SSSS.GRIDMAN Episode 7/8 Review

As I stated earlier this week between my still to be completed Angels of Death article and my Goblin Slayer article, things have been super busy and I’ve also been super lazy with other shows and such. Work and what not have been keeping my attention but somethings that still manage to help me relax after a long week of insanity is a cold beer, my relaxing gaming chair, and some SSSS.GRIDMAN.

As Yuta (and honestly I’d completely forgotten his name for a minute there) attempts to retell his previous encounter with the unnamed loli-kaiju and explain that Akane is a god that has been behind all this, Rikka and Sho are of course quite skeptical of his story. Rikka even goes so far as to claim that no high school girl could care about kaiju, which Sho knows is wrong but keeps that fact to himself. After a bit of deliberation and trying to plan their next move, the Gridman Alliance adjourns and Yuta finds himself in a rather precarious position when he comes home.

Acknowledging the fact she is a god, Akane makes the proposition that Yuta join forces with her to achieve her goals. He of course declines and cites his loyalty to his friends, which offends Akane, and she forces him to walk her home and during said walk, he is treated to some Chinese at the restaurant of one of Akane’s victims. Here, Yuta meets the alien that has been enabling Akane’s rampages, Alexis Kerib and their bit of discussion is ruined as an alien kaiju appears. It turns out (much to Akane’s ire) that this kaiju was created by Anti, and she was especially enraged when he lost to Gridman once more.

We leave the episode off with Alexis “disciplining” Anti and slashing his eye while Anti was dumpster diving through garbage for food. This left me at an interesting impasse, since I genuinely feel bad for Anti, and I don’t want to by any means. Thankfully the next episode broke this for me a bit by having him randomly appear while injured at the cafe and then effectively dine and dash to the ire of the Neon Genesis Junior High Students.

Akane follows up by having a display of the kaiju first fought by Gridman, but upgraded and effectively declares war against them by threatening the upcoming festival. They manage to control themselves and not start a fight, while Rikka and Sho argue about the concept of fighting Akane. Rikka has an awkward moment alone with Akane where she effectively says that Rikka’s been created to unconditionally love Akane. After this, there’s also an interesting attempt at a parley between them and Akane, leading to nothing being gained by either side. While the episode appeared like it was going to be more exposition than anything, the fight scene ended up eliciting a greater reaction out of me than any other episode up to this point. I admit at this point I was so fucking confused by this course of action from the Gridman Alliance. I honestly didn’t expect Gridman to be deployed to freak people the hell out at the festival as a deterrent and unfortunately this tactic didn’t work at all. The ensuing battle did have me cheering on Gridman, and I may or may not have drunkenly yelled “GO GRIDMAN” at 11:44 PM while watching this episode.

The show has lost a bit of its appeal and at this stage in the game I have to admit that while I love Trigger, their claims that this show was going to redefine animation as we know it seems to have be a bit of an exaggeration. That being said, this show is still an amazing watch and I’m really enjoying watching for the inevitable “DAMN, ITS ON SON” moment each episode. I frequently state that this show takes me back to my childhood and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d totally be out on the playground with friends yelling out attacks like “HYPERLINK COMBINE FULL POWER GRIDMAN!” and certain kill moves like “GRID FULL POWER FINISH!” This nostalgia has been carrying me along pretty well and I have no doubt I’ll be watching this show to completion. Still, SSSS.GRIDMAN is sitting at a respectable but far from perfect 9 kick ass combining robots out of 10. Also, as a footnote I was just super confused by these costumes at the end. (Pretty sure there’s some reference I’m just not getting but oh well.)