Yuta Hibiki awakens with amnesia and the ability see things that others cannot. He first encounters a Gridman in the reflection of his friend Rikka Takarada’s computer and it tells him to “Remember his calling,” but Yuta doesn’t understand what this means. Later, in the distance, he sees an extremely large monster but it doesn’t move. It’s only when Yuta gets to school that the two sightings make sense: a monster attacks and the hero Yuta saw in the computer screen pulls him within the computer and transforms Yuta into a giant hero named Gridman. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Original
Episode Summary: Yuta Hibiki wakes up in his classmate Rikka’s living room remembering nothing about who he is or why he’s there; he learns that Rikka discovered him collapsed on the street outside her home, and is a bit irritated by his continued presence. What’s more worrisome is that Yuta has started to hallucinate; he sees an image of a costumed hero called “Gridman” on a monitor of one of Rikka’s mother’s old computers. No one else can see the mysterious Gridman, so Yuta decides to play it off as well as he can. After Rikka does some detective work to find out where he lives, she walks Yuta home.
Yuta learns that his parents are out of the country, so tries to take care of himself as best he can. His friend Utsumi picks him up the next morning and makes sure he gets to school. All seems relatively well considering the circumstances. But Yuta senses the shadow of a beast lurking around the town’s horizon; yet another image that no one else sees or acknowledges. As the day turns to evening, though, the beast awakens and begins to tear into the city. Yuta hears a voice in his head and he makes his way back to the old computer in Rikka’s home where he sees Gridman. Yuta is pulled into the computer and joins with Gridman to fight the kaiju, ultimately tearing the robotic creature apart. This unorthodox way of defending the city appears to be Yuta’s destiny, but the workings of this partnership, as well as the roles Rikka and Utsumi might play, are still a mystery to all.
Impressions: When Studio Trigger burst onto the scene with anime like Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill, I was immediately smitten. As some of their subsequent offerings began to fall a little flat, though, my passion quickly cooled. After hearing pretty terrible things about Darling in the Franxxx and deciding not to bother with it (don’t “@” me, I just have a really low tolerance for gender-essentialism, anti-LGBTQI+ propaganda, and Shinzo-Abe-approved pregnancy obsession), I had the sinking feeling that the studio’s creative staff had lost their way (or at the very least were traveling a path upon which I was unwilling to join them). Obviously it’s important to remember that anime studios often don’t have complete control over the projects that they animate, but Trigger seemed to feature more of the viewpoint and flavor of its studio heads at one point. Over time that perspective eventually became much more muted.
Would I begin to claim that Trigger has made a glorious return to form based on the first episode of SSSS.Gridman? I can’t say that for sure. But what I can say is that this introductory episode was entirely unexpected in terms of both craft and tone, and feels like the type of project that the creative minds at the studio might actually be enthusiastic about producing.
The structure of this episode is definitely reminiscent of live-action tokusatsu (“special effects”) series (think Ultraman or Kamen Rider). The question to ask, though, is whether a genre so rooted in live-action, where suspension-of-disbelief regarding the quality of special effects is a requirement for entry (most of the monsters are decidedly goofy-looking, which is what you get when they’re all just actors in rubber suits), can work in animation – a medium whose only limit is the imagination of the designers and animators. In this case, the answer is surprisingly “yes.” What the production gets right is the use of modern animation tools to create an atmosphere that captures the charm and feel of tokusatsu entertainment in a very polished package.
While I’m not typically a fan CG animation as it’s utilized in anime, it actually works very well here as a tool to make Gridman’s battle with the kaiju feel otherworldly. The CG feels separated from the “reality” of the traditional animation, which would normally be a strike against the series. As it stands, the battle has an air of the physically insubstantial, a virtual conflict that, as we discover at the closing of the first episode, doesn’t seem to have any permanent real-life consequences to the characters’ environment. The design of the kaiju is also as close to a person wearing a costume as I think I’ve seen – it’s difficult to describe in words (and I don’t want to go back to take another screen capture), but the way in which the monster stomps through town, its neck protruding horizontally from what would be its chest, reads very much like a human being in a creature suit. This episode walks a very narrow tightrope between being visually silly and convincing, and manages that balance better than a lot of other anime I’ve seen.
The only missing piece to the puzzle is the characterization which, for reasons of plot, is very simplified. Yuta, the protagonist, is literally a blank slate in more ways than one. As an amnesiac he lacks personal context for most aspects of his life, including relationships with others – the things that help us orient ourselves within our world. His reactions are simple and somewhat dispassionate; while I suspect that being unable to remember vast swaths of information about my life would be terrifying, Yuta only seems mildly disoriented. There’s perhaps some reason to believe that the Gridman persona is some missing piece of Yuta’s existence, and that joining with Gridman provides some kind of completion, but that hasn’t been explored yet. Yuta’s friends are more interesting at this point, especially Rikka; while her overall attitude isn’t the kindest, her willingness to step in and provide guidance to Yuta/Gridman through the computer interface implies to me that she’ll probably have a major role to play later on.
While I hesitate to draw any direct comparisons, this episode gave me a similar feeling to the feeling I had watching Evangelion. While the story has some obvious differences, the atmosphere and the depiction of the town, with its ubiquitous power-lines and feeling of desolation and looming danger (especially the shadow of the silent, unmoving kaiju barely-visible in the distance of many shots – spooky!) gives off a similar impression. This episode conveys both an appreciation for tokusatsu tropes as well as a good sense of how to utilize them in an animated format, and I’m sort of surprised to say that this series has moved much closer to the top of my watch list than I would have thought.
Pros: Captures the tone and feel of live-action tokusatsu entertainment. Good use of CG animation. Side characters are potentially interesting.
Cons: The protagonist is somewhat undefined as a character.
Grade: B+