Review of SSSS.Gridman

You know, at some point we’re really going to have to retire the meme of Studio Trigger supposedly “saving” anime every time it puts out a production. Yes, I was as blown away by Kill la Kill as everyone else, and the studio’s resolute embrace of the creative, freeform ethos of classic anime (especially its roots in the Gainax style of aesthetic as narrative) makes it arguably the strongest keeper of anime’s history today. But just because its creative process is steeped in tradition and it’s one of the few animation houses regularly putting out original works at a far higher rate than adaptations doesn’tmake it the best or most important studio, and it certainly doesn’t give it the exclusive keys to anime’s future. Lest we forget, the year that Kill la Kill supposedly saved anime for the first time was the same year that Attack on Titan blew the medium’s relative profile into the stratosphere like never before, easily eclipsing any negligible impact Ryuko and Senketsu had on the broader popular culture. Trigger is a studio like any other, as capable of succeeding or failing as the likes of Bones, Madhouse, A1 Pictures, Production IG, and all the rest. Perhaps it may at one point in the future create a story worthy of this hyperbolic praise, something that truly changes the anime landscape for the better as opposed to just helping carve out its own little eclectic niche. But it isn’t going to be this year, and it isn’t going to be with SSSS.Gridman.

SSSS.Gridman is a particularly difficult show to talk about, because it’s a show where the long con of figuring out exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into is very much part of the point, and it’s nearly impossible to get into the details of what that entails without slipping into spoiler territory. From the first episode, it’s clear that there’s a far bigger picture at play than what we’re immediately made aware of, and it asks us to stick with it as it slowly lays all its cards down on the table. Yuta Hibiki wakes up with no memories of who he used to be, in a city where giant kaiju are part of the skyline. In absence of answers, he tries to fit normally back into his daily life, going to school and reconnecting with his friends. But it quickly becomes apparent that there is trouble afoot: kaiju have begun materializing within the city to wreak havoc, and the only one who can stop them is Gridman, a classic tokusatsu-style giant robot who Yuta is somehow able to connect with through a broken-down computer. Thus, it’s off to the races as Yuta and his friends tackle a series of weekly invasions by giant monsters, and the show only lets you get comfortable with that monster-of-the-week dynamic long enough to yank it out from under you as it starts pulling the mask off and revealing what it’s really about.

I won’t get into any explicit spoilers, but safe to say there is a lot going on underneath the surface here, a sprawling network of ideas and themes weaving in and out of each other connecting to what exactly the kaiju are, where they’re coming from, and what it even means to be fighting them. There are a million different ideas bouncing around, a million little details hinting at the big picture lurking just beyond the horizon... and in a way, that ends up doing more harm than good. The show demands a lot of trust from you as its setting up its dominoes, giving you little teases of its master plan to keep you invested in finding out the truth. But it runs into an issue that a lot of similar puzzle-box narratives run into: it isn’t quite sure how to keep things engaging while it’s still teasing out all the details. The early few episodes of this show are honestly kind of uninteresting once the initial intrigue of the premise wears off; neither Yuta nor either of his friends are interesting enough on their own to wring real dramatic stakes out of, nor memorable enough personalities to coast by on the strength of their banter and interactions. In absence of finding any truly interesting directions to take them in, we’re pretty much just stalling for time until the show can get where it’s going and give something of substance to get attached too. And even by the end, none of these characters end being textured or engaging enough to warrant hanging the story off of them.

But therein lies the clever little trick that clicks into place once Gridman finally stops playing coy; this isn’t actually the story of three kids using a giant robot to fight giant monsters. Again without getting too spoiler-y, it’s actually the story of their opponent, the person making the kaiju in the first place. And while the Gridman Alliance, as they come to call themselves, don’t have that much going on, the story of their classmate Akane Shinjo (who is revealed to be the kaiju’s creator in the second episode, so that’s not much of a spoiler) ends up packing some real goddamn punch. It’s in her that Gridman reveals its true game plan, and the result is a fascinating, almost abstract at times exploration of the human psyche that feels like a truer successor to Evangelion’s crown of philosophical robot-punching than pretty much every other pretender to the throne that’s cropped up in the past two decades. Not many stories I’ve seen have pulled off the “antagonist is actually the protagonist” switcharoo as well as this one does, and I just wish the show trusted itself enough not to leave that thread dangling for so long without much of interest to pass the time until it was ready to reveal its hand. The resonance of the later episodes really does end up throwing the emptiness of the early episodes into even greater relief; there really had to be a more efficient way to sneak in this genuinely great story without making the hook to its eventual reveal so lacking.

It’s a damn good thing, then, that the production as a whole does its best to make up the difference and keep the proceedings from slipping into outright boredom while the story is still hemming and hawing en route to its destination. The Evangelion comparison I made earlier wasn’t just for lack of a more original comparison point; Gridman’s direction really does call back to it, using a lot of atypical shot compositions and heavily moody, off-kilter editing to leave you in a constant sense of unease. This is a show where there’s always something important happening on screen, always an important piece of information being conveyed by the cinematic language, and it helps keep your eyes glued to the screen lest you miss something important. And when the action kicks up for the big kauji battles, Trigger’s willingness to push boundaries truly shines through; this might genuinely be some of the best CG I’ve seen in an otherwise traditionally animated show, using the medium’s unique properties to give its titanic combatants a real sense of weight and momentum. You can tell how much love Gridman has for the tokusatsu series that inspired it; almost any one of these battles could easily be recreated by a pair of actors in rubber suits, save for the chaotic whirlwind of cool-ass street debris these lumbering titans kick up with every step.

But I think this show’s real secret weapon is its cast; where the writing leaves Yuta and his friends distressingly bland, their voice actors do a hell of a job wrangling some genuine depth into their empty shells. Relative newcomer Yume Miyamoto, in particular, is really goddamn fantastic as Yuta’s friend Rikka Tarakada, capturing a kind of lived-in, weary teenage authenticity that feels as immediately star-making as Tomoyo Kurosawa’s similarly grounded turn as Kumiko Oumae in Sound Euphonium. Ditto Reina Ueada as Akane, delivering a performance that feels like emotional razor wire bleeding itself raw in poignant gashes. Forget the discussion around thicc thighs and big breasts that’s dominated the conversation surrounding this show; these two ladies’ best assets are the stirring power of their voices, a glimpse of the beating heart that I wish we could’ve seen more of. I wanted this entire story to be as good as when these two interact. I wanted every character feel as genuine as the connection built just through their performances. Gridman had the potential to be not just good, not just great, but genuinely special in a way that might have actually earned the “saving anime” moniker. And against all that, having to just settle for “good” feels like a waste.

And yet, Gridman is still good. It’s lumpy and lopsided and takes far too long to get to the point, but once it gets there, the result is really kickass, really touching, and really goddamn powerful. The journey absolutely has its rough spots, but the destination is well worth it.