SSSS.Gridman is an original anime inspired by the tokusatsu live action series 1993-1994 Gridman the Hyper Agent, also referencing with the SSSS of the title Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad the American adaptation of Gridman in 1995. Being produced by the studio Trigger with support of Tsuburaya Productions, the company with the rights of Gridman and the Ultra Series (Ultraman, as it is the best known of its work on this side of the world) this series had a total of 12 episodes broadcast between October and December of the year 2018. Directed by Akira Amemiya whose peculiar style had already been seen in Trigger series such as Inferno Cop or Ninja Slayer, with screenplays written by the ultra legendary Keiichi Hasegawa who left his name on the tokusatsu industry being one the main writers of the Ultra Series. The sound direction was provided by Toshiki Kameyama, while the soundtrack was composed by Shirō Sagisu. Meanwhile the design of characters with Masayuki Gotou preparing the designs of Gridman, and Masaru Sakamoto managing the rest of the characters that participated in the story.
The synopsis of this series is the following: Focusing mainly on Yūta Hibiki, a freshman who lives in the city of Tsutsujidai. Suffering a strange case of amnesia and being able to see a mysterious being called Gridman through an old computer, Yuta will be involved with his friends in the mission to stop the sudden attacks of the huge Kaijus that threaten to wipe out the city and all its inhabitants, while trying to find the answers after all the mysteries that are affecting what they know as reality.
Under the guise of a simple, somewhat ridiculous and undoubtedly kitschy tokusatsu aimed at the whole family with its already ancestral monster routine of the week, SSSS.Gridman actually presents us with a story a bit darker and stark compared to the original that aims not only those who grew up consuming this genre but also trying to attract a new generation of viewers. Being a thematic sequel that reinterprets and updates several of the concepts of the original of 1993, this is a work that among multiple references and tributes seeks to demonstrate its own value as an individual work. This being a story that uses fighting against monsters as secondary, when the priority is above all to focus on the development of their characters and the need to accept reality instead of escaping from it.
We are facing a work that does not hesitate to have multiple silent, uncomfortable, or plainly strange scenes that invite you to try to understand the mentality and emotions of its protagonists with what you can infer from their unspoken language or visual narrative. For those who expect great surprises, the turns of this anime may not be satisfactory or even consider how the events progress, but Gridman from the first episode has been a series that has had most of the answers to its mysteries hidden to simple view, waiting for someone to focus on them and get to understand them, thus leading an incredible thematic attachment in all its aspects.
Trigger is a studio known for always offering a high quality animation and Gridman is no exception, although it does have curious differences to the standard when we take notice that the main names of the studio are working on Promare leaving the door open for Amemiya and Hasegawa to do the least "Trigger" anime in the history of the Trigger studio. As one would expect the animation is incredible with great care in its scenarios, the action is dynamic with fluid and natural movements that complements the sample character of do not tell of the series, along with a cast of expressive characters that show a lot even in the scenes more silent, however where the average series of this studio would bet to do something bombastic, in Gridman is decided by a much more subtle and intriguing approach, using from the saturation of the light to represent the summer heat to static shots or irregular angles to generate anxiety to create a balance between the most mundane and human of the series with the supernatural of the Kaiju. Speaking of the Kaiju even though it may seem that making them in 3D is a strange decision when most of the elements in the series is 2D, however when we consider how to manage in this way to simulate the movements of a person in a complicated costume crushing a diorama, it can be seen that it is an alternative chosen to capture the originality style of the series.
Regarding the music and soundtrack of the series, Gridman surprises us by balancing the silence with energetic and positive songs for the action scenes together with much more classical or melancholic tunes, some themes seem straight out of the original series with that nineties style, but others take a much more electronic and modern way, but as strange as the mix seems, they never break with the atmosphere that the series wants to build. I recognize that out of a few issues like "HumanLove" that did not drastically alter the atmosphere, does not make them particularly memorable, however it is a soundtrack that deserves to be listened to separately since the work of Shiro Sagisu has no loss. The entry theme to the series is "UNION" of the Japanese duo OxT which perfectly represents the theme of youth in the series allowing to initiate in an energetic and optimistic way each episode, on the other hand the closing theme "youthful beautiful" of the singer Maaya Uchida, although she maintains the theme of youth, focuses more on being a quiet but energetic song about friendship that manages to fit more than well with the themes that the series wants to relate.
SSSS.Gridman is by no means a perfect series, however, what series is it? Although it tried to reach viewers who do not know anything about the Ultra Series, a great fact that affects how you enjoy this series is if you can ignore the ridiculous / inherent kinkiness of the tokusatsu and if you are willing to follow the game of its narrative, since in the worst case it will seem like a boring work. However if you manage to connect with the story, this production, as I said at the beginning, is a tribute and a love letter to everything that makes the tokusatsu great and could easily enter the list of the best works of the Trigger studio.
