SSSS.Gridman

Yuuta Hibiki wakes up in the room of Rikka Takarada and notices two things: he has no memories, and he can hear a mysterious voice calling his name from a nearby room. On further inspection, he finds a robot—which introduces itself as Hyper Agent Gridman—behind the screen of an old computer. Much to Yuuta's surprise, Rikka cannot hear Gridman, nor can she see the ominous monsters looming over a thick fog as it envelopes the town outside.

Another giant monster materializes in the city and proceeds to wreak havoc. Amidst the confusion, Yuuta is once again drawn to the old computer and merges with Gridman. Suddenly, he appears in the middle of the battle and is forced to fight the monster. Together with Rikka and fellow classmate Shou Utsumi, Yuuta forms the "Gridman Alliance" to defeat the monsters plaguing the city and find whoever is responsible for their emergence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

SSSS.Gridman is an anime adaptation of the Tokusatsu show, Hyper-Agent Gridman, created by Tsuburaya Productions. The original aired in 1993-1994, and much like other Tokusatsu shows featured live-action, costumed actors fighting against giant monsters. The original Gridman was adapted into The Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. It was inspired by Ultraman, another Tokusatsu franchise created by Tsuburaya Productions.

The series won the 50th Seiun Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2019.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	SSSS.Gridman
Other:	SSSS.Dynazenon
Sequel:	Gridman Universe
Summary:	SSSS.Gridman Movie

Kitou, Akari
Japanese

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Cook, Justin

Producer

Oowada, Tomoyuki

Producer

Kamei, Hiroshi

Producer

Itou, Hirofumi

Producer

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Opening Theme

"UNION" by OxT

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Ending Theme

"youthful beautiful" by Maaya Uchida

Reviews

Dec 16, 2023

Jitsuha

Recommended

I personally really enjoyed this show. With the widely public positive reception. Including the unique and story telling and presentation skills. The narrative explores the psychological perspective of characters and delves into their inner struggles.
The show garnered significant attention from the community when it aired, sparkling discussions about our main characters, Rikka and Akane. Additionally, there was a plethora of illustrations featuring these characters during that time. The captivating storyline and immersive character interaction made audience were invested in the show very much, to the extent that people began formulating theories and speculations about the upcoming episodes and story development.

Animation: the animation was produced ... by Trigger, one of the prestigious production company on fighting and robots. The production quality is guaranteed.

Art: The character design was done by couple of talented people, some of them later transferred to company Yostar, which is a game company that makes famous gacha games with amazing graphics. Remarkably, two main girl characters as you could find in the visual, Rikka and Akane, were well designed, at that time assumed to be the groundbreaking character designs in a decade. The popularity of two characters still preserve today.

Sound: The soundtrack was composed by the renowned composer Shiro Sagisu, who composed the soundtrack for Evangelion and Bleach. Personally speaking the VA of Akane still regarded as the best performing character in my mind at the period. Also the director has played some trick to deepen the emotional impact of the show. For instance, in a scene of ep9 the soundtrack was played backward. A Japanese song “Kokoro no Hitomi” was played to the key scene in ep10.

Plot: To be honest the main story revolves around the MC struggling with the monster fight, on the other hand, as the story progresses, unfolding more mystery elements and character development. Alongside with the main show, there are also post-airing short radio for each episode, enriching the development of side characters and the whole story. Another thing worth notice is that this show is a brand new animation of the original mecha TV series “Gridman”, some of the lore were inserted into the anime and you will be surprised once you’ve found it. (Yeah the discussion did it)

Production and theme: Not just the composer is the same person, this show was influenced by Evangelion by a certain level. From community saying, some of the scene composition directly pay homage to it. Robots, MC’s personality, assembling the impact that Evangelion still remain. Besides the animation, symbolism in this show plays a crucial role in conveying deeper meanings and themes. What makes it stands out is that most of the time the show will not tell you what is the problem, instead conveying it through symbols. One example is in the first minute of the show, you will notice in a scene a shoe standing alone from others on the ground, a girl on the school roof watching the ground, meteoric falling from sky, which is essential enough to convey the main theme and the plot of the whole story. And with these elements, you can’t help but start building up theory in your mind and excited on what’s happening next. With this stunning opening, for sure you can know the following of the show will not disappoint you. Such presentation skill made me thinking of this show sets it apart.

Character: As the story continues, more clues are revealed about the character and their motivations. The antagonist plays a central role in the storyline, and by exploring their motivation, you may find it relevant to the audience. The narrative is designed to be self-inserted and aims to resonate with audience.

World development: The world building in this story features a mystical setting. In the first episode, the MC discovers a stationary monster at the end of the sky. As the story unfolds, additional elements are introduced to enhance the world-building and allow the audience to delve into the true story of this whole universe.

To close this, the Japanese song that mentioned above “Kokoro no Hitomi” literally means the eye of the soul, I hope after the hype ride of this immersive experiences, at the end of the day the impressions will dwell in your heart.

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Jun 26, 2022

oswalld

Mixed Feelings

This review will be written in English and Portuguese [PT-BR]
Essa resenha será escrita em inglês e português [PT-BR]
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SSSS.Gridman é mais sobre a forma do que o conteúdo.

SSSS.Gridman é um copo cheio para os amantes de Tokusatsu, tanto que esse anime foi “baseado” em um Tokusatsu, do mesmo pessoal que produziu Ultra Man inclusive... É uma pena que a Trigger apostou mais na nostalgia do que em realmente transmitir uma mensagem. A pergunta que fica é: Isso é algo ruim?

A estética e nada mais
SSSS.Gridman esteticamente é incrível, não tem muito o que falar aqui, pois todas as decisões estéticas que a Trigger tomou foi muito bem ... aplicada aqui, e não estou falando apenas da animação, mas na produção com um todo, desde as trilhas sonoras empolgantes que remetem aos antigos Tokusatsu de certo modo, até o design dos personagens que é muito bem feito, cada personagem nessa obra é único, com suas próprias características estéticas, sabe? A animação então nem se fala, é muito consistente em praticamente todos os episódios, fora a coloração das cenas e dos próprios personagens, enfim, tudo aqui é muito bem feito e consegue nos mostrar que quando a Trigger faz um anime, o mínimo que devemos esperar é o “crème de la crème” da indústria de animes, ao menos, esteticamente falando.

A falta de um subtexto nunca fez tanta falta como faz em SSSS.Gridman
Esse anime não quer dizer nada, ele simplesmente quer nos mostrar uma história divertida, com um bom visual e músicas fodas, mas fora isso, SSSS.Gridman não quer dizer nada, e isso é ruim? Bom, para mim, sim! Quando consumimos uma obra, seja ela qual for, sempre existirá alguém por trás daquela obra, no caso um autor, e esse autor, em algum nível, foi influenciado por sua experiencia de vida na construção da história ou da estética daquela obra, a questão é que em SSSS.Gridman parece que nada disso importa, a impressão que tenho é que esse anime foi feito por uma inteligência artificial que simplesmente pegou aquilo que funciona e que é “mundialmente aceitável” na indústria e juntou tudo nesse anime. Esse anime é claramente cativante, e sempre tentar parecer bacana e fodão, porém ele faz isso de forma artificial, pois não existe nada por trás, sabe? É com sair como uma garota muito bonita, mas culturalmente pobre, é legal o fato dela ser bonita, mas e depois? Como será a convivência com uma pessoa que não tem absolutamente nada a te agregar? Talvez seria uma perca de tempo, não?
Não estou necessariamente dizendo que assistir SSSS.Gridman é uma perda de tempo, mas é fato que a Trigger quis jogar no safe aqui, ela não quis construir um enredo que realmente quisesse falar algo, e tudo bem, se formos muito caridosos dá para falar que ela até trousse uma discussão sobre pertencimento, sobre um grito de socorro de uma juventude presa nas pressões sociais que a cultura japonesa impõe, mas o anime realmente diz isso? Eu acho que não, isso foi somente algo que matutei aqui comigo durante minha experiencia com o anime, mas acredito que essa não foi realmente a mensagem que esse anime quis passar, até porque, pelo que parece, ele simplesmente não quis ativamente passar nenhum valor ou mensagem através de seu texto ou subtexto.

SSSS.Gridman não se esforçou, logo, eu também não
Eu não tenho muito mais o que comentar sobre essa obra, é um anime esteticamente muito bem feito, com poucas falhas no geral em suas qualidades técnicas, mas que não traz nenhuma substancia a ser analisada, sabe? Ele não apresenta uma profundidade narrativa e nem trabalha de maneira satisfatória seus personagens, todos ali parecem seguir simplesmente aquilo que foi escrito no roteiro, mas não agem como jovens normais agiriam, eles só seguem padrões para atender as necessidades que autor impões sobre seu trabalho. Mas no final, nada disso realmente importa, porque esse anime é bonito, não é?

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SSSS.Gridman is more about form than content.

SSSS.Gridman is a perfect anime for Tokusatsu lovers, so much so that this anime was "based" on a Tokusatsu, by the same people who produced Ultra Man... It's a shame that Trigger bet more on nostalgia than on actually conveying a message. The question that remains is: Is this a bad thing?

Aesthetics and nothing else
SSSS.Gridman aesthetically is amazing, there's not much to talk about here, because all the aesthetic decisions that Trigger made were very well applied here, and I'm not just talking about the animation, but the production as a whole, from the exciting soundtracks that refer to the old Tokusatsu, the very well done character design, each character in this anime is unique, with their own aesthetic characteristics, you know? The animation is very consistent in almost every episode, not to mention the coloring of the scenes and the characters themselves. All in all, everything here is very well done and manages to show us that when Trigger makes an anime, the least we should expect is the "crème de la crème" of the anime industry, at least aesthetically speaking.

The lack of a subtext has never been so lacking as it is in SSSS.Gridman
This anime doesn't mean anything, it simply wants to show us a fun story, with good animation and very good music, but beyond that, SSSS.Gridman doesn't mean anything, and is that bad? Well, for me, yes! When we consume a work, whatever it is, there will always be someone behind that work, in this case an author, and this author, on some level, was influenced by his or her life experience in the construction of the story or the aesthetics of that work, the thing is that in SSSS.Gridman it seems that none of this matters, the impression I get is that this anime was made by an artificial intelligence that simply took what works and what is "worldly acceptable" in the industry and put it all together in this anime. This anime is clearly catchy, and it's always trying to look cool, but it does it in an artificial way, because there's nothing behind it, you know? It's like you go on a date with a very pretty but culturally poor girl, and it's nice that she's pretty, but so what? How are you going to talk to a person who has absolutely nothing to add to you? Maybe it's a waste of time, no?
I am not necessarily saying that watching SSSS.Gridman is a waste of time, but it is a fact that Trigger preferred to stay in its safe zone, it did not want to build a plot that really wanted to say anything, and okay, if we are very charitable we can say that it even brought a discussion about belonging, about a plea for help from a youth trapped in the social pressures that Japanese culture imposes, but does the anime really say that? I don't think so! This was just something I thought to myself during my experience with the anime, but I believe that this was not really the message this anime wanted to convey, because from the looks of it, the anime simply did not want to convey any value or message actively through its text or subtext.

SSSS.Gridman didn't try hard, so I didn't try hard either
I don't have much else to comment on this anime, it's an anime that is aesthetically very well done, with few flaws in its overall technical qualities, but it doesn't bring any substance to be analyzed, you know? It doesn't present a narrative depth nor does it work its characters in a satisfactory way, everyone there seems to simply follow what was written in the script, but they don't act like normal young people would act, they just follow patterns to satisfy the needs that the author imposes on his script. But at the end of the day, none of this matters, because this anime is beautiful, isn't it?

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Sep 1, 2023

Tablekun

Not Recommended

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 ...

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Poll: SSSS.Gridman Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Oct 27, 2018	103 replies	by Timeline_man »» Apr 22, 10:24 PM
Poll: SSSS.Gridman Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Oct 13, 2018	162 replies	by Timeline_man »» Apr 22, 10:18 AM
Poll: SSSS.Gridman Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Dec 22, 2018	390 replies	by DanKyoko »» Apr 16, 8:41 PM
Poll: SSSS.Gridman Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 15, 2018	83 replies	by DanKyoko »» Apr 16, 7:37 PM
Poll: SSSS.Gridman Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 8, 2018	90 replies	by DanKyoko »» Apr 16, 6:47 PM

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