Properties that deal with the past, either directly or indirectly, go one of two ways – the sincere revamp or the deep/ironic deconstruction.

Sometimes you get stuff like the 2016 Ghostbusters or The Man From UNCLE, wherein a beloved property is brought back with some nods to the original but mostly played straight and updated to meet the demands of the current era. Sometimes you go the route of things like Watchmen, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or even the original Scream where it’s a metatextual deconstruction of the tropes of a media format that the author has had too much time to think about and is trying to shine a new light on.

I recently finished watching SSSS Gridman, and I’m happy to say it’s somehow both of these things but in a surprisingly sincere and joyful way.

SSSS Gridman, a 12-episode anime from Studio Trigger (the people behind stuff like Kill la Kill and Darling in the Franxx, both of which I’ve watched recently), is an animated revamp of an old live-action sentai series known as Hyper Agent Gridman, originally from the producers of Ultraman. You might know Gridman better under its American title of Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, brought over in the early 90s in the wake of Power Rangers (and, I would argue, the best of the also-rans from that era).

Much like its predecessor, the series revolves around three friends named Yuta, Sho, and Rikka, who partner with Gridman (a superhero who primarily lives on the internet but can enter the real world with the help of a human host) to battle an outbreak of kaiju that have started attacking their hometown in Japan, yet seem to be causing the populace some kind of localized amnesia. The villain is aided by a maladjusted schoolgirl who seems to have reasons for wanting the world around her to be a certain way, and along the way Gridman receives several increases to his strength, primarily to help sell toys.

Read that last paragraph again. When taken at face value, everything about SSSS Gridman sounds like it could be any number of sentai or mecha series, particularly ones aimed at a younger audience like most Ultraman series tend to be. And yet it manages to be so much deeper than that, while simultaneously avoiding any sort of pretension.

The characters are all deeply relatable, even the villain, and nobody’s problems seem overblown or cartoonish (aside from, you know, the ‘superhero living in the internet’ thing). It balances the character’s home lives and hero lives in a way most things don’t manage except perhaps the absolute best Spider-Man books. It’s animated better than it has any right to be, even by Studio Trigger standards.

And while the plot does have a mystery and lore to it, it never feels incomplete nor added for the sake of coming off as ‘deep’. While the pacing sags a little near the middle, every single episode adds one more piece to the puzzle and manages to never detract from nor lose sight of the show’s central ideas.

These ideas are surprisingly touching for a sentai anime, and many of the show’s major and minor characters have to face and accept things about themselves that they might not like. Themes and ideas of growth, change, facing who you are, and learning how to live the life you want while accepting your own humanity are woven through the series but in a way that’s never hitting you in the face with it, and is always oddly relatable. (Again, except for the superhero in the internet thing.)

By the time the series is over (no spoilers!), all the important questions are answered, the characters are all in places they belong, and everything left un-spelled-out is simply a fun side topic of conversation and not a major dangling plot point. The final arc (if a 12-episode series can be said to have arcs) manages to weave in similar plot elements to The Big O, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and even a little Persona 5. The final battle sequences reinforce the series’ themes of accepting who you are and learning how to change as life needs you to, all while incorporating a number of throwbacks to Gridman’s various incarnations through the years, including one of the best “theme-song callbacks” I’ve seen in an anime in a long time (even if it was to a show I’ve never even watched before). Long after the haunting but well-earned final shot of the series is gone, the final few episodes help you feel good about investing time in this series, and that’s all I can ask even of a one-season show like this.

I’m trying to not be too vague, but I don’t want to spoil any of SSSS Gridman for anyone because there’s not that much of it to spoil. Even without any knowledge of Gridman prior to this (and I assure you, I had precious little knowledge of it outside of Syber-Squad, having mostly decided to watch this series because of its weird connection to Transformers), SSSS Gridman was one of the most fulfilling TV shows I’ve watched in a while. It has a lot of roles to fulfill, both as a more modern introspective action series and as a celebration of a long-dormant but much-loved franchise, and even under the weight of these expectations it comes nearly perfect in most regards.

And doesn’t that sound great? An anime that answers its primary mystery in a way that doesn’t seem insulting, cynical, or out-of-nowhere? An animated series that touches on heavy, relatable themes but doesn’t lose sight of the fact it’s deep down a show about giant monster battles? A show where each character serves a specific and individual role with no fat or dead-end arcs? An anime series where the fanservice is almost, somehow, explained away by the setting and ending? (Okay that last one is kind of a stretch, and hoo boy are there more shots of teenagers in bikinis than I’d have wanted, but by the time the series is over you can almost sort of understand why.)

Shit, man. There’s shows I’ve watched lately that didn’t have that many jobs to do that still weren’t as dense, well-structured, and classically-relatable as SSSS Gridman. I wish more shows were like this – but then if they were, SSSS Gridman wouldn’t be as impressive as it is.

I am jealous this isn’t an actual Transformers cartoon, though. I could only imagine what Trigger could pull off with it.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related

|