Anime / GRIDMAN UNIVERSE

As the Grand Finale to the Gridman anime duology, all spoilers for SSSS.GRIDMAN and SSSS.DYNɅZENON are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

I can't do it alone, but with you.

Will you fight together with me again?

—Gridman

GRIDMAN UNIVERSE (グリッドマン ユニバース) is a Japanese animation film released on March 24, 2023, serving as a crossover between SSSS.GRIDMAN and SSSS.DYNɅZENON. As with the previous entries, Studio TRIGGER and Graphinica return to provide 2D and 3D animation duties.

In the classroom after school, Yuta Hibiki draws and erases Gridman in his notebook over and over again. Once upon a time, this world was created and destroyed by a single girl. The ones who saved the girl's heart were Hyper Agent Gridman, who came from another dimension, a monster with a heart she created, and Yuta and the others.

Yuta, who is now a sophomore in a different class from his friend Rikka Takarada, decides to confess. Their daily life in such a peaceful world began to crumble with a roar.

In the midst of Yuta's crisis, Gridman suddenly reappears and says,

"The balance of this world is about to collapse."

Before long, the crimson dragon "Dynarex," Gridman's collaborators, the Neon Genesis Junior High Students, and Yomogi Asanaka, a resident of another world, appear in front of Yuta one after another.

While hiding his feelings for Rikka, Yuta's extraordinary life begins.

Like both SSSS.GRIDMAN and SSSS.DYNɅZENON, voice dramas would provide details about what happens after the film’s ending.

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GRIDMAN UNIVERSE provides examples of:

• A Day in the Limelight: It's particularly weird as he's technically the protagonist of SSSS.GRIDMAN, but the movie puts its entire focus on Yuta himself, for the first time after he spent the original series body-jacked by Gridman. It's to the point that Gridman's guilt at having taken away part of his life without his consent sparked the entire conflict of the movie.
• Adaptation Expansion: The novelization adds several scenes, thanks to not having to be restricted by a running time. Examples include:
  • The prologue expands on the ending of SSSS.GRIDMAN, recounting what happened after Yuta woke up. ^note Specifically, Utsumi asks if he recognises the name "Gridman", and then he and Rikka fill Yuta in on the events he missed. Yuta naturally is disbelieving at first, until he checks the date and realises two months have indeed passed. Plus, Rikka is not the sort to play along with such a prank.
  • Yuma and Chise tell Rikka about their adventures.
  • The final battle is also expanded, having the Assist Weapons appear individually at first to perform their combinations with Gridman as well as having Dynazenon split up into its components so the Gauma Team can also perform their combination attacks alongside them.
  • The inner thoughts of various characters are also included, such as Utsumi noting that Yuta is way, way too late to confess his feelings for Rikka (because Gridman already told her during the ending of SSSS.GRIDMAN) or Yuta realising that he and Rikka being alone together at a playground while on the way back with ice cream for their friends is the perfect time to confess.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • When a new kaiju appears and Yuta runs for Junk in response, Rikka asks, “Why Hibiki-kun again?” as she and Utsumi chase after him. When Gridman emerges, she’s shown with a fairly sour look on her face, even once the heroes regroup at Junk after the battle. Utsumi later tells Yuta she was particularly worried about him fighting again, and because of the chance he’d lose his memory once more. It’s pretty much the first clue that she might return Yuta’s affections.
  • Later still, when Yuta agrees to sacrifice himself to revive a downed Gridman, Rikka semi-bitterly mutters, “At least hesitate a little...!”
• Angst? What Angst?: In-universe. While on the way back to school after getting ice cream for everyone, Rikka outright asks Yuta if he doesn’t mind that he lost two months of his life while possessed by Gridman. Yuta basically replies that It Can't Be Helped (as he understands the situation was desperate). Plus, he and Rikka grew closer as a result, so he really didn’t mind all that much.
• Art Shift:
  • When the universe nearly collapses outright, the art style shifts to Deranged Animation similar to the dream episodes of GRIDMAN and DYNɅZENON.
  • During a brief trip outside of the multiverse, Yuta is drawn without any lines, only colors. Akane, as an actual human, is portrayed in live-action, and communicates with Yuta through a peephole. The multiverse itself is depicted as a collage of panels from various GRIDMAN doujins.
• Audience Participation: When Team Gauma is finally back together in their mech for the big climactic battle, Chise briefly stops the action to say "And now, everyone, all together!" to the camera.
  DYNAZENON! BATTLE, GO!!
• Bad Liar: When Yuta and Rikka are tasked with getting ice cream for everyone, Yuta takes advantage of the situation to ask about “rumours that Rikka has been visiting a university student”. She confirms the rumours are true, clarifying that the student in question is her older brother. She shows him a picture and Yuta, who’d actually seen Rikka arrive at the apartment, blurts out, “Oh! That’s him!” Rikka can’t help but teasingly ask, “Wasn’t it just a rumour you’d heard?”
• Bathtub Scene: Yuta is taking a bath before being scared by a ghost, and later by a confused Koyomi who just got teleported from his own bathroom.
• Beta Couple: As Yomogi becomes wingman to Yuta in the movie, he and Yume become this to Yuta and Rikka.
• Big Damn Heroes: Quite a few examples occur.
  • During the first kaiju attack, Yuta sprints for the Junk shop. On the way there he’s almost crushed by a falling car but is saved by Vitter knocking the car away while Calibur carries Rikka and Shou to safety.
  • As the film progresses, allies show up when Gridman is on the ropes, including Dynarex early on and Knight and the 2nd partway through.
• The Bus Came Back: Anti's kaiju form returns for the first time since he became Gridknight when he transforms into it so he can fly the group away from the kaiju chasing them, since he can't fly otherwise.
• The Cameo:
  • The Ultras from live show are Ultraman Legend, Mother of Ultra, Jean-Bot, Mirror Knight and Dark Faust.
  • Masaya Obi's character (still implied to be an older Naoto) once again appears, this time to drive Yuta back to the Junk Shop and inspire him to keep going in the climax of the movie.
• Catchphrase Interruptus: Inverted: after spending all of DYNɅZENON unable to say the whole thing, Gauma's full catchphrase is finally revealed. "In this world, there's three things that you must protect: promises, love, and expiration dates". As it turns out, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Gauma Team are helping out the Gridman Alliance with their culture festival performance, everyone draws sketches of Gridman, each with different details. Yuta picks them all up and keeps them on his person. Those sketches are later used to create Gridman's Universe Fighter form by combining all the sketches into something new.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Demonstrating why he was such a suitable host to Gridman, as soon as a new kaiju suddenly appears and begins wrecking the city Yuta immediately dashes off to the Junk shop. When Gridman appears and begins to explain, Yuta cuts him off and just asks if Gridman needs his help again.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • Juuga, Onija, Mujina, and Sizumu make a short appearance right before the second Kaiju attack. The latter is even dressed up similar to Gagula.
  • Rex and the Princess are briefly seen dressed in the same costumes that Yomogi and Yume wore at the end of DYNɅZENON's final episode.
  • Yume's sister Kano can be spotted from behind.
• Continuity Nod: Quite a few from both series, in addition to the voice dramas.
  • The location Yuta and Gridman meet prior to the final battle is Gridman's deployment chamber in the Computer World from Denkō Chōjin Gridman.
  • Hass and Utsumi dating may come as a surprise if you only watched the anime, but the voice dramas include mention of how Utsumi actually watches Hass’s streams, and the SSSS.Gridman compilation movie voice drama has them quietly spending time together.
  • Alexis Kerib makes an appearance mirroring his role in Akane’s dream world, only instead of Akane’s house keeper he’s Rikka’s father. Rikka even mirrors Akane’s lines like “That’s just a costume!” and “It’d be scary if he was really on fire!”
  • Anti reveals he still wears his Accepter from when he did an Access Flash during the finale of ‘’SSSS.GRIDMAN’’. It’s what protected him and Anosillus the 2nd from being affected by the weirdness going on and allowed them to figure out what was happening.
• Costume Evolution: The various promotional material shows the 3 members of the Gridman Alliance, as well as the 4 remaining members of the Gauma Team, in outfits that mostly appear modified from their originals. Akane does it to herself, giving herself a brand new uniform after entering the Computer World.
• Crossover: The movie contains all of the good-aligned GRIDMAN characters in addition to the primary characters from DYNɅZENON, with both casts getting to interact with one another.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: As the Big Bad claims to know everything Gridman and company are able to do as he spent most of the movie parasiting the Gridman Universe, the heroes have to obtain create something new to defeat him. They do just that, with Goldburn transforming into Big Goldburn with Akane's help, enabling the new Rogue Kaiser Gridman, while Gridknight warps the Powered Zenon into a new form to become Full Powered Gridknight.
• The End of the World as We Know It: For most of the movie, the main theory as to why both the DYNɅZENON cast and new kaiju have begun to appear is that the multiverse is collapsing on itself into a pandimensional Big Crunch, causing parallel dimensions to merge as they are forced together; or, as Borr puts it, it's the end of the world. Fortunately, the truth is a bit more complicated and a lot more fixable.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Koyomi describes Gauma's princess to Rikka's mom as "someone from a world he can never reach". She becomes convinced that he (Gauma/Rex) has a Celeb Crush.
• Everyone Can See It: Yuta's big silly crush on Rikka (and to a lesser extent her own affection for the guy) is obvious to a lot of the cast, who all proceed to help him, tease him, or both.
  • When Yomogi and Yuta have a quiet moment together and are chatting, the former bluntly asks, “So why haven’t you confessed yet?”, resulting in Yuta playing dumb.
  • Notably, when Rikka notices Yuta coming out of the nurse’s office and goes to check on him, Hass and Namiko don’t even bother teasing her about it anymore. When Yuta later asks to speak to Rikka alone, Namiko just grins knowingly.
  • Needing a source of strong will to manifest, Anosillus the 2nd tells Yuta she zeroed in on his determination. His determination to confess to Rikka, that is.
  • Yume apparently spent the film under the impression that Rikka and Yuta were already an item, until Yomogi informs her otherwise as they’re saying their goodbyes.
  Yume: We wish you two lots of happiness!
  Yomogi: I think they're not actually dating yet.
  Yume: ... no way. How?!
  • Even Rikka herself knows, and when he finally gets his confession out she can't help but joke about how long it took him.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: A form of this happens late in the movie. Yuta finds himself in a black void, for someone to speak up... Akane Shinjo, who has her own Junk, and helps him find his way back to Gridman, before body-jacking Alexis Kerib so she can join in the fight...
• Foreshadowing: The movie opens with Yuta attempting to draw Gridman from memory over and over again on the same piece of paper, which eventually destroys the paper after one too many tries. This is exactly how the cast defeats Mad Origin at the end of the movie, by simultaneously damaging and healing him with Fixer Beam at such a fast rate that eventually the "paper" that he's drawn on is destroyed, causing him to cease to exist.
• Got Me Doing It: Yume clearly rubbed off on Gauma, as "Something Beam" appears to have been made the official name of the weapon.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Upon being told that he’s the only one who can revive a comatose Gridman and bring an end to the chaos, Yuta agrees. Even when he’s informed that it would probably result in his complete and irreversible loss of self due to the forces involved, he agrees anyway because “It’s something only I can do.” After he departs, Rikka semi bitterly notes he didn’t even so much as hesitate.
• Humans Are Special: Humanity is noted to be unique because humans are the only species who can earnestly believe in fiction. Not just fairy tales or religion, but even things like countries only came about because humans can build their lives around a fabrication that doesn't technically exist. That's why everyone is surprisingly okay with living artificial lives, even though the GRIDMAN world was created by Akane and the DYNɅZENON world by Gridman himself.
• Interrupted Bath: Yuta is shown taking a bath twice, and both times he's interrupted by universal anomalies.
• I Should Write a Book About This: A major part of the movie is The Gridman Story, a play that Utsumi, Rikka and their class are putting together for the school festival. It starts out as a proper summary of SSSS.GRIDMAN, but input from the others and limitations of a high school play turn it into a bit of a mess. By the end of the movie, they fully rewrite it into Gridman Universe itself instead.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • It’s confirmed that the only ones who remember Akane are Rikka and Utsumi.
  • When Gridman uses Fixer Beam after defeating the attacking kaiju, by the next day the general population have forgotten all about them.
  • Invoked when Yuta and Utsumi witness Rikka meet an older student and then enter his apartment. Utsumi claps his hand over Yuta’s eyes and commands him to forget what he saw. Yuta claims to have erased the memory, but when Utsumi lowers his hand Yuta’s eyes are brimming with tears.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Continuing on a bit from SSSS.GRIDMAN, the Gridman Story script and reactions to it highlights all the reasons someone would have to watch Tokusatsu. Some want to feel themes and messages, some want to see character-driven stories, some want to see cool action scenes, some just want to see crazy shit. And of course, there's no wrong reason to enjoy the medium.
  Rikka: I don't think the others understood everything I was trying to convey...
  Yuta: Everyone had a lot of fun, though.
  Rikka: Yeah. Then it was all worth it.
  • And let's not mention Akane Shinjo, who manages to effectively poke a peephole in the internal fourth wall.
• Love Confession: Yuta tries to confess to Rikka but because of various reasons he’s unable to (e.g. he tries to invite her to watch a play because she’s writing one and he thinks it might inspire her, she apologises because she has plans that day). However, at the end of the movie, he succeeds.
• Luminescent Blush:
  • Downplayed, but Rikka’s cheeks are red when everyone is saying goodbye, and Yomogi points out to Yume that Yuta and Rikka aren’t actually dating yet.
  • Yume’s face goes bright red when she realises the implication of Yomogi inviting her to enjoy the crab Gauma gave him for “his family”.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Early on, Yuta takes a volleyball to the face hard enough to make his nose bleed, and he barely even reacts. When he later slips and falls down an entire flight of stairs, he still doesn't feel anything. It's what finally clues him in that there's something horribly wrong with the world around him.
• The Multiverse: The promotional video has Utsumi discuss this, with him claiming their own universe isn't the only one out there. This is accurate, as the official website specifically lists Yomogi as coming from another world.
• Medium Blending: Not only are there a few live-action sequences from Akane's point of view, the scene of Yuta reaching out to Gridman has him dig through a giant mass of manga panels.
• Moment Killer:
  • Rikka's mom enters the room showing off the meat she got for dinner in the middle of Yomogi's tearful reunion with Gauma, completely defusing the tension of the scene. They both laugh it off and decide to move on.
  • When Yuta and Rikka are tasked with getting ice cream for everyone, they have a quiet talk on the way to and from the convenience store. Stopping by a playground, the atmosphere is so comfortable Yuta attempts to tell Rikka how he feels. The sudden appearance of a “ghost” causes him to instead cry out in a panic, resulting in a surprised Rikka falling off a swing. The moment gone, the two hurry back with the ice cream. The ghost turned out to be Anti trying to contact Yuta in an attempt to warn him about what’s happening.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The background music that plays while the heroes are working on the school festival is lifted from Denkō Chōjin Gridman, where it played during similar “non-kaiju-related, simple everyday life” activities Naoto, Yuka and Ippei would engage in.
  • Yuta, Utsumi and Rikka part ways with Gridman and the Neon Genesis Junior High Students at the same hill where the final scene of Denkō Chōjin Gridman takes place, complete with mirroring the show's final shot.
• Naked First Impression: The universes colliding end up causing Yuta and Koyomi to use the same bathroom at the same time. Hilarity Ensues.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Unwittingly done by Yuta when he’s describing the script Rikka and Utsumi are working on for the school festival. He describes it as telling Gridman’s story, alongside that of Akane, Rikka and Utsumi. Gridman asks about Yuta’s story, and Yuta replies that he wasn’t really part of the adventure (due to being possessed by Gridman) and so “his story” isn’t really in it. As Gridman already feels guilty at robbing Yuta of 2 months of his life, the fact Yuta will get no recognition at all just twists the knife further.
• Power of Love: While SSSS.GRIDMAN strongly implied part of the reason Gridman chose Yuta as his host was because his love for Rikka was stronger than Akane’s programming, this film makes it very clear that Yuta would move heaven and Earth for Rikka.
• Production Foreshadowing: In Studio TRIGGER tradition, the ending features a reference to an upcoming project of theirs, which in this case is a trailer for the Delicious in Dungeon anime adaptation playing on a TV in the background during The Stinger.
• Prone to Tears: Yuta, after he hears rumours Rikka has an older boyfriend, and worse personally witnesses her arrive at a block of one-room apartments in the evening, be greeted by a guy a few years older than they are, and go inside without hesitation. It’s partially Played for Laughs (as he completely goes to pieces).
• Relationship Upgrade: After stage shows and audio dramas hint, Utsumi and Hass are dating behind everyone's backs. At the end of the movie, Yuta and Rikka finally become a couple.
• The Reveal: The movie gives some explanations in regards to DYNɅZENON:
  • Why does so much of Yomogi's world look identical to Yuta's? Because the former is a copy of the latter created by Gridman.
  • How did Anti and Kaiju Girl Anosillus the 2nd look so much older as Knight and "The 2nd," despite the movie taking place only a year after the end of the GRIDMAN anime? Because the latter two are not the same people as the former two, but rather copies with the same powers and memories.
• Romantic Wingman: Utsumi and Yomogi play this role for Yuta.
  • Yomogi bluntly asks Yuta why he hasn’t confessed yet, and later on informs Yume that Yuta and Rikka aren’t dating yet... well within earshot of Yuta and Rikka themselves.
  • Utsumi meanwhile acts as an Honest Advisor. He also gets a bit of teasing in, but is quick to apologise if he goes too far.
• Rookie Red Ranger: The Yuta in this film is the actual Yuta, as opposed to the one in SSSS.GRIDMAN who was actually possessed by Gridman. As a result, this is actually his first experience fighting kaiju, something the Neon Genesis Junior High students notice during his first fight and Yuta's own self-deprecating observation that he couldn't fight very well.
• Say My Name:
  • Yume and Yomogi yell each other’s names as the heroes arrive in preparation for the final battle. They even take a moment to rub their foreheads together affectionately.
  • Rikka calls Yuta’s name as he runs off in preparation to potentially sacrifice himself to revive Gridman. This is particularly notable, as she calls him "Yuta" instead of "Hibiki-kun" as she always did before.
• Shout-Out: Full Power Gridman and Kaiser Gridknight's weapon-swapping teamup attack pays homage to Super Robot Wars, recreating the finishing shot of Rampage Ghost from 2nd Original Generation.
• Theme Music Power-Up: This time the heroes get not one, not two but three in the final battle. Start with imPerfect then UNION and finish with Uni-verse.
• Title Drop: The titular Gridman Universe isn't just a cute crossover title but refers to an actual universe inside of Gridman.
• The Stinger: After the credits, there's a brief scene of Yomogi's family and Yume eating the crab that Gauma, now Rex gave him. On the TV in the background, footage from Trigger's next animation project, Delicious in Dungeon, can be seen.
• Wham Shot: A series of them happen in quick succession as Yuta reawakens Gridman. The scene pans out to show it's on a real life Junk, as someone puts down a bag while stood before it. They're then revealed to be Akane Shinjo, who then declares "Now it's my turn..." and holds out her hand, splitting her fingers before declaring, in English, "Instance Domination", her eyes flashing purple, reverting to her animated self as she displaces herself into the Gridman universe, taking over a not very reluctant Alexis Kerib for one last battle...
  • Another series happened shortly before, right after the second battle against Domgiran. First, a second Gridknight suddenly shows up and stabs Gridman in the back. This not only causes Gridman to disappear, but also the DYNɅZENON cast, the Neon Genesis Junior High Students and the Gridknight Alliance. The scene then cuts back to Yuta and Yomogi meeting the "ghosts" that Yuta kept seeing throughout the movie and they turn out to be Anti and Anosillus the 2nd in their child forms from SSSS.Gridman, explaining where the second Gridknight came from. All this hints at the true nature of both the universe merger as well as the DYNɅZENON universe before Anti and Anosillus properly explain it.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Yuta gets this expressions a few times, first when he overhears a rumour Rikka was seen visiting a university student at his apartment and later when he and Utsumi actually witness Rikka meet the student.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Mad Origin is defeated by being blasted with everyone's Finishing Move while Gridman blasts him with Fixer Beam, and the two opposing forces cause his body to break apart enough for Gridman and Gridknight to kill him.

Tropes specific to the Voice Dramas (Unmarked Spoiler Warning)

• Alien Non-Interference Clause: In the second drama, this is the reason Anti gives as to why Anosillus the 2nd can’t use her Fixer Beam to repair a very expensive, very broken pot. She can only use it to repair damage done by a kaiju. After accidentally blowing up most of Rikka’s house with an experimental “localised time reversal” gun, she decides ‘’that’’ damage counts as “kaiju-related” because she’s a kaiju herself. Knight also cites this as to why he can't help Koyomi carry the pot, which is what led to the pot breaking in the first place.
• All Men Are Perverts: In the first drama, Yume teases Yuta by accusing him of surprising Rikka with a date to an onsen because he was hoping to do something "naughty" with her. A horribly embarrassed Yuta denies it.
• Big Damn Kiss: Invoked in the first drama. After Yuta and Rikka have their "fight", Yume suggests they kiss and make up, emphasis on the "kiss". She and Yomogi start clapping and chanting, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" to Yuta and Rikka's embarrassed protests. After they decide to Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone, Rikka and Yuta then have an awkward conversation on whether or not they should before deciding they'd rather just spend the rest of the onsen date together.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the first drama, Yuta had carefully researched and planned an onsen date he thought Rikka would enjoy. In one of SSSS.GRIDMAN Voice Dramas where he and Akane were a couple, she noted that Yuta was doing his best to keep her happy. Yuta’s increasing worry and panic that he somehow upset Rikka is also similar to how he reacted when Akane acted upset, desperately trying to figure out what he did wrong and how to make amends.
    • In addition, Rikka treats Yuta similarly to how she did at the beginning of SSSS.GRIDMAN, where she was fairly aloof with him. That's what clues Yuta in that he's messed up.
  • Yume and Yomogi being very big on the importance of communication in a relationship hearkens back to the SSSS.DYNɅZENON compilation movie voice drama, where Koyomi overhears them having a fight over Yomogi not letting Yume know he was hanging out with some of his female friends.
    • This is also an extension of the voice drama in which Yomogi's mom tells Gauma about the importance of being able to talk out problems with your partner due to how the lack of that is what caused her and Yomogi's dad to split up
  • In the second drama, Anti now has Knight’s Hair-Trigger Temper, as demonstrated when Koyomi tries to claim that if their current worlds were created by Gridman, that means anything bad that happens can be seen as Gridman’s fault. He quickly recants when Anti grabs him and begins applying pressure.
  • In the third drama, Rikka notes that “the 2nd”’s description of Yuta as a “singularity” makes sense, since in a world created by Akane to love Akane, Yuta still fell in love with Rikka instead. The final episode of SSSS.GRIDMAN heavily implied Rikka had already strongly suspected this, but as at the time she wasn’t sure how she felt about Yuta in return (especially since the “Yuta” in that show was actually Gridman possessing Yuta’s body), she kept it to herself.
• Date Peepers: Discussed in the first drama, after Yume and Yomogi decide to Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone. An embarrassed Rikka wonders if they'd actually really left, and Yuta goes to have a look around to make sure. When he reports back that they really seem to have gone, she notes that she totally expected them to try to stick around somewhere to keep watching.
• First-Name Basis: Rikka now addresses and refers to Yuta by his given name as opposed to “Hibiki-kun”.
• The Gadfly: Yume really enjoys teasing Rikka and Yuta to get a rise out of them. Her penchant for making up fantastical explanations for things to mess with people also return when she makes up the STBS on the spot to explain why Yuta has duplicated.
• Innocently Insensitive: As a new couple, Yuta and Rikka find themselves engaged in this a few times.
  • In the first drama, Yomogi and Yume point out that asking Rikka on a date, and then surprising her with a trip to an onsen, meant that Yuta basically wasted all the time Rikka might have spent actually getting ready for the date (e.g. picking an outfit, putting on makeup). Worse, it’s implied that Yuta was so hyped, he crucially forgot to compliment how Rikka looked when they met up.
  • In the third drama, the possibility that Yuta isn’t Gridman’s first host comes up. Not too bad at first, but then Rikka makes the comparison between Gridman not talking about a hypothetical previous host and not talking about previous boyfriends. Yume points out that was probably a poor choice of words, and Rikka’s attempts to explain it was a general comparison winds up sounding like a Suspiciously Specific Denial. Yume asks Rikka to prove she has no ex-boyfriends, and when Rikka protests that she’d have no way to prove that Yuta gets upset enough to leave the room.
• Lampshade Hanging: In the first drama, Yume is super-invested in Yuta and Rikka’s relationship, eagerly probing for information and offering suggestions. Yuta and Rikka separately wonder if her personality has changed, while Yomogi wryly notes she wasn’t like this before.
• Mundane Utility: The 2nd can now help the Dynazenon team travel to Yuta's universe without problems, and without a Crisis Crossover being necessary. The third drama has Yume and the others mention that they only do so once a week, in response to Utsumi complaining that dimensional travel ought to be more epic.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • In the first drama, Yomogi and Yume bring this up as a reason why Yuta has to find Rikka and let her vent any frustrations ASAP. A healthy couple should be able to discuss things they dislike about each other rather than bottling everything up.
  • In the third drama, after the Yuta duplicate claims to have come into being due to the stresses of the relationship, a somewhat hurt Rikka tells the real Yuta that if he has any problems with how the relationship is going, they should talk it out. She stresses that she'd rather not keep the relationship going if Yuta is only sticking with her out of a sense of obligation, to which Yuta assures her that he has absolutely no complaints or issues, and he's just happy to be with her. He then turns on his duplicate and yells at him for trying to drive a wedge between him and Rikka.
• Post-Script Season: After the film's release, advertisements and tie-ins take place after the ending and act as one of these. The Gridman Universe Character pop-up store, for example, has Yume and Yomogi happily holding hands at a theme park while making a heart gesture with their free hands, while Yuta and Rikka are depicted in yukata blushing furiously and glancing at each other shyly (based on the location, it could even be based off of the first voice drama, where they were indeed at an onsen together). The AVIOT X Gridman Universe collaboration advert has Yume pop in to visit Rikka to tell her about the new AVIOT earphones and how their voices could be used to announce the various functions, before Yume teasingly tells Rikka that they should totally give a pair to Yuta, because they both know Yuta would totally use Rikka's voice "all the time, every minute, every second!"
• Senpai Kouhai: In the first drama, when Yuta realises he's upset Rikka and has no idea why, he decides to contact his "senpai"... who turns out to be Yomogi (because, well, Yomogi actually has a girlfriend and so might have advice).
• Shipper on Deck: Yume is one for Rikka and Yuta, big time.
• Twice Shy: Yuta and Rikka are still feeling their way through their relationship. The first drama has them at an onsen, where Yuta had taken Rikka thinking she might like it. As the drama begins, she makes an excuse and leaves, to the point a worried Yuta contacts Yomogi about it. Yomogi and Yume point out that Rikka probably dressed up because Yuta asked her on a date, only to take her to a place where all her effort was wasted (eg any carefully applied makeup is washed away in the bath). Rikka meanwhile understands Yuta meant well, and so walked away rather than risk losing her temper.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the first drama, Yume and Yomogi scold Yuta when he explains that he surprised Rikka with a date to an onsen. Among other things, they point out that Yuta essentially sprung something like an onsen date on Rikka without warning, meaning he failed to consider factors like the preparations Rikka made for the date (e.g. picking an outfit, applying makeup). This showed that he completely forgot to take Rikka's own feelings into account. Yuta feebly protests that he'd researched that the onsen was quite popular, but Yume and Yomogi again point out that just because it's popular, that doesn't mean Rikka would be into it. Yume also teasingly accuses Yuta of wanting to do something naughty with Rikka in the onsen, to Yuta's embarrassed denials.
• Yes-Man: Yomogi is one of these to Yume, following her lead and just going along with whatever she wants to do. After all, it makes her happy, he likes seeing her happy, so...

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