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EP. REVIEW: SSSS.Gridman

It feels at times like the crew was spending so much time drawing cute girls, cool monsters, and sexy robots that they neglected to move the plot or characterization forward enough for a serial story.

Unfortunately it's kind of falling in the "monster of the week" scenario where the kaiju confrontation is just there for its own sake and doesn't really affect anything much, but the ending of the episode makes it seem like that might change. Fingers crossed!

Love that fact that they actually named Borr's missles after Sydney from SSSS. Ok Vit, let see if your weapons are named after Amp and/or Lucky. Though lets face it, it probably will.

The doppelganger of Akko Kagari ( LWA ) briefly appeared multiple times in the latest episode, maybe we can expect another Trigger original character like Zero Two or Ryuuko to show up in futur episode.

I rarely say this, but I wish the show was going longer than 12 episodes. There’s a LOT they could be expanding on without dragging things out.

That reminds me. So we have the 4 peeps in suits as Gridman's support vehicles weapons and armor. I remember in Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad that there was a dragon mech known as the "Drago program" that also assisted our hero the same way. Will that be making an appearance soon? Who will be controlling it? Granted my gut feeling says the show will go the obvious route and spoiler[have Anti control it after he defects from Akane; considering the crap he puts up, I wouldn't be surprised if he dumps her and join the good guys. But it would be a nice surprise and a solid height of character development if Rikka gets the honor of controlling the Drago program.]

They did move the mystery of Gridman's setting - just that it wasn't directly addressed this episode. Specifically, the train going to the mountains. Note how the train is engulfed in fog on the journey, and that its passengers (Yuuta, Utsumi, the Gridman support gang) just so happen to fall asleep on the way.

In the original Gridman tokusatsu, the characters battled kaiju-shaped viruses in a virtual cyberspace. Assuming this theme carries over to the anime, it could mean the anime world is some kind of virtual simulation. The fog and falling asleep could be a simulation-loading mechanism to make the characters feel like they're travelled a distance,while the program begins generating a mountain/river simulation for the trip. The later disintegration of the setting could be the mountains simulation being erased/shutting down as the cast heads back to the main 'city' simulation.

Assuming this context is true, Akane's remark about "needing to do more work" for the trip implies she might have generated and coded the entire countryside setting for the outing

So, episode 6 was pretty fantastic. Stakes were raised and some theories were confirmed.

I’m guessing the only time we’ve seen the real world is when Akane is in her room. I think whenever we see her interacting directly with the cast, that’s a virtual avatar. We never see anyone be in her room in person, she just talks to Alexis via screen (and Alexis appears in person outside of her room)

The new Kaiju seemed to know about the original series so I wonder if she was created by Takeshi (who served a role similar to Akane’s in the first series)

Which makes me propose the following: Yuta is an NPC in the world BUT the conscience inside of him is Naoto from the first series. Takeshi is trying to help him out by getting his memories back. Since they’re in a simulation, that’s why Gridman’s weapons look like people when they aren’t being used as they are programs like everyone else.

I figure Naoto tried to access Gridman but Alexis attacked and scrambled him so instead he wound up stuck inside Yuta’s body. Yuta’s attraction to Rikka is actually Yuta’s feelings, not Naoto’s

Alexis is doing Khan’s plan from the first series. When damage is done to the city it translates into permanent damage to the real world but the digital world is just reset (save anyone who died) Akane either knows this and doesn’t care or thinks it’s a game. In the real world she’s pretty withdrawn (opening shows she’s not in the classroom photo and is standing out in the hall) but has...or had a relationship (platonic or romantic) with Rikka.

Now the evidence ain’t great for this but Rikka and Akane are shown holding hands in the opening (it can’t be Yuta’s hand as it’s a left hand: we’d see his wrist band), and there are two separate shots in the opening which are separate but visually parallel where if you put them together the two are looking at each other (or Akane is looking slightly away while Rikka is looking at her). The ending also is showing them be pretty chummy in different uniforms (maybe middle school). Admittedly, endings usually aren’t meant to reveal much (otherwise Hyouka would be a Yuri-show about constellation makers), but it could show how they were before the series. Additionally, in the opening we see the wallet Rikka got (she was thinking of Akane at the time) and Akane’s razor blade perpendicular to each other.

So Akane and Rikka were close and then something happened that made Akane withdraw into her room. Akane created a virtual copy of her city but needed help, which is when she met Alexis. Alexis offered to help, but didn’t say how it benefited him, he just supported her and cheered her on, especially her creation of Kaiju.

When Takeshi and Naoto got word of some strange activity from Gridman, they went to investigate and that’s when Naoto got stuck in Yuta’s body. Takeshi might also have hacked into Akane’s creation so he could send a Kaiju and Junk in to assist Gridman and Naoto.

It’s not perfect, for example, why Gridman and the Kaiju don’t try to just tell Yuta if he really is Naoto? Additionally, the Kaiju refers to a “predecessor” which would mean Naoto. Even if they didn’t want to tell him directly, she could have said Yuta helped them out in the past. Maybe Yuta is just Yuta but the first time he merged with Gridman, he lost his memories.