There’s definitely a weird feeling for me in watching SSSS.Gridman. What’s straightforward is that I like it – really like it in fact. A lot. But I’m on edge all the time, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it’s “fool me twice, shame on me” what does that make fool me five times, or six, or whatever it is with Trigger now? At this point I’m conditioned to expect the worst and if anything else happens, it more or lies defies credulity.
Here’s the thing with Gridman, though… The only conclusion I can draw is that Trigger has been kidnapped and secretly replaced by another studio. This series is so totally unlike the vast majority of their body of work as to be unrecognizable. Gone are the self-consciously trendy “updates” of old-school tropes, the blatant otaku pandering, the stark misogyny and the self-aware posturing and humor. Gridman simply is what it is. It certainly isn’t trying too hard – the direction is minimalist, if anything. It actually shuts up for two seconds and lets you take in the epicness and try to figure out what’s happening yourself. The characters act sort of like you imagine actual people might under such extreme circumstances. It’s a remarkable transformation.
So naturally, anime fandom as a whole seems to hate it.
I suppose the sensible thing for me to do would be to not look a gift kaiju in the mouth and enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts. There were many faces of Gainax, though hindsight tends to lump their vast body of work into one broad caricature of itself. And SSSS.Gridman seems to come as close as any series to capturing the “disconnect”, side – the disassociation with reality that extreme situations (most famously – though not exclusively – mecha piloting of course) inflicts on a series’ characters. That this element of the Gainax oeuvre should be absent from the Trigger one isn’t surprising, as Imaishi even at his best represented a very different element of Gainax’ repertoire. But that changes with Gridman – and I think judging by its aggregator scores Trigger fans (many of whom probably don’t even remember Gainax existed) don’t know what to make of it.
This series attacks its premise with understatement at every step of the way. Even Shou’s “It hasn’t sunk in yet” reflects the way normal people – especially kids – will tend to deal with unbelievable situations and tragedy. Empty desks – that’s how Gridman tells us five children are dead. BGM is not used as a hacksaw, but a scalpel – there’s very little of it but when we hear it in key moments, it has an impact. Most of the communication in the series is done with looks rather than words. And the most iconic moments are the long still shots of the kaiju – gorgeous and unsettling exactly as they’re surely intended to be.
There’s a lot to praise here, to be sure. I really like the way Rikka desperately tries to cling onto the mundane even as the world goes insane around her. And while we don’t yet know the full story, the whole crisis seems to be an expression of Akane’s adolescent pettiness and spite – her “Gridman”, Alexis, perhaps tapping into this inexhaustible reservoir of negativity as a way to achieve his own ends. And I find the sloop-shouldered and shadow-eyed Samurai Caliber to be a perfect complement to the setting – he too never says anything unless there’s something worth saying. We can learn a lot about a character with very little fanfare – such as when Caliber quietly hands Akane a non-carbonated bottle of tea. And to the end the ep the way Amemiya-sensei did – with the homeroom teacher apologizing for bumping into Yuuta as Akane watches – perfectly caps what’s happened and sets up what’s to come.
Of course this could all go to pot next week for all I know. Maybe the mass-hypnosis spell will be broken and Gridman will turn all Trigger after all, but I kind of doubt it. There’s a different sensibility to this show, and that’s not something that generally changes – I’d hoped that the fact that this was a staff mostly new to the studio would produce some sort of different result, but so far even my most optimistic expectations have been exceeded. It’s too early to celebrate, but it’s never too early to hope.
DauntingOverlord
October 14, 2018 at 11:16 amHuh, I might actually have to check this out now. I’ve never really watched more than one episode of a Trigger show sometimes not even making it ten minutes in, barring Little Witch Academia, but I eventually dropped that as well, not because I disliked it, but probably out of a mixture of boredom and not being in the right mood. While I do appreciate Trigger’s existence… (as a Gainax wannabe), they act as though they’ve got nothing to prove and get away with a lot of ridiculous stuff while their fans hype it up to unattainable mountains of madness. It’s been a turn off for me for the most part to the point of only looking at reviews of their shows when it’s over and realizing that I didn’t really miss out on anything.
But hey, this looks like my kind of style so maybe it’ll be different this time.
If there’s good writing and fun to be had, I’m there, no matter who’s serving it.
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2018 at 11:40 amIf any series could be called the anti-Trigger, Gridman is it. So far. Not just that it’s much better than almost all their stuff – though it is – but that it represents a total stylistic opposite.
Deluxe
October 14, 2018 at 1:15 pmThere was a lot of Evangelion in this episode… Which is not surprising since Eva took most of its visual substance from tokusatsu and kaiju show which is what Gridman is also paying hommage to. And compared to a show such as Franxx which ripped off the plot of Eva but didn’t know what to do with it, Gridman seems to be more interested in recalling the atmosphere and feel of Gainax’ masterpiece, which is more interesting.
However I’m not sure yet about the characters. The dialogue is definintely written in an unsusally naturalistic style (it’s been years since I’ve watched an anime show with overlapping conversations) but the reactions themselves are toned down to the point of making the characters seem detached from what is happening. Hence why some people are calling the show boring, there’s a lack of energy and involvment surrounding the main cast.
TheYepMan
October 14, 2018 at 1:25 pmI dunno where you’re getting that this is staff mostly new to the studio, when the director of the show is a Trigger staple, and part of the Panty and Stocking staff back in Gainax.
If anything, I’d say this show is pretty much of the same nature as Darling in the FranXX (stop. don’t. come back.) in that Trigger working with other studios is pretty much like tofu: it absorbs the flavor of its surroundings. FranXX was helmed by someone from A1 Pictures (someone whose most important piece of work was The Idolmaster, with A1 Pictures) and thus it had a lot of A1 sensibilities, even though you could see that it still had a touch of (the worst of) Trigger (maybe Gainax).
With SSSS.Gridman, Trigger is working with Tsuburaya Productions, and the writer for this show (Hasegawa Keiichi, who still makes me shudder at the mere thought) is a current key figure in that studio, because of his work in Ultraman. I’ll put my rather low opinions of Hasegawa aside for a bit because they don’t matter. The point is, you can consider this more of a Tsuburaya anime that just so happens to be animated at Trigger rather than a Trigger show that just so happens to be commissioned by Tsuburaya.
This might be the reason why people don’t know what to do with this show, and the reason why you’re digging it despite being Trigger – because it’s not a Trigger show. It’s tokusatsu, but animated. And people who are into Trigger’s work already expect the typical Trigger debauchery, crassness, and edgy factor of the popular Trigger works so far, they are waiting for Trigger to cut to the chase and release a full-series length Sex&VIOLENCE with MACHSPEED. What they really don’t want from Trigger is a Sunday morning nostalgia-fest.
And to be honest… neither do I. The only thing I want from Trigger is for more Little Witch Academia to fill the hole in my heart that Rowling herself carved by meddling with the Harry Potter franchise too much (and for trying to get into politics and end up looking out of touch for *both sides of the political spectrum*, way to ruin your image JK…).
Scampi
October 14, 2018 at 1:51 pmThis show reminds me a lot of FLCL. I despised Haruko more often than not but I like the energy and surrealism going on in that show. The kids immediately jumping to the conclusion that Calibur is an alien reminds me of that. Akane throwing selfish tantrums really worked too, the show’s got that FLCL vibe of disconnected but somehow almost carefree atmosphere. Hibiki is too flat as he is right now, but can’t help that the kid got amnesia.
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2018 at 2:19 pmI wouldn’t necessarily have thought of FLCL as the classic Gainax show to compare Gridman to, because of the different sort of energy (heck, you allude to that). I get the surrealism but apart from that I’m struggling to get there, though this show does have FLCL vets working on it.
I don’t see Yuuta as too flat or deadpan myself. His reactions seem very natural to me for someone in his situation. And he’s clearly invested in the high stakes associated with what he decides to do. I think he’s just not the sort of kid that does a lot of yelling or histrionics.
Scampi
October 14, 2018 at 2:50 pmHe disposition is very mild so I was expecting him to be “what’s going on?” especially with amnesia. I don’t mind him going with the flow of Gridman telling he’s got a mission, he’s a nice and responsible kid, he just seems so unperturbed compared to his friends I am starting to think he’s an alien himself.
T
October 14, 2018 at 3:46 pmThe giant kaiju statues(?) reminded me of the medical mechanica plant in FLCL. These big, out of place monoliths interrupting the otherwise quaint skyline of the city/town, creating this very strange atmosphere by their juxtaposition and the way these weird elements just sit there, quietly haunting the background.
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2018 at 3:59 pmGood call, that.
I love those kaiju shots, seriously – that’s iconic anime imagery. So many beautiful shots in this series, I could have saved twice the caps I did and done it no disservice.
Alice
October 14, 2018 at 5:51 pmThe kaiju shots really reminded me of that one digimon episode, especially the strange atmosphere that they create that T mentioned. Unfortunately I’m less familiar with tokusatsu/kaiju type shows but that was something that stuck with me throughout these two episodes.
Darrel
October 14, 2018 at 3:39 pmHasegawa is an absolute legend of the tokusatsu genre so I’m not sure what you are getting at. Also, yes you may love LWA, but shouldn’t you be appreciating greater diversity in genre for anime? The tokusatsu genre has tons of potential in the anime genre, and while Trigger wouldnt have been my studio of choice, anything is better than nothing, and they are clearly doing a competent job.
TheYepMan
October 15, 2018 at 12:50 amThis is a reply to me, I think. So here goes.
The only thing I’ve seen of Hasegawa’s was Kamen Rider Ghost. I do know he wasn’t the head writer, and that there were 3 writers for that show, and that the premise of the season itself was shaky, but I can’t shake the feeling of “is this gonna be like Ghost”. And yes I know he also worked on Fourze and Fourze was amazing, and I know he worked on other Rider seasons that I didn’t watch. The fear is still there, because Ghost was just… seriously terrible. Again, my misgivings about Hasegawa don’t really matter much because they’re my own personal taste-based opinion.
As for the rest… If this was the very first tokusatsu anime out there I’d say “hey, at least it’s novel”, but we’ve had a few OK animated shows int he Garo line, not exactly the best shows out there by any means, but they were fine. There’s also Tiger and Bunny, which was stellar, Samurai Flamenco which… well, different strokes, and we’re getting an Ultraman show next year (which has been in the works for quite a while as well, if I recall correctly both that one an this one were teased at the Japan Animator Expo). So as far as “genre diversity” goes, I’m all for a break from idol shows and LN adaptations but Gridman isn’t giving me everything I’d want from it. I’ll give it the last episode on the “3-ep rule” but if it doesn’t kick into high gear then I’ll probably catch up with the KR season I haven’t watched instead.
Guardian Enzo
October 15, 2018 at 6:52 amA lot of this comes down to personal taste, and that’s going to fall where it falls. And I have little background with Hasegawa (apart from Bahamut), tokusatsu et al. But I realy think (and I’m not alone) that Gridman is doing some amazing things on the production/direction side, that sort of transcend subjective opinion on the story. Just my two cents.