SSSS.GRIDMAN
Twenty-five years after the original Gridman series debuted, Studio Trigger and Tsuburaya Productions, the acclaimed company and the creators of Gridman and Ultraman, have collaborated to produce SSSS Gridman. It’s hard to point out a singular genre that SSSS Gridman would belong to; it balances an everyday school life against massive fights featuring mechas. The school aspects aren’t usually shown in the mecha genre, so the show is labeled as slow. In my opinion, the tensions from the school sections feeding into the chaos of the action set-pieces in the series, built off of each other, somehow creating a much more concise series.
The story is relatively straightforward here; Yuta Hibiki is an amnesiac freshman in high school. One day he just wakes up in the home of Rikka Takarada, a girl that he knows from school. He has no clue who she is or who he is, forgetting everything about himself. His introduction felt corny and had people rolling their eyes. This introduction alone pushed many people away from the series, as it detracts from the story. This is the sort of pacing that goes on for the first six episodes until the story starts to get going. Eventually, we learn why Yuta lost his memory, which somewhat justifies the original introductory scene’s eye-rolling execution.
I want to step back and talk about characters other than Yuta. He might be the pilot of Gridman, but his amnesia doesn’t let him take center stage when the series shifts back to school life. It takes such a bold side-step that it turns Rikka Takarada into the main character of that part of the series, a bold move while also being an interesting one.
Rikka’s entire arc revolves around her trying to connect with Akane, a close friend of Rikka, before turning into the series’s central antagonist. Akane creates the Kaiju that terrorize the world, and because of this, it is elementary to see her as the villain she presents herself to be. However, Rikka refuses to look at her through this lens of mecha and kaiju warfare. She continually refuses to play on Akane’s terms and eventually becomes the one to reach out to her and end her isolation. While this plotline would be secondary to the main action in most Mecha series, it is given the same level of attention here, giving it a unique spin on the genre itself.
The show also has some other great side characters. Sho Utsumi is a friend of Yuta from before his amnesia. Sho is there to bring Yuta back from his memory loss, which gives him some great arcs while being Yuta's support. Akane herself is an incredibly well-written character, too. However, I wish they had explored more about her insecurities and why she was so isolated instead of showing her entirely from Rikka’s perspective. Yuta himself is a pretty likable character, though he seems way more cliché than Rikka, who became my favorite character in the series by the end.
Character art design and animations are well presented; the characters are distinct from one another. They have expressive features. The series is littered with well-framed shots and beautiful color works. The dynamic camera works make the action exhilarating to look at, and the animation is so fluid that, at times, you can’t tell frames apart.
Even the CGI itself is pretty interesting to look at and conveys how these mechas would move and behave in a much better way than the traditional hand-drawn animation would have. At times, the monsters’ movements do feel shaky, but never unintentionally so. Their movements give off the feeling that a tiny human inside them is piloting them. Not every scene is packed to the brim with action, but even the slower aspects of the series manage to bring about a charm in art and animation that gives off a vibe that keeps you focused on the series.
The soundtrack is one of the significant aspects of making SSSS Gridman so good. The excellent work, mainly during the gigantic action scenes, gives off a sense of scale. The sounds of vehicles being crushed to scrap, the earth-shaking under the weight of the Kaijus, and the screaming of these Kaijus all sound very visceral.
At times, the series’ incredibly well-made opening song serves as the backdrop to a ton of the fight scenes. While the music works well with these scenes, it quickly turns the song from a bombastic opening to a tiresome linger melody that never lets up. The voice acting is decent enough, too, in my opinion, with some incredibly well-done screaming and emotional dialogue delivery in some scenes.
Overall, SSSS Gridman is one of the better Mecha I’ve watched in recent memory. It’s very different from Studio Trigger’s usual work, but they have done a great job matching the original series here. The series’s entirety is set to be a love letter for Tokusatsu Entertainment’s wonderful Mecha creations. The story does rely a bit extensively upon its nostalgic nature.
Still, a surprising twist of thought-provoking modernization makes it way more entertaining than I found the original series to be. It masterfully foreshadows every twist and moral theme, manipulating the characters into becoming vessels for good narratives. It is a visually exciting series with a lot to dissect when analyzing.
I look forward to going back to SSSS Gridman with a smile on my face and my brain ready to explore the finer details that I never caught up on in my first viewing.
