I don’t think I’ve ever seen a work of fiction juggle as many different genres and tones as SSSS Gridman.
One minute it can feel like a quirky slice-of-life drama, and the next it feels like a Saturday morning toy commercial. It’s quiet and contemplative, yet also frenetic and cartoony. There’s a quiet sense of realism and loving attention to detail, but it also features some pretty outlandish anime character designs. And somehow all of this works.
On the surface, SSSS Gridman is about a boy who befriends a superhero from the virtual realm and fights off giant monsters trying to destroy the city, but it delves into more philosophical and existential territory as the story goes on. It’s a tribute to tokusatsu shows (live-action superheroes), and while it revels in all the cheesy staples of the genre, it also brings in some heavier themes on top of the action. It reminded me of a more optimistic Neon Genesis Evangelion (and there’s numerous references to that anime throughout this one).
As the series begins, ordinary high-school student Yuta Hibiki wakes up with no memory of who he is. And for some reason, he’s in the back room of a pawn shop owned by the family of his classmate, Rikka Takarada. There’s also some kind of robot superhero named Gridman that no one else can see or hear talking to him from an old computer, asking him to fulfill his “mission,” whatever that might be.
Soon enough, there’s a giant kaiju attacking their hometown, and Yuta gets sucked into the pawn-shop computer and merges with Gridman to fight it, with support from Rikka and his best friend Sho Utsumi, who is fortunately an otaku and kaiju expert (knowledge that is suddenly extremely useful).
Naturally there’s a considerable amount of collateral damage to the city after giant monsters have been stomping around in it. But the next day, it turns out that everything is fine – except for a few of his classmates have gone missing. And, as it turns out, they’ve been dead for years – despite the fact that he spoke to them yesterday.
It turns out that the kaiju aren’t really just causing physical damage, they’re actually rewriting reality as if it were a computer program. And everything they’re changing is controlled by the whims of one person.
Unbeknownst to the newly-formed Gridman Alliance, the kaiju are actually being created and summoned by their classmate, Akane Shinjo – who appears to be a popular, well-adjusted girl on the outside, but harbors some deep resentment and a nihilistic hatred of anyone and everything on the inside. I can’t call her a “villain” because, as we come to realize, she doesn’t need to be simply defeated, she actually needs help.
I appreciated that Akane doesn’t come across as obviously mentally ill in her daily life. Her classmates never realize what’s going on inside her head, even though she constantly has negative thoughts. Mental illness isn’t always visible in real life, and it’s always good to see any work of fiction take a more nuanced and believable approach to this kind of character.
It almost seems like the conflicts take the form of giant robot battles because, as a closet kaiju fangirl, that’s a form that Akane understands – and it’s much more fun to see a city get destroyed than to actually open up to another human being on an emotional level and have a sincere conversation.
Utsumi is obsessed with tokusatsu shows and encourages a full-on assault against the kaiju, just like it’s supposed to happen in his favorite TV shows. Meanwhile, Rikka is a fairly ordinary high school girl, with little knowledge or interest in giant robots, and while she wants to do something about the disappearance of her classmates, she doesn’t support the idea of just charging into battle. Once she discovers that her friend Akane is behind the kaiju attacks, she wants to do whatever she can to salvage their friendship and help Akane to see reason.
Both of Yuta’s friends in the Gridman Alliance have a point – sometimes you need to punch a giant monster in the face, but sometimes you need to reach out to a fellow human being in friendship. And this anime succeeds because it recognizes the value of both, and handles its human drama just as well as its fight scenes.
Gridman is an affectionate tribute to the tokusatsu genre, and the human drama is woven into the over-the-top battles in a way that somehow works and adds gravitas to the explosions, laser beams, and characters calling out the names of their attacks.
The action is enhanced by Studio Trigger’s spectacular animation, which will be familiar if you’ve seen their other classics like Kill la Kill or Little Witch Academia. The mecha battle scenes are fast-paced and flashy, and the physical comedy has a kinetic energy reminiscent of Western cartoons. The character designs are all memorable, from the more grounded and realistic design of Rikka to the more outlandish and blatantly anime-esque Neon Genesis Junior High Students.
Dressed in black suits that make them look more like government agents than middle school students, the four members of the Neon Genesis Junior High Students are some of the most interesting designs in the series. Their exact backstory isn’t explained, but they have knowledge of how Gridman operates and can also transform themselves to support him in battle, taking the forms of swords or tanks.
They’re definitely the most “Trigger”-like characters in this show. They stick out like sore thumbs against the very realistic setting of the town, and they’re barely subject to the laws of physics, and for all those reasons they’re the best parts of the entire anime.
I also appreciate the attention to detail in the background art. I’m a big fan of anime having obsessively-rendered real-life settings, and this one is particularly impressive (partly because the premise of the show is so blatantly unrealisitc). Plenty of small touches make the town feel like a very real, lived-in place. Rikka’s bedroom is full of clutter. There’s faded price stickers on all the junk in her family’s pawn shop. Desks in the classroom are pushed around in disarray. When the characters take the bus, you can hear the driver calling out each stop in a dull monotone that I haven’t heard since I actually visited Japan. All these mundane details make the more fantastic parts of the story stand out that much more – and it takes a lot of work to make a tokusatsu anime feel this believable.
As someone who knows very little about tokusatsu shows (including Denkou Choujin Gridman, the early 90s series this anime is based on), it’s easy to recommend this to just about anyone. It’s a skillful blend of action, comedy and drama that’s held together by a strong cast of characters, and more than likely a new classic alongside Neon Genesis Evangelion.
At its heart, SSSS Gridman is a show about giant superheroes fighting kaiju with the power of friendship, but it takes itself seriously enough that it works.
WcDonald's 