May 17, 2024
This is an utterly perfect show for an incredibly specific niche. It pretends to make concessions to those outside that niche through flashiness and fanservice— but this is maybe halfhearted, because it's the writing that carries the day, and the writing pointedly does not explain itself to anyone outside its specific niche. That specific niche is people who already love Tsuburaya Productions in general, and Ultraman in specific.
The fact the characters themselves are constantly making references to Ultraman that go over a general audience's head is your primary warning that this is the case. That this is literally a sequel to a very Ultramanlike-but-not-literally-Ultraman
...
Tsuburaya Productions show— which only the most hardcore of Ultraman fans are likely to be aware of— is going to be your secondary warning. Fortunately, you don't really need to know much about the original Gridman show. However, characters will say things like "If this were the Ultra series—", and the show will assume you have some ability to complete that thought on your own.
That said, I don't want to make this show sound like an utterly impenetrable sequence of in-jokes. Even if it's extremely in-jokey, it doesn't want "people who are in on the joke" to be an exclusive club. If you've watched and enjoyed even a single iteration of Ultraman, everything will be intelligible— the alien antagonist, the bizarre henshin sequence, the light that flashes on Gridman's head, the bizarre snaps back to the status quo, and, most importantly, the dry deadpan hilarity of many of the premises of the episodes and how heartwarming the finale manages to be despite that hilarity. I'll often take off a point from a show— or even rescind a recommendation— if I think it's otherwise excellent at what it's trying to do, but what it's trying to do is too difficult to understand for most people. This isn't that— this show just wants to do something fun and weird with your memories of enjoying tokusatsu shows like Ultraman. However, you need have to have SOME fond memories of tokusatsu shows like Ultraman first, and those aren't exactly being handed out for free.
SSSS.Gridman understands the absurdity of teenage ennui and escapism. It's essentially about putting weird tongue-in-cheek twists on that escapism and warn against its dangers, but without ever really being condescending about it, and without failing to celebrate the positives we also take away from that escapism. It does this by blending the archetypal Ultraman plot with a bizarre, awkward almost slice-of-life alternative to the human cast of an Ultraman story. The cast, as established, feels like they would fit better in almost anything other than a toku tribute. It then alternates between undermining and fulfilling toku expectations in a way that feels fresh and surprising right up until the end, and does it with an odd, dry-but-affectionate wit. The push-pull of undermining and fulfilling is what makes it work. This is not a show about how it would actually suck if Ultraman, or the things that happened in Ultra shows, were real. This is not a cynical deconstruction. There's enough in its premise that could've taken that route, but it doesn't. Instead, this feels like examination of the feelings of hopelessness and alienation that cause people to be fond of fundamentally hopeful characters like Ultraman— and an assertion of belief in the possibility of overcoming that alienation. It's a basically good-hearted show.
People love to treat Studio Trigger as successor to Gainax— SSSS.Gridman makes a stronger case for that than almost any other entry in their catalogue.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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