Denkō Chōjin Gridman | SSSS.GRIDMAN | SSSS.DYNɅZENON | GRIDMAN UNIVERSE
This is the Character Sheet for the 1993 Tsuburaya-produced Toku series, Denkō Chōjin Gridman. For that of its American remake, Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, see here.
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Hyper Agents
Gridman
Portrayed by: Hiroyuki Okano and Shirori Endo (on-set actors), Hikaru Midorikawa (voice)
- Arm Cannon: Second Kind for King Gridman, having a pair of them, one on each arms.
- Art Initiates Life: Gridman's Materialization Beam can turn Ippei's 3D schematics into Assist Weapons.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the Computer World, he is as small as the humans until Ippei and Yuka gives him the gigantic program.
- Blinded by the Light: The start-up of his Grid Hyper Beam.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Under Jubagon's spell, Gridman becomes a rampaging slave of Kahn until Ippei and Yuka rescued him.
- But Now I Must Go: With Khan destroyed, his returns to the world he came from.
- Cool Sword: His Plasma Blade, a weapon that came from the Barrier Shield and both weapons can also combine into Gridman Sword.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The Gridman Sword, however, is rarely used because of the long blade, as Gridman prefers using its individual parts or the vehicular Assist Weapons.
- Critical Annoyance: He cannot exist outside Junk for a very long time or else the computer will short out and both him and Naoto will die.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Receives the Grid Hyper Beam from a redeemed Takeshi as the final instrument in Khan's defeat.
- Finishing Move: His favorite attack is the Grid Beam, fired from the Grand Acceptor. Thunder and King Gridman did this by firing from their right fist, however.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Courtesy of Takeshi Todo, Gridman's Grid Hyper Beam is used as a final resort against Kahn Digifer.
- Karmic Jackpot: The Gridman Sword is a result of the three kids saving Anoshiras from Takeshi's brainwashing.
- Kill It with Fire: As Thunder Gridman or King Gridman, he can emit a stream of flame from his chest.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Barrier Shield can be used to protect him from harm, as well as a hidden Plasma Blade.
- Multiform Balance:
- Fragile Speedster: His basic form focuses on the use of speed, beam attacks and agility. Although he's strong enough to lift up and toss Kaiju with no problem, Gridman lacks any means to protect himself aside from the Barrier Shield.
- Mighty Glacier: As Thunder Gridman, he has enhanced strength and defense capability at the cost of speed.
- Lightning Bruiser: King Gridman centers around both speed and defense capabilities.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: He occassionaly demonstrates powers which are never mentioned afterwards:
- Grid Kinesis, used to wake Naoto and his friends when a monster caused everyone in Sakuragaoka to suffer from nightmares.
- He once force-combines with Naoto after the boy was turned into an insecure coward by a monster.
- Let's not forget the Grid Hyper Beam, courtesy of Takeshi, to defeat Khan in the final episode.
- Red Is Heroic: The primary hero, and he's all red.
- Shout-Out: His appearance and abilities make him an Ultraman in all but his name.
- Sizeshifter: Was given this ability by Yuka in the first episode.
- Super Cop: His job is a Hyper Agent from the Hyper World.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: The Barrier Shield and Plasma Blade can fuse to form the Gridman Sword or reduces the length of the blade to form Thunder Axe.
- Sword Beam: Grid Light Saber
- Ultraman Copy: A robotic expy of Ultraman, being a red/silver giant that fights against Kaiju and can change his size to match his opponents. Other heroes in the series, such as Gridman Sigma, follow a similar pattern to him.
Gridman Sigma
He appears in the 1994 photo novel that serialized in May to November volumes of Televi-Kun, Denkou Choujin Gridman: The Demon King's Counterattack before making a guest appearance at the end of the 2015 anime short Denkou Choujin Gridman: boys invent great hero.
- Big Damn Heroes: Saves Gridman as he was overpowered by the monster Mad Texas.
- Blue Is Heroic: Par with his brother's red.
- Combination Attack: Each months feature him having one with his older brother.
- Finishing Move: Grid Sigma Beam, Sigma's version of Grid Beam.
- Mecha Expansion Pack: Combines with King Jet to become King Gridman Sigma.
- Sibling Team: With Gridman
- Sword Beam: Sigma Slash, he used it to defeat Mad Texas.
Assist Weapons
God Zenon
- Combining Mecha: He is made of...
- Cool Plane: Thunder Jet
- Drill Tank: Twin Driller
- Tank Goodness: God Tank
- Cool Board: Gridman can step on the God Tank in the same manner of a surfboard.
- Equippable Ally: The entirety of God Zenon can form as Thunder Gridman's armor.
- Flying Car: The Twin Driller is a tracked/land vehicle, but can fly on its own. Unfortunately this does not apply to God Tank.
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!
- Mighty Glacier: Focuses mainly on brute strength and defenses.
- Near-Villain Victory: Inverted in that its a heroic example: God Zenon in its debut came close to defeat Magnegauss until Junk malfunctions. Thankfully, Gridman finishes the rest of it.
- Power Fist: Is capable of utilizing an uppercut attack.
- Robot Buddy: God Zenon is Gridman's support in combat.
- Rocket Punch: Its main finisher.
- Stone Wall: Is almost impenetrable against incoming attacks.
- Shoryuken: The God Breaker attack in episode 36.
- Shout-Out:
- God Zenon is designed after Battle Convoy (Optimus Prime) from the Diaclone toyline and The Transformers.
- Meanwhile, the combination was inspired from a robot toy from Ippei's little sister Kana Inoue, which is actually a recolored Jumbo Saber.
- Unflinching Walk: In its first appearance, God Zenon marches forward and shrugs all of Magnegauss' attacks rather easy.
- Unexplained Recovery: Was destroyed in the Final Battle when Khan Digifer used his Elimination Ray Digifer Beam to destroy the Assist Weapons programs, but returns in the Gridman Sigma photonovels.
Dyna Dragon
Portrayed by: Toshio Miyake (on-set actor)
- BFG: The Dragonic Cannon is this.
- Breath Weapon: Its Dragon Roar.
- Combining Mecha: The King Jet itself:
- With Dyna Fighter, it combines to form Dyna Dragon or Dragon Fortress, the latter is basically Dyna Fighter docked underneath the King Jet.
- With Gridman, it forms as an armor for King Gridman.
- Cool Plane: The Dyna Fighter and King Jet, as well as their docked form Dragon Fortress.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: What happens when a dragon-themed fighter jet receives the body of a dinosaur...
- Informed Ability: King Gridman and is stated to be able to wield the Dragonic Cannon, but is only featured in the toy. The 2015 anime short Denkou Choujin Gridman: boys invent great hero finally shows this in an alternate battle against Khan Digifer.
- Kill It with Fire: When wielding the Dragonic Cannon, Gridman fires the Dragon Fire attack.
- Non-Indicative Name: A Tyrannosaurus mecha named Dyna Dragon.
- Shoulder Cannon: Sports a pair of them, though we never see them in use.
- Shout-Out:
- Is suspected to be designed after Trypticon from The Transformers.
- Additionally, the Dragonic Cannon also has a counterpart in the form of Chi-Powered Bazooka. It helps that both of their series took place in 1993.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: The Dragonic Cannon is a BFG that Gridman uses to shoot fire can also transform into a remote controlled fighter jet.
- Unexplained Recovery: Was destroyed in the Final Battle when Khan Digifer used his Elimination Ray Digifer Beam to destroy the Assist Weapons programs, but returns in the Gridman Sigma photonovels.
Heroes
Naoto Sho
Portrayed by: Masaya Obi
- Big Brother Instinct: He may be annoyed by his younger brother Daichi at times, but is firmly dedicated to protecting him when he's in danger.
- Book Dumb: He scores pretty bad in the cram school exam with Ippei.
- Childhood Friends: Yuka explicitly refers to Naoto as this when talking about him with her swimming coach.
- Clingy Jealous Guy: Gets annoyed when he sees Yuka getting along with other guys.
- Covert Pervert: Like many a teenage boy, he has an interest in girly mags. He also joined Ippei in peeping on some girls doing swimming practice in a gym.
- The Hero: He is the main character.
- Like an Old Married Couple: He and Yuka sometimes get into fights, especially when he does something Innocently Insensitive.
- Oblivious to Love: He's generally unaware of how Yuka feels about him, as he genuinely thinks that things she does (like baking a cake to cheer him up after a spate of tough fights) are signs of friendship.
- Later in the show he finally wises up, but by that point of the show they're focused on stopping Khan Digifer once and for all.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Unlike Ippei, Naoto doesn't really seem that aware of or interested in girls... but happily spends his time with Yuka either with or without Ippei.
- Twice Shy: By the end of the series he and Yuka are both aware of they feel about each other, but neither actually acts on it. Of course, by that point of the show Khan Digifer's attacks are much more dangerous, so they have other things to worry about.
Yuka Inoue
Portrayed by: Jun Hattori
- Academic Athlete: She's not only one of the most accomplished students in their school, she's also a capable athlete. One episode has her join a gym to learn proper swimming technique.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: As a result of Revived Shinobilar, the Virtual Shooting that she played turned her into a murderous shooter on the loose. Another episode has her turned into a sukekeban. Though somewhat subverted with the latter as while Yuka does become very rude and cruel and starts hanging around a bad crowd she does end up helping to defeat the monster anyway unwittingly restoring herself in the process because even with drastic alterations to her personality she still considered Naoto and Ippei friends.
- Childhood Friends: She specifically refers to Naoto as this in a conversation with her swim coach.
- She all but states she wouldn't mind their relationship becoming Childhood Friend Romance.
- Damsel in Distress: Sometimes the Kaiju attacks tend to have her as a victim of either brainwashing or kidnapping.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Has this dynamic with her older brother, who is so busy studying for his exams his common sense seems to have abandoned him.
- The Heart: Of the team as well.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: A non-romantic example. On at least one occasion, Khan Digifer decides to straight up murder Yuka so Takeshi will stop being so distracted by her.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delives this to Takeshi along with a slap. After he's been kicked out by Khan Digifer for being useless and he still has the tenacity to gloat about his intelligence, Yuka points out that Khan never valued him in the first place.
- The Smurfette Principle: Of the trio.
Ippei Baba
Portrayed by: Takeshi Sudo
- Art Attacker: He designs the Assist Weapons and all it need left is for Gridman to materialize them and poof! Several cool weapons and new allies.
- Book Dumb: Sort of. He scores pretty bad in the cram school exam with Naoto.
- Identical Stranger: Time-travelled Musashibo Benkei believed Ippei is Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
- Picky Eater: In episode 5, being bummed that the Special Dog sold at the mall was sold out, he refused to eat dinner that night and into the next day.
Villains
Khan Digifer
Portrayed by: Takashi Enomoto and Toshio Miyake (on-set actors), Masaharu Sato (voice)
- Art Initiates Life: Whatever monster that Takeshi designs in 8-bit pixel, Khan can realize them.
- Agony Beam: Has a habit of blasting Takeshi with these, usually when the latest monster fails.
- Big Bad: He's the guy sending out all the monsters Gridman has to fight.
- Cool Sword: His Digifer Sword is no slouch of this.
- Dark Is Evil: Just LOOK at him.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Can sometimes hijack the TV channels to intimidate humans.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He usually doesn't understand Takeshi's petty grudges, but created monsters anyway because of how the boy entertained him. Sometimes even he's creeped out by how singleminded can Takeshi get.
- Evil Laugh: Pretty much his default expression when he's not angry.
- Fish out of Water: He's not familiar with human world and has Takeshi explain what's been going on outside, though he is very quick to come up with ways to turn anything dangerous.
- Once he kicks Takeshi out, he proves himself to be able to hack multiple Japan's infrastuctures at once, being around long enough to learn about them.
- Hand Blast: The Elimination Ray Digifer Beam can erase programs. During the Final Battle, he uses it to destroy the Assist Weapons programs in Junk's systems.
- Hypno Ray: If Takeshi refuses to create monsters, Khan brainwashes him on the spot.
- I Control My Minions Through...: Takeshi's Hair-Trigger Temper means he's more than willing to cooperate, though if Takeshi shows a conscience he can just force him to work.
- Kick the Dog: The monsters are usually destructive enough, but if they could do much more, he will tell monsters to be more deadly. One literal example when he turned "collars that makes dogs bite their owners" to "collars that explode the dog along with the the owner when they get close".
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After all the abuse Takeshi went through, he gets Khan destroyed by wiping out his computer.
- Mook Maker: Creates monsters by materializing them from Takeshi's 8-bit designs on computer.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His boss subtitle is "Demon King".
- Not So Above It All: Out of all Takeshi's usual venting, hearing how he's been Mistaken for Gay makes him burst with laughter.
- Orcus on His Throne: Resides within Takeshi's computer for the enitre time until the finale.
- Villain No Longer Idle: If he enters the battlefield, he's so powerful that even Gridman was forced to retreat.
- Outlaw: A criminal that escaped from Hyper World and try to conquer Earth through Computer World.
- Physical God: His ultimate goal is to gain a body outside the Computer World and Take Over the World with all his abilities.
- Pride: He doesn't tolerate being disrespected or not getting what he wants, and he wants to be feared by everyone. The only reason why the heroes failed to bait him into Sealed Evil in a Can is his raw strength.
- Shadow Archetype: Takeshi calls Khan the embodiment of his inability to let the anger go and releasing it through destructive responses.
- A Villain Named Khan: His name contains "Khan" and he's the Big Bad.
- You Have Failed Me: Sometimes shocks Takeshi with bolts of lightning as punishment if a monster gets defeated. The destruction of Skubone was the last straw for Khan to start attacking by himself and abandon Takeshi altogether.
Takeshi Todo
Portrayed by: Tsuyoshi Sugawara, Kōichi Yamadera (2015; voice)
Click here to see his adult form
The creator of the kaiju that Khan Digifer uses against Gridman. Takeshi is a lonely boy from a wealthy family who goes to the same school as Naoto and his friends. He has a tendency to hold petty grudges and an unhealthy obsession with Yuka.
- The Atoner: If the anime short were to imply.
- Born Unlucky: Let's just say things rarely ever go the way he wants them to.
- Cannot Spit It Out: He has problems with expressing his feelings for Yuka and is an introvert in the daylight.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Pretty much defines him. He takes any inconvenience he faces as reason enough to summon a kaiju to get revenge.
- The Dragon: Towards Khan.
- Establishing Character Moment: In the first episode, Takeshi is unable to bring himself to speak to Yuka or give her his love letter. After he gets home, he angrily vents about the embarrassment he feels and decides to hack the computer systems at her parents' hospital for revenge.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Nanny who took care of him during his childhood is probably the only person he thinks fondly of.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The only thing that Takeshi ever killed via his summoned monsters was a hapless dog whose computerized collar exploded. Notably, he only intended for the dogs to attack their owners, mocking the idea that dogs and owners have an unbreakable bond. Khan Digifer is the one who comes up with the idea to actually turn the collars into bombs, and when Takeshi protested that there was no need to go that far Khan outright brainwashed him into going along with it.
- Evil Is Petty: His inspirations to create monsters. Takeshi sees even mild embarrassments as justifications for revenge.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Is willing to lock down the food plants in the city with Bagira, thus denying food to people throughout the city, simply because he bumped into a food supplier by accident and shoppers laughed at him.
- Good Costume Switch: In the entire series run, he wears a dark blue blazer (which is his school uniform) while still working for Khan. As an adult whose redeemed from his past acts, a light-colored raincoat replaces his old school blazer.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Even the most minor and incidental of inconveniences have him swearing revenge.
- Heel–Face Turn: After being saved by Ippei when Khan unleashed a full assault on the Human World, Takeshi gives the trio his full cooperation and creates Grid Hyper Beam to defeat Khan once and for all.
- I Miss Mom: His parents went on business trip and even though they constantly give him a large amount of money, all Takeshi ever wanted was their attention. In episode 3, he creates Volcadon to disrupt telephone lines and provide his mom a good reason to see him. His envy towards a kid who walks with his mom in a supermarket is the inspiration to create the Kaiju Metallus in episode 11.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Pretty much the only reason he sticks with Khan despite his abuse because nobody else would praise him, and while he hates everyone he at least attempts to communicate. Khan kicking Takeshi out of his house triggered his Despair Event Horizon, and staying with Naoto's group fixed that.
- Lonely Rich Kid: His parents went on a business trip and he sits alone in his mansion with no friends.
- Loners Are Freaks: To the point of bearing petty grudges over even the smallest mistakes.
- Mad Artist: His designs are usually animated by Khan as monsters in the Computer World.
- Misanthrope Supreme: He thinks that Humans Are Morons (meaning everyone besides him) and glees at the chaos he causes.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: He meets his Identical Stranger, Takeo, who's much nicer to Yuka than he'll ever be. He developes a monster with Evil Hand ability, and when Takeo happened to not wear a hacked wristwatch, he controls a police officer to shoot him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Khan pulling the final You Have Failed Me on him ends with him becoming a crying mess understanding he has no friends left. He realizes that the world is in danger because of him, not in the way he wanted, and Khan has been using him the entire time.
- Never My Fault: Whenever he gets into trouble, it's always somebody else or the laws that are the problem, not him.
- He and Khan agreed on a plan to keep the pollution kaiju at low profile so Gridman wouldn't be able to sense it while the city is getting covered in trash. Then he gives Yuka and the company gas masks, and since she doesn't say anything more than just thanks, he tells the monster to go all-out, which gets the kaiju killed by Gridman very quickly. Takeshi blames Yuka, and Khan finally had enough of Takeshi's impulsiveness and lack of responsibility. THEN he still believes Yuka loves him after she SLAPPED him and pointed how Khan never needed him.
- Not Brainwashed: Zig Zagged. Khan only brainwashes him when Takeshi refuses to create monsters, but overall he is willing to create one most of the time.
- Self-Serving Memory: After he fails to work up the nerve to talk to Yuka or give her his love letter, Takeshi goes home and starts complaining about how she "rejected" him.
- Shout-Out: To the human in episode 4 of Ultraman Ace, Mushitaro Kuri, who sold his soul to Yapool as his caricature created the monster Garan and even had an unhealthy crush on a woman.
- Shrinking Violet: His main goal is to confess to Yuka, but when it comes to it he's always completely at a loss for words and starts panicking.
- Smug Snake: His consistent trait is gloating about his intelligence as he comes up with a plan to ruin someone's day.
- Teen Genius: And a hacker at that.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Goes through a complete 180 in the finale.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Takeshi in his younger days is nothing like him.
- Villain Has a Point: All new technology introduced to the town is portrayed as progressive, but sometimes Takeshi becomes a victim of someone's negligence, provoking him to turn the unsafe elements to their Logical Extreme. By the end of the episode the heroes learn various aesops related to overreliance on tech.
- Yandere: He regularly spies on Yuka and whoever "stands in the way" of his confession becomes an immediate target for his monsters. His thoughts of her are definitely more than romantic and he even managed to kindap her once.
