SSSS.Gridman

Warning: spoilers and sarcasm are featured below

Hey, are you feeling down because you have this great idea for an anime but keep getting rejected by every studio that you try to sell your pitch to? Well it's time to turn that frown upside down, because Studio Trigger will gladly produce your anime for you, as long as your anime contains a few specific things of course. Here are the three easy steps that you must follow in order to have your anime green lit by Studio Trigger!

1. Make sure to have a LOT of steamy hot fan service. It's best if your main source of ... sex appeal comes from your leading female character, because being hot waifu material > having a personality and depth.

2. Have your main character (who has to be an edgy teen btw) fly around in a giant mecha all the time because BIG ROBOTS ARE AWESOME!!!

3. ADD ALIENS! Especially as twist villains for the final arc of your story, because there's nothing better than kids in giant robots fighting against aliens in FREAKING SPACE!!!

Follow these simple steps and your anime will be practically guaranteed to end up as Trigger's next unsuccessful imitation of great anime like NGE and TTGL just like SSSS.Gridman is!

...On second thought, maybe you should just try your luck with a no-name studio.

I'm starting to think that creativity died at Studio Trigger. Yet although they seem to consistently recycle the same exact ideas, I've still enjoyed their works. I loved Kill la Kill because it somewhat deviated from the traditional Trigger formula and was just a great and fun anime all around. I even really liked Darling in the FranXX up until they butchered the ending because Trigger just HAD to have aliens. But with StopSoundingSoStupid.Gridman (Seriously, are the four S's supposed to mean something?), it just felt hollow. I never got the impression that this anime was trying to stand out and make a name for itself, and it unfortunately ended up being painfully average because of it.

Interestingly enough, my score for this anime fluctuated several times throughout its run time. I actually did find some episodes to be enjoyable and even thought provoking, yet others were the embodiment of mediocrity equipped with bad character interactions and bland scenarios. The only things that remained consistent throughout were Rikka's sexy legs. But even those thick thighs weren't enough to salvage the dysfunctional plotline of this anime.

The setting is quite bizarre. Our protagonist has come down with a rather unfortunate case of amnesia that is poorly explained near the end of the anime and finds himself in a city surrounded by a bunch of giant kaiju that only he can see. But he doesn't really seem too concerned about any of this. In fact, he doesn't seem to care about anything at all except for getting in Rikka's pants. And when other characters finally realize that our hero Yuuta isn't insane and see the kaiju too, they also don't seem to care too much about their situation. And that's one of the glaring issues with this anime. If the characters are completely nonchalant about basically everything, then why should we the viewers care about what's going on? Not that the story itself is anything exciting. It's just a typical monster of the week that Gridman and Yuuta beat up and then everything resets (the damage to the city and the memories of everyone who isn't an important character) because plot. And despite what you may be thinking, there really isn't much more to this anime than that. If anything, it just became even more confusing and convoluted by the end of the show.

For the most part, the characters are pretty stale. Gridman is the most bland sentient robot ever conceived and is piloted by the most uninspired kid imaginable. Utsumi is that typical friend guy who never does anything useful except crack a joke or two every ten minutes. Rikka is the attractive female lead who's personality unfortunately isn't as good as her looks. Alexis is some random alien that's randomly in this anime because Trigger has an alien fetish. The other characters bar one aren't even worth mentioning.

*This short segment contains spoilers as well as positive thoughts on this anime*

The one person who keeps this anime from falling into garbage territory in my eyes would be Akane. She takes the role of the antagonist, making all of the kaiju herself and trying to kill Gridman and people she doesn't like with them, and the anime literally revolves around her since she is, you know, a god. She seems like a fun and energetic girl at first, but after peeling away her mask, her true colors as a heartless, attention seeking psycho are exposed. And the anime even further sheds light on her intricate and delicate psyche later on in the show. The dream sequence episode, while weird, was one of my favorites from the anime simply because of how it portrayed Akane. She's just a really engaging character who I enjoyed watching. She's also pretty hot, I'd say even more so than Rikka's (Yeah, I said it!) Akane is definitely the highlight of SSSS.Gridman for me.

*End of spoilers and positivity*

Despite my obvious displeasure with a decent chunk of this anime, it was still semi enjoyable to watch. Sure, the anime doesn't have much heart, but watching a giant robot beat up giant monsters is always fun, despite how repetitive it gets. And Rikka and Akane were a pleasure to watch (for more reasons than one~), so that's always a plus.

Show'sStorySeriouslySucks.Gridman is underwhelming. It never really went anywhere and just felt sort of pointless. A lot of things didn't make sense and when the anime did try to explain something, it usually just made it even more confusing. Let's hope that Studio Trigger is able to improve with their next project.

And hopefully not include any aliens.

SSSesth Gridman is the newest name monster from the studio everyone knows and which creativity after Inferno Cop has been entirely limited to their ability to make up shitty names that don't mean anything. eSeSeSeS. Gridman's biggest achievement is confirming that the future won't be changing this to any direction, especially not for better.

Story:

Dude who has red hair starts hearing his computer talking to him and claiming he is this thing called Gridman while girl who he has never seen before in his life is now living with him or something. Then they start arguing over if the pc really talked. Less than half way ... into episode 1 and I was already confident that this is going to be a veeery long show despite its 1-cour length.

Rest of the writing centers around student life, chats about sandwiches, monster of the week epicness, reveals regarding the daily life of our cast, some mystery elements that are mysterious because they don't make any sense, mecha fights and new things that matter even less than the events before them. Also aliens with swords and yu-gi-oh arm bands, because more > less, apparently.

Characters:

Did I mention the dude has red hair? Well, that's not exactly important, but I just can't figure out what else there supposed to be to him. He also suffers from a memory loss which is the single worst trope invented by man, which is great because that's exactly the type of lame shit this show deserves.

Rikka is the best girl because she sighs every 3 seconds and sounds both disinterested and bored, which is also great because I imagine she has become self-aware and has realized she is a character in this fucking thing. *sigh* "this out of all anime"

There are also other characters here. One of them stares at the sky and it looks like she is finding it very fascinating, she is also insane or mentally ill / both. Another has glasses so that's kinda cool, always need that one motherfucker who can't see shit. I would love to mock all of these characters for more meaningful and less shallow reasons, but they are shells whose presence is entirely limited to their character models.

Art:

Gliddoman's animation consists of completely still background images, extremely slow tempo walking scenes and character interaction / dialog moments where the character animation is like 2 frames-per-second and there is no in-between animation at all: what we see is teleportation without any continuity. I have personally never seen anything like this in my life, but I am sure they managed to execute the whole thing with 70% less animators than is normally required, so if we are looking into pros: very few people have been required to waste their time working with this awful piece of anime. Kudos.

The monster design is great. The first thing that appears is basically oversized, pink colored Donatello who has a dragon head in the place of a navel. Which is amazing since its shell is so full of spikes it well get stuck on any surface it lays on its back and if it falls on its stomach, its neck will break. This is pretty much why I am finding this show to be worth of watching, I have had a blast imaging this fking thing yelling "I am invincible!" then tripping over and never moving again. Its movements are even better. Waddles from side to side and occasionally looks like a passable, decent quality slide show....

Sounds:

Why would anyone even want music amirite. It's so much more pleasant to listen teenagers acting like they are surprised. I can't figure out if this is really supposed to be voice acting or a parody of the seiyuu industry. Dude sees a Gozilla in the sky and gets almost as excited about it as a house wife who is ironing her husband's socks. "Oh wow, this shit's great." Except that's the first time he ever sees one. Or maybe not because he suffers from memory loss. On the other hand, I care way too little to consider more possibilities.

Also I kinda lied. There are songs, but they mainly exist in action scenes and don't work very well. First one lasted like 15 seconds and was terrible trailer-music-tier stuff but lacking anything that makes them good. The second lasted approximately 4 seconds and I am still uncertain if it was really a song or the sound of a siren just before its battery runs dry. The third song was an anime opening you hear typically in seasonal slice of life shows except here it was inserted in the middle of an action sequence and its vocals were more visible than the action itself. I am not sure why anyone would want to make something like this or think this is a good idea, but whatever, since everything else is already terrible, why not make the sounds awful, too, I guess.

Conclusions:

SSS Gridman Sucks. The last S. is really supposed to be moved at the end of the sentence, hence the dot in title. Thanks Triggarh

Simply too simple and bland.

SSSS.Gridman is really another Mechca anime genre that fails to deliver any good plot or even likeable characters at all. Now, I'm not saying all Mechca anime is bad because that's true. There are some good one out there... but there is more bad than good. SSSS.Gridman has such a simple plot. Kaiju comes, transform into Gridman, and done. Rinse and repeat pretty much. They might add a bit more "drama" to the mix but the formula wouldn't change since it's so simple. I'm not saying "simple" is also bad, anime such anime "Yuru Camp" is so simple but so satisfying ... to watch because the characters make up for it. I see a lot of people be like Rikka is different or something about her is special. What in the hell are you even looking at? She's literally those typical character where she value friends and whatnot and will do her best to save those relationship ties that she has with them. And trust me, Yuuta isn't any better. This anime is literally a cover of a book with no story inside of the book itself.

Subject to change but I don't think it will.

SSSS.hit!

Is Studio Trigger aware that they are not required to produce wack-ass anime ad infinitum? It feels like they take pleasure in discovering new ways to SSSS.hit all over your computer screens, just to see how desperate we are for a new Mecha anime. Perhaps the success of Inferno Cop went to their heads, giving them a false sense of entitlement to shove even worse rubbish up our collective SSSS.hit(holes), in hopes that we would gobble it up like a bunch of mindless, horny drones. I can’t blame a player for wanting to get paid, but I can certainly blame Studio Trigger ... for wanting to get paid………

…What? Why are you staring at your screen like that? Nothing to see here.

SSSS.Gridman is an anime that utilizes a formulaic approach to present a vapid adventure about a young boy who merges with a Mecha to fight outlandish “monsters” in a no holds barred, explosive battle to the death. The fights, themselves, are standard-fare. Emulating the exaggerated absurdity of Gurren Lagann, but never quite reaching the eccentricity of Kill la Kill. But while the former two attempted to stitch together (see what I did there? **Kill la Kill reference**) an acceptable narrative with their own, unique brand of action-comedy, SSSS.Gridman fails to capture the viewer’s attention in any meaningful fashion. Per the cyclical, episodic framework, each 23 minute offering utilizes a “rinse and repeat” approach, where a new “monster”/Kaiju enters the city only to be defeated by the Gridman and reset everyone’s memories (except for those directly involved), as if the crisis never happened.

By virtue of being repetitious, Studio Trigger, once again, displayed a general lack of ambition and creativity, especially with the addition of a superfluous river rafting episode, to give the staff an excuse to animate the girls in scantily clad outfits. Furthermore, SSSS.Gridman is not funny. The entertainment is lackluster, at best. The concepts and themes are tedious. And dare I mention the plot?…It’s not like the staff cared to mention it in any detail.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the show is the prosaic, uninspired characters. None of them say/do anything worth remembering, nor do they come off as likable or worth caring about. Yuta is your typical “only I can save the day” protagonist, with a plain, “nice guy” demeanor and a distinct red hair color. His rival, Akane Shinjou, is a cold, despondent female with a murderous rage that can only be quelled by generating new Kaiju to terrorize the city and anyone who has wronged her. Why, you may ask: because she’s a psychotic bitch (need I elaborate?). Akane’s manipulator, Alexis Kerib, is the show’s token evil “alien,” to guide events to their ultimate conclusion. Studio Trigger, much to my dismay, seems to excel at producing low quality characters that exude pure nothingness, except for some hackneyed quarks and superficial characteristics.

The only positive aspect about SSSS.Gridman is the OST, not that it was anything spectacular, but it accomplished its goal of being mildly entertaining. But if we consider that an OP/ED are merely shallow, trivial components of what a show truly entails, then it’s quite the condemnation to the substantive portions of the show in question.

Wouldn’t you agree?…

TL;DR at the bottom.


Characters 2/10:
Main Character has red hair and he is "special". He is your everyday high-schooler with nothing that stands out about him. You could replace him with any generic main character from any anime and it won't change a thing.

The main girl "Rikka" comes off as bored, uninterested and fed-up, all the time. She is sighing constantly and has no expressions.
May be she is supposed to reflect the audience response while watching this anime.
Only good thing about her is her character design, which is pretty good.

MC has a generic supportive sidekick. But he is only there to be ... friend-zoned and not threaten the MC's chances with the girl.
Rest of supporting cast is also pretty ordinary.

Story 2/10:
A giant robot shows up and wrecks the city. MC fights the enemy with his own robot. MC wins. Next day everything resets to normal.
Rinse. Repeat


Sound 6/10


Art 7/10:
It is good. Most of the attention has been given to character of "Rikka" to make her look good. Too bad her personality is as interesting as a wet blanket.

Animation 4/10:
Animation is often choppy. Feels like they are trying to use less frames per second to save money.


Enjoyment 3/10:
If you have watched more than a few good anime, you won't find it particularly enjoyable.
Unless Mecha anime is your guilty pleasure.


Most People who like this anime have 1 reason only. That is the design of character "Rikka". She has become somewhat of a meme for her "THICC THIGHS". (Although I disagree that her thighs could be classified as thicc. But that's besides the point)

It would have been better if the creators made an Ecchi anime or a Hentai. Atleast, that would have distracted from the weak story and bland characters.

EDIT: The main problem with character of Rikka seems to be her Japanese Voice actress. This problem is less pronounced in Eng Dub.



TLDR:
A red-haired guy fights a giant robot while his sidekick friend and a girl with thicc thighs watch him on a screen.


**The girl sighs, puts her finger in her right ear and rotates it back and forth. Her face without any expression**
Then she says in an uninterested tone "This is taking too long"

Anime 👏 Review 👏

First of all, I don't think Gridman is underrated. As I was watching Guriddoman I felt a sense of emptiness in the show and I started wondering about what others thought about this show. So I thought I would write my honest review of this show.

Story: The story revolves around this yung redhead lad who has amnesia. This dude goes on trip and talks to a computer and they fight together against Godzillas. This is simplified episode synopsis for the initial 5 episodes. This made it feel like I was watching some pokemon episodes where main characters are doing their thing ... until obnoxious antagonist arrives and the protagonist defeats em. It felt like watching same episode over and over again. What was able to keep me watching was big bob the builder (referring to boobs) girl and the dark gurren lagann looking thing. The plot never had anything else interesting in it to keep me hooked for the first 4 episodes. In general Gridman felt like I was watching some lame ass mecha PG-7 anime for children(minus the parts where Akane ordered to kill someone).

Characters: We have a MC with amnesia. This is a good start since it fucking destroys his whole personality(not like there was any in the beginning because of amnesia). We have MC's friend who doesn't neither show almost any personality aside from drooling for Akane (big bob girl). Main heroine is a tsundere bait that in reality just doesn't give a fuck. She doesn't show much of emotions aside from time to time some cute behavior so that she doesn't seem like to be just dead inside (She also learns to smile towards the end). Then we have team Gridman support group. This consist some forgettable characters and their only reason is to be Gridman's augementations. So the cast is Optimus Prime's sonic wing and super mode (Transformers: Cybertron), Gurren Lagann drill mode and sword mode (couldn't think any reference but sword is pretty generic). Not too original. To me only interesting characters are the antagonists Akane and Alexis echo. Akane's motives are lacking so Alexis is probably controlling her for it's own purpose.

Art and Animation: I won't tackle on this too hard but the fighting animations are orgasmic and on par with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. High Quality CG.

Sounds: Musics are good too but nothing ground breaking.

Enjoyment and conclusion: I cant really enjoy anything in this show except
for animation and sounds. It's just overall a mediocre mecha anime in my opinion. Be sure to give me some (constructive) criticism if you feel like it, I would really appreciate it.

(There will be spoilers in this review.)



Art and Animation: For me personally, the word mediocre perfectly encapsulates it. I see people heaping a lot of praise on the CG of the Gridman, but being slightly better that your contemporaries, in this department, hardly warrants all the commendation. 2D animation can be summed up by the word decent.



Sound: I think this section is highly subjective. I didn't like nor the OP nor the ED, and can't remember a single piece of background music, but that doesn't mean you won't like any of the music in Gridman aswell, you'll just have to listen to it and find ... out for yourself.



Story: It's sort of there, but at the same time it's not. Essentially, pretty much every episode follows an extremely simplistic formula of "Have 15 minutes of inane chit-chat in a high-school-esque setting, then be alerted to the presence of a new Kaiju and have a 5-minute long one-sided fight", and that's about it. I will elaborate on what final episodes bring us a bit later.



Characters:
Yuuta: He's not a character, he's merely a vessel for Gridman. The fact that he's an amnesiac is also very convenient cause that just takes off some work from the scriptwriter, as the typical amnesic character is defined solely by that trait and, therefore, doesn't require any personality at all.

Utsumi: By his own admission in the last episode, a completely useless character that serve barely any purpose and is defined by a single trait of being a Kaiju fanatic.

Rikka: At first she seems somewhat interesting, as she's protrayed as an apathetic person that sighs every 10 seconds and hardly seems interested in anything, but later evolves (devolves?) into your typical "friendship is paramount and is above all else" character.

Akane: I will cover her more in-depth down the line.

Hyper Agents: They're so cookie-cutter you can guess their personalities from their design. It seems like their reason d'etre is to simply provide upgrades for the primary Gridman unit so he can show a new attack in an episode. They claim they have a purpose and are here to deal with Alexis, but strangely enough spent 85% of their time lounging in Rikka's shop, doing absolutely nothing.

Rikka's mom: She's there. She mostly just cheers the main cast from the sideline, even though she appears to be bewildered by everything that's going on.

Rikka's classmates: They're also there.

Anti: A very moody young man who is defined by a single trait of wanting to destroy Gridman, as that his reason for existance. He later undergoes a character development after standing for 30 seconds in the rain and listening to Akane, after which he decides he's a good guy now.

Alexis: He's an evil man that's evil, he takes pleasure in depraved acts of destruction and suffering of the people. Your typical Trigger antagonist.

Ending analysis: My take on the ending is that Akane is actually a real-life person, that appears to be bullied at school, probably because she's geeky and nerdy, due to her affection for Kaiju and Gundams, so when she comes home she, probably, writes a story (aka the actual Gridman show we see), and that's her method of releasing her frustration and coping with the stress (as she destroys things, then fixes them right back, and also removes umpleasant characters).
What supports this theory is that characters in the show recognize her as a god, just like writer is technically a god to the characters he created. The symbolism in Gridman and Alexis, is that Alexis is the evil within Akane, due to all the bullying, and Gridman is that proverbial remaining light of hope, which fixes everything by the end (he does this quite literally with his Fixer Beam). Rikka is just a perfect friend that Akane wishes she had in a real world. Utsumi low-key looks like a love interest Akane would've liked, as he's a giant Kaiju geek and all. The final frames are also that of real world, shot with an actual camera, and we can see Rikka's gift to Akane on the table, which further confirms my idea.
All said and done, by no means do I think this is correct, or anything plausible to begin with, but who knows. Seems a little too deep for a show that essential a one giant homegae to a lot of different titles.



Overall: A typical Trigger fair, style and action over subtelty and substance. I personally cannot recommend it, even if it had some interesting moments and, perhaps, even some meaningful and intersting concept that ended up being butchered.
I think the original Gridman, with it's abundance of pyrothecnical effects and models of cities being crushed by actors wearing monster suits, is a vastly superior experience. But if that's (understandably) might not be your cup of tea, and you would rather watch some mecha anime, then I would recommend you Shin Getter Robo Armageddon, Gundam franchise (Zeta and 0083, specifically, are quite good) and even TTGL, even though I'm not a fan of it.

Fanbase of this anime remind me that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei season II (Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei) episode 4 first part of three call "A Painter by the Roadside" when Itoshiki and his students talk about instances where people pay more attention to the trivial details of many objects rather than the main subjects.

Because all the lovers of this anime are like "best girl Akane" "Rikka doing nothing wrong" "that legs" "Plagiarism everywhere" "you check that tweet" jaja is just so insane jaja and the plot of this anime, is just an average as fuck but 10/10 because Akane and Rikka best waifus, Trigger fan ... they are so alienated in their passion for the study that don't see the limitation for write good stuffs and don't put in a blender his old ideas and throw us in the face a story empty and without substance (i was looking at you Darling in the FranXX) they enter in a dynamic of trivial details

That's what's happen with this anime. is good but is not underrated, is just an average anime, very average...

Fiction overcomes fiction... and it has left me in despair

I enjoy a lot of trash (and I have spent years of my life exclusively watching 70s super robot shows), but this was completely impossible to watch.

For three episodes nothing happens except barely animated frames of people at school, walking home, going to the computer, and then there's a fight that causes massive destruction that doesn't seem to even bother the main characters, who otherwise seem to show no emotion whatsoever.

Even worse, because all the damage goes away, there's no gravity in the fights. They're all so lifeless, only slightly affected by the possibility of their classmates or teachers disappearing when I can only assume ... thousands of people died in the first three episodes. Why does no one care about anything??????

Even the battles were terrible because no one can make low budget CG robuts look nice, you need a budget to do that. Even poorly drawn and animated robots would look more appealing if the keyframes were fine. I figured Trigger of all companies would be willing shit out half assed, but stylized animation because it was founded by Imaishi, the king of "looks great in motion, don't look at the frames," but am I asking too much in the current state of anime in 2018????????

"Anime" means animation. Not boring still frames and awkward, barely moving CG. Why is nothing animated?????????

I don't remember the music so it probably wasn't great.

Even after the novelty of Ginguiser wore off, the first three episodes contain more characterization and action outside of the actual obligatory 5 minute battle at the end of the episode to wrap everything up.

Honestly I have no idea what this is, I watched the first two episodes and just thought 'what is going on'. However it looked like it was gonna be an interesting third episode which, to me, turned out to be just as confusing and annoying. When I was watching it, it felt like the characters didn't really have any feeling or any real reaction as to what's going on, like when you see a huge monster coming towards you is your first reaction to say "oh look a monster, it looks so cool" and then proceed to take pictures of it? Mine isn't and i'm ... pretty sure no sane person's is. I've watched quite a few animes and this isn't the only one i've disliked but this is the only one that i've just sat here for an hour watching it and decided to make a review on how confused it made me.

Now i'm not necessarily here to stop people from watching it, i'm pretty much just here to see how many people are as confused as me. To me this anime feels like power rangers which i enjoyed as a kid but it's just a lot worse. Obviously if you're interested in the anime try it and if you don't feel the same as i do then i hope you enjoy it. As i am writing this there are currently eight episodes out i think but i just can't think of any reason to force myself to carry on. It might even get better.

It has taken me over half an hour write this because i think this anime has legitimately fried my brain and i am literally either in a state of confusion as to what's going on or in a state of shock because of how bad this anime is.

Visuals: The character designs and storyboarding is great but the actual animation is nothing to write home about. I appreciate the "goofy" looking CG used on the kaiju, it's obviously supposed be a call back to the original clumsy suits used in the 70's. Backgrounds are forgettable, I normaly don't put much judgment into backgrounds but Made in Abyss upped the bar.

Characters: BOOORING. None of the characters stand out and they have no goals or personality. the only thing differentiating them is their designs. Exeption is Shinjou who is slightly more memorable cause she actually has emotions.

VA: Fantastic, Trigger never dissapoints with VA but it's ... a shame the characters attached to them are so shit

Plot: Honestly it was so uninteresting I dropped it after 2 eps so don't expect much accuracy from this section...

Monsters/kaiju of "unkown" origin (somehow spawned via clay models created by antagonist(s) ) start attacking 'generic japanese metropolis #1145' and our MC fights them with a giant mecha suit. He polits via being transported into an old lookin PC in a garage and "assisted" by his not so friendly friends. Of course our MC (Hibiki) has amesia, eye roll* But for some reason is adept at politing despite not remembering anything about who he is.

The Story kinda doesnt make sense, Basically every episode, 1 Problem show up, Fight, then its finished? huh just that? nothing really happened in particular in first place

Character is so bland, we have boring MC who just nah i fight because i see kaiju that what i do, How about your old memory mate? you dont want them? really?

The only thing good here is Rikka and Akane art (basically this is heaven of foot and thigh fetish) and the animation so goddamn good but its very cringe because its basically power ranger mashup with ultraman in every wrong way as possible.

Its enjoyable to watch ... for mecha fans, because im not mecha fans, im here just to watch character development and here i am disappointed in every possible way

i mean, Serious, dont get carry by hype, if you like Rikka and Akane, go to Pix*v.

This was one of the most confusing shows I've seen, and one that left many questions unanswered. Some things are given as facts, but there's no explanation as to why that's the way things are. Instead, the viewer just needs to accept everything at face value and try to enjoy it for what it is: yet another mecha anime. And as Trigger is wont to do, all things must involve giant robots.

Some spoilers:

So we've got people who fly into computers and get transformed into parts of a giant robot. Why? Who knows!

Where did the people with black suits come from? Who are they and why ... do they have anything to do with Gridman?

Who or what is Gridman anyways? Is it an AI, alien, other-dimensional being, etc?

Where did Akane get her powers? From Alexis? Where did Alexis come from and what even is it?

Where did the Kaiju girl come from? What's her deal here?

Is nothing actually real? Just some dream or simulation of an anxious IRL girl?

There's many more questions than that. But at least the art and music were generally good. Characters were pretty flat in the personality department. And giant robots fighting giant kaiju gets repetitive.

Do you remember during parent-teacher interviews, when your teacher would turn to your mum and dad and say "Johnny has so much potential, he just needs to apply himself in class." I always hated that, especially when it was followed with the familiar side-eye of disappointment.

If you thought receiving that dirty look was bad, watching SSSS.Gridman finally gives you the opportunity to realise that giving that look is so much worse.

Understandably, the show is a mecha anime - but this does not exonerate it from tarnishing the development of its few interesting characters and plot threads to push toys in the form of CGI robot ... brawls. In the end, most elements of Gridman do an average job, yet the show is inconsistent in its plot devices.

**Spoilers**
Character
There are two interesting characters in the show. Akane and Rikka. They interact with every other character, and in turn their relationships are what seem to be the most important. The main boys, Utsuma and the kid that gridman possessed, experience very few developments outside of shallow "im mad," and "i realised im a robot." It's uninspiring to say the least.

Don't even bother with the toys. The loli, mask guy, handsome guy and samurai are literally just there to transform into toys. Funny because their personalities amount to the hunks of plastic they were made to sell.

Sound and Art
I'm going to clump these two together for efficiency's sake.
The art is decent, expressions convey emotions and landscapes are pretty. The CGI isn't awful either, but good lord they need to tone it down. The final fight between Gridman and Alexa began with a 2d sequence which was extremely impressive. Yet, the rest of the shows action consists of clunky CGI models beating each other until Gridman won.

Story
This is where it all goes downhill for me.
For those that have finished the show - the post credit scene introduces very many interesting ideas. These ideas place the show under a new lens, as each character lends themself as a personification of our 3d girl's psyche. Is Akane an embodiment of her selfish desires, while Rikka acts as a standard of morality and compassion that desperately struggles with co-existing alongside dark, abrasive desires of human nature.
Sike, if you wanted that all you get is robots fighting.
It feels like such a waste, an interesting idea and premise which is ruined by 7-8 minutes of mindless robots and monsters bashing each other. If the fights were there to serve as more than "move story forward and sell toys," perhaps Gridman would feel more satisfying and fulfilling as a show. Currently, every fight scene has no stakes, distracts from the rare interesting characters and is generally a waste of time. The potential to use conflict as important character development sequences is no foreign idea within all forms of media, so there is very little excuse for Gridman to simply shoehorn in mediocre CGI action sequences (outside of selling toys).

I am infinitely disappointed that such a good plot twist is wasted on such a shallow show.

I unhappily glare at this show with the familiar ire of "so much potential wasted." 3/10

I want to make clear first of all, this is a review from a 23 year old guy .
So, this show had a lot of potential but ended up being the most childish show I've seen.
Having a respectable animation and an undenying Waifu potential characters, the only thing can fuck up everything is a mediocre plot, very predictable, and some nonsense dialogues.
This might be a good show for some puberts or beginners.
But overall is not worth watching.

Español:
Si tienes algo de camino viendo animes o ya saliste de la pubertad y has tenido una novia, no necesitas torturarte viendo algo como ... esto.
Una falta enorme de sentido en la trama y comentarios irrelevantes llegando a la estupidez en los personajes.
Aquí no hay mucho más que una buena animación y waifus profanadas que mejor sería buscar en internet.

[includes spoilers]

SSSS.Gridman is hard to nail down. It's an atmospheric mecha mystery show that also follows monster-of-the-week formula.

While the mystery elements are weak, the characters and their interactions are complete blunders. The show is heavily focused on studying and developing the complex relationship between the heroes and the main antagonist, who are friends but also enemies. 2/3 way into the show it is revealed that the antagonist is actually a god, and that the main cast only likes her because she built the world and made everyone like her.

...what? This plot point completely undermines anything that was even remotely interesting about these characters' relationships and ... Akane herself. Oh, and later on it is also revealed that Yuuta, who was supposed to suffer from amnesia, is actually not Yuuta but Gridman, who is in no way related to Yuuta's friends, Rikka and Shou.

Way to go Trigger! You just undid all the character development in the series, as the supporting cast has absolutely no depth. What was the point of the series again?

Well, it isn't Kill la Kill, that's for sure. I watched this because it was a short series, mecha and from Trigger, knowing nothing about the source material of Gridman. This isn't the worst anime in the world by far, it's barely watchable. What it does do decently is it's fanservice mecha stuff. It has an interesting dynamic between the main chars, which pushed me to finish it. In the end, a very forgettable anime, but I ended up watching SSSS Dynazenon as well, so I guess there is some charm to its themes and animation.

Animation 7/10
- The standard ... animation is rather basic, but the mecha, fight scenes etc are better.
Sound 7/10
- Decent sound design with the mechs, decent OP/ED.
Story 4/10
- Basic, not unexpected for the kind of series it is.
Characters 5/10
- Mostly bland characters, but there is some interesting development with Akane.
Enjoyment 5/10
- Barely watchable, but I didn't drop it, so there is that.

I can't recommend this to anyone regardless of your interests in mecha or not. This series just doesn't offer enough.

There was potential here. I don’t follow anime studios and Trigger is the only one I can name. When I found out they were doing a mecha show, especially one based on a 90s franchise, I was excited. It’s a shame the show is nothing special. The characters are boring, especially the main character. He begins the series with amnesia, and he comes off as a boring blank slate because of it. The fights at the end were better animated than the rest of the show, making me think that they saved all their animation budget for the end. I could be wrong about that. ... I don’t know. But it made the majority of the episode feel like filler, just waiting to get to the good part. There were some good things. The designs of the kaiju and the fights were both nicely done. They do not, however, make up for the gaping void of nothing that inhabits the rest of the runtime.