and Empress Zara set out to conquer Earth with an army of biomechanical beasts, and even Japan's Self-Defense Forces cannot stand against them. Among those fleeing is Ken Taiga, a timid sixteen-year-old who learns he descends from the Liger warrior. In a surge of anger his Liger birthmark appears, and with a shouted command he is covered in fearsome biomechanical armor, becoming Jushin Liger to battle the Dragonite forces in this action mecha series.