REVIEWED: SEASON 1 (ALL EPISODES) / DIRECTOR: AKIRA AMEMIYA / STARRING: YUUYA HIROSE, YUME MIYAMOTO, REINA UEDA, HIKARU MIDORIKAWA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (BLU-RAY – REVIEWED)
After waking up with amnesia in classmate Rikka Takarada’s house, Yūta Hibiki begins to hear the voice of the Hyper Agent Gridman through an old computer in Rikka’s family shop. Soon after, Yūta forms the Gridman Alliance and must merge with Gridman to fight off gargantuan kaiju that threaten his city but another mystery unfolds – after each attack, the city resets with no-one apart from the Gridman Alliance remembers the events of the previous day.
Studio Trigger (Kill La Kill, Promare) are well known for creating truly captivating anime spectacles, so when it was announced that they would be teaming up with Tsuburaya Productions, the company behind the 1993 original TV series Denkou Choujin Gridman; fans were understandably excited.
This anime adaptation shares the concept with its predecessor but isn’t a reboot – just a new story in the same vein. One of the most interesting and pleasing aspects that it shares with the 90s show is that the original voice actor of Gridman, Hikaru Midorikawa, came back to reprise his legendary role.
The story takes place over 12 episodes and the narrative structure of each part is extremely evocative of that of classic Saturday morning cartoons – right down to the “morphing-esque” scenes when Gridman enters the battle. Usually when an anime is presented in this short season length format, it is a fantastic opportunity to binge-watch to get the full impact, however, in the case of Gridman, with its classic cartoon format, a slow methodically viewing of perhaps a couple of episodes at a time is recommended in order to prevent preceedings becoming overly repetitive.
In terms of the animation, Studio Trigger once again prove that they continue to make stunning looking anime with exhilarating action sequences. The Kaiju battles are mind-blowing entertaining and that, along with the excellent music (that even rewards longtime fans) is a winning combination.
With a crazy concept that also feels nostalgic to even new fans of the property, SSSS.GRIDMAN is a highly entertaining anime from start to finish with vibrant characters, wonderfully fleshed out world and badass giant monster fights.
Special Features:
The Blu-Ray only features one extra feature which is unfortunately quite lacklustre as many anime Blu-Rays are accompanied by a least a few short features and usually textless opening and closing songs.
DISC 2
- SSSS.GRIDMAN: BEHIND THE GRIDMAN ALLIANCE [27:18] – A behind-the-scenes featurette with the ADR Director and the English Voice Cast talking about the show.
