Review of SSSS.Gridman

Any action show more or less follows a blueprint, or anyway, there’ll be an action set-piece to set up that takes time away from meaningful dialogue. Despite this, some anime make it work, and they make it work better than SSSS.Gridman. The easy example is Eva: it manages to link together the action with the rest of the show. Shinji gets punched by his classmate. who has issues with Shinji, and these issues are resolved when the Angel shows up. With Gridman though the show splits itself between slice-of-life and action. Any issues brought up are resolved in each section, resulting in less time givento develop character. The action scenes are more at fault, but they have bigger faults to worry over.

The action scenes are animated in 3D. The 3D models move in imitation of people in costume like in tokusatsu entertainment, which you would know if you were sixty years old and Japanese and watched Ultraman. I know because I googled it. Once you know, you accept it, but if you don’t, it looks bad. Every frame or so of 2D animation intercut between 3D made me wish it went all 2D. If this were true though the fights still wouldn’t be good.

Fights follow a strict formula: Kaiju appears; Gridman gets beat up; Gridman gets a power-up; Gridman kills the kaiju; day is saved. The different kaiju distinguish themselves with different looks and different moves, and Yuta defeats them with Gridman with different moves each time, by himself and sometimes with others – usually in one hit, which gives too little satisfaction. Fights are cut too short; couple this with the sluggish way the 3D models move and they become unexciting to watch.

But the fights do prop up the scenes of everyday life. These parts are great. When characters speak they speak very naturally and convey who they are in a lowkey way. In the same lowkey way their faces are drawn to reflect this. Scenes keep a good walking pace and shots don’t overstay their welcome. Sometimes there are very long pauses

and then we’re back into the action.

The big reveal midway through reveals a big revelation that makes you think wow this is big. It changes little apart from marking more plot. The slice-of-life parts take a back seat to a story that doesn’t engage. Points of interest still appear but the character drama does not try hard enough to be convincing. Looking at the last episode as an example: Utsumi criticises himself about not caring about the damage kaiju do – damage that was being reset, so who cares. Anti’s problems aren’t real, so who cares. Akane is escaping from reality, but you don’t know why, so who cares.

But you will care about how Gridman pictures everyday life. The way it does it should be seen. The atmosphere these scenes create is perfect. If Trigger managed to distil this atmosphere across the whole runtime this would be the best anime ever made. As it stands, this is a good show that carries a lot of baggage, but this baggage is tolerable and should be tolerated to see what’s really good about it.