A heel wrestler returns home and a kid at his orphanage says he wants to grow up to be a villain like Tiger Mask, and that one moment rewires everything he thought he was. The show builds its redemption around this single, perfect shame: you can't be strong and careless anymore when someone is watching you become themselves. Every match after that means something different, because Tiger Mask is no longer fighting to win, he's fighting to prove that being good is harder, and worth more.
Naoto Date is Tiger Mask, a masked heel wrestler who became feared in America for his savage style in the ring. After he comes back to Japan, a young boy from the orphanage where Naoto himself was raised says he wants to grow up to be a villain like Tiger Mask. Unwilling to let a child look up to a villain, Naoto resolves to become a heroic wrestler instead. He was once a member of Tiger's Cave, a secretive group that trains young people as villainous wrestlers in exchange for half their earnings, and he fought under the name "Yellow Devil". When he walks away and gives his money to the orphanage, the group's enraged leader sends a string of assassins, fellow pro wrestlers among them, to punish him.
