SSSS.Gridman

Final Episode:

So, it was revealed that Gridman and co. are actually interdimensional agent that tries to hunt for Alexis and tries to stop him once and for all? Seems legit as Alexis had a penchant to manipulate emotionally broken people just like Akane and doesn't mind if the city got destroyed over and over again just to feed on the negative emotions. And speaking of which... I'm actually frickin surprised that in the end of the day, it was all just a dream of one person. Although I speculate that Gridman and co. might be real so yeah...

So Final thoughts on this? It was a decent ride from start to finish and love to see some Tokusatsu show. Although on the character side, I'm not sure how to feel about this one especially on Akane's case but oh well.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND Alexis will have my special treatment in a later future just wait and see.

Alexis as an ultimately empty hole that is the trap of only engaging with negative thoughts to spiral downwards actually works really well

This was an interesting ride and though Akane didn't quite click with me as a whole, Anti's arc was really satisfying with that final shot of him really highlighting his change.

Alexis, I feel, is a metaphor for depression as a whole.

But honestly, I absolutely loved Akane's character. At first I found her greatly amusing as the humongously psychotic trash person that she was, but her development has made her into one of my favorite characters in anime. I'll miss her giggling maniac persona, but ultimately, Akane as a human is a character I really, really like.

So... that happened. Seems to be pushing for a metaphorical view of the whole thing, but I don't think that works with the way the rest of the story is told. I liked the fight, at least, even if the dialogue was horribly cheesy

I have to note that by the end of the series Anti could still be written out without changing much of anything. He is such a leftover from earlier plot drafts

Overall, I consider the show good but not great. Really needed to straighten out what it was trying to do and pace things a bit better

That was a nice final episode. Wasn’t the greatest thing ever, and I don’t quite know what to think about the revelations here (I don’t think it was quite as simple as it being All Just a Dream - perhaps it is and isn’t?), but it was very heartfelt, and I enjoyed it all the same.

A very solid show.

There's something amusing how Akane's idealized self has a big bust, while Rikka as a reflection of her true self has nice hips.

For the record, real Akane was not played by Rikka's VA, but by Akane Sakanoue, who played the female lead in Ultraman X, so it's more likely to be a Casting Gag than something deeper.

So, that's done. Had a fair few flaws and I do think it needed at least a couple more episode, but it was still a satisfying ending. I guess I'm still not sold on Rikka and Yuta as characters (granted, the latter is... kind of a special case), Akane got off a liiiiittle too easy for me, and Utsumi was great in the end. It was an enjoyable ride throughout, just left a few open mysteries and questions open to interpretation, which is just as well, I suppose. I'd give it a 7/10.

Akane’s moral culpability is honestly really weird, since it might have all been in her head, but maybe not really?

I dunno, this is some weird shit.

The show not being clear on that is honestly its biggest downfall. It needed at least one episode to create a more understandable context.

I don’t know about that, I think there might be value in ambiguity.

I don't think it's necessary to understand how this all goes down morally, not only because making us care for her despite what she did was part of the point, but because at large, the show was about Akane's psychological state, not about the morality of her actions, even though the latter was an effect of the former. In fact, precisely because of that. Everything that happened was Akane's reaction onto a world she knew wasn't real, as an act of desperation due to fear of change. It was about one girl dealing with her psychological issues inside her own mind. Her morality while undertaking that internal conflict is irrelevant to it, so it doesn't need to be detailed.

Granted, I would have defended ambiguity either way. Morality doesn't always have to be clear-cut, even in entertainment media. But that's not what the show was going on about.

Plus, her self-destructive dissociation meant that we did see Akane's positive traits. They just existed in other characters. Anti, for example, is very important in the context of her difference of opinion with Utsumi about what's great about the Ultra Series - just as Rikka is her self-esteem, he's her idealism, her repressed, despised sliver of faith that justice will prevail and that everyone, even her, can be saved. He was never fully a kaiju - he was just as much of a toku hero as she could accept.

Edited by Iaculus on Dec 23rd 2018 at 12:40:17 PM

See, the problem with that is that it reduces the other characters to serve as props for Akane then. So basically, the entire Anime hinges on how invested you are in Akane's mental problems. That's not a bad thing by itself, but that's a pretty tall order given just how deep the rabbit hole her issues go and how people react to her.

I get she's the central character of the show, but that doesn't necessarily mean what they did with her was good.

I feel it's a bit more... celebratory than that. Like, the human mind is rich and vivid even in microcosm, which is what makes the effects of depression so horrifying. They're characters in the same way the cast of Inside Out are.

We've been seeing that already. Most of the discussion these last few weeks has been centered around whether or not Akane is sympathetic enough, and that's a very subjective thing to center a show around. Personally, I think the show has enough merits between it's direction and writing to earn a look either way, but it's still tricky to have a subjective opinion be so central to the show.

And that's exactly why so many people are kind of divided; it's ultimately subjective issue that has no right or wrong answer, which is good for discussion and theorizing but it doesn't exactly make for a satisfying and thematic conclusion since there are more questions than answers in this case.

This is exactly discussing it is ultimately an endless endeavor; there's no "right" answer because the show doesn't provide one and like I said, hinges on how invested you were in the whole thing. You clearly were more invested than a lot of us were, which is fine. But it's also important to understand why such a thing isn't for everyone as well.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Dec 23rd 2018 at 8:35:17 AM

I just think it would have helped if the show had been clearer on the setting and mythology. Is it a dream? VR? Do the characters exist? What are real Akane's problems that caused her to become a shut-in? Who is the real Akane? What is Gridman? How did Gridman enter Akane's mind/VR/whatever? What is Alexis? What is Anosillus the 2nd?

I think the show would have benefited from a more direct approach to its storytelling, at least in the second half.

Edited by RodimusMinor on Dec 23rd 2018 at 8:41:49 AM

Some of those questions can probably be answered by knowing about the rest of the Gridman mythos.

Anosillius II probably needed more explanation in how she entered the world since Gridman/Neon Genesis Junior High/Alexis/Akane/everyone else had a very clear or at least somewhat explained thing for their presence

but thinking over it other than that, I like the ambiguity

The shot of Rikka's gift in the real world before showing Akane waking up deliberately invokes a question of what happened and what was real but

does it being "real" matter if she recovers in the end and the relationships still holding in place even with people leaving and going

though I do like the idea someone on another site proposed of it being an isekai narrative from the inhabitants of the world Akane is intruding on

Edited by Nouct on Dec 23rd 2018 at 6:03:36 AM

it was a Cyber World City. We know this from episode 8. The floating upside down green City above The City was proof it was Cyber World.

So it's a massive computer simulation.

GRIDMAN is the toku defender of cyberspace.

Alexis the same sort of entity as the villain from GRIDMAN, this one feeding on negative emotions

Akane is a depressed otaku, possibly even hikikomori, Alexis found her and brought her into Cyber World as an escape, but a bad bargain for Akane

The Kaiju girl is related to one from the original series - the giant turtle you see behind her at the end.

Edited by ScrewySqrl on Dec 23rd 2018 at 9:06:26 AM

See, I'm not so sure on this part and I think it is one of the things that could use some more elaboration. While that's one interpretation I think it's just as possible that the characters are all based off someone that Akane knew in the real world and some of their quirks can be based off Akane's perception off them (Utsumi's sometimes over the top Ultra series fanboyism being because Akane doesn't know that much about him beyond that).

That said I think you can also work a sort of middle ground where they're based off people Akane knows but facets of her subconscious bleed into them, but filtered through their own personalities (as Akane understands or thinks of them).

Of course part of this is me holding out hope as an Akane/ Rikka shipper.

Is that selfcest?

Actually was Rikka's mom having gold eyes (and earring resembling a gold eye) meant to be significant?

I thought that Yuta/Gridman getting gold eyes when he truly figures things out meant something for Rikka's mom but doesn't seem like it

Maybe, maybe not. That's the point I'm trying to make.