Anime Spotlight #46: Gridman Universe

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Animeister

I realized two things before writing this update to Anime Spotlight #17: Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (FROM October 24, 2022): that I put commas in the "a.k.a." instead of periods, and that the two series I reviewed in that post got a crossover film in 2023, without which this update would not exist.

And since getting the taste for high viewer traffic numbers, I have come to feel like Just the Ticket would not continue to exist if you didn't remember to Become A Ticketholder for real because Akane knows you haven't yet, leave a comment at the bottom of this post to keep the kaiju from erasing my presence, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to compose my content on a piece of Junk, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

The Anime Spotlight continues its return after several months of financially uncertain absence to bring you the updated review of some of Studio Trigger's best executed works ever (well, two out of three ain't bad, but we'll get to that a bit later): SSSS.Gridman, SSSS.Dynazenon, and Gridman Universe.

But before they were Studio Trigger, the folks behind the SSSSeries (and movie) previously created anime as members of Gainax (whose other founding members went on to form GONZO). To check out my thoughts on some other Gainax, GONZO, and Trigger anime, click the following links:

• Rosario+Vampire (GONZO): Anime-BAW #4: Harem Genre (Part 3)
• My Bride Is A Mermaid (GONZO): Anime-WTF? #2: Attack Of the Clowns
• FLCL (Gainax): Anime-WTF #3: Revenge Of the Shith
• Darling In the FRANXX (Studio Trigger): Anime-WTF? #4: Uhh...No Hope
• Full Metal Panic! (GONZO): Anime-BAW #6: Full Metal Panic!
• 18if,
  Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue,
  and Conception (GONZO): Anime-BAWklog: Finished Series A-Z (Part I)

Animeister's Note: Gainax also worked on the live-action Cutie Honey film. My thoughts on the series itself can be found near the end of the above Anime-BAWklog  post.

Back in the 90s, just about everyone was trying to capitalize on the Power Rangers craze, even going so far as to copy Haim Saban's business model of licensing footage of Japanese tokusatsu series (special effects-driven films and television shows that typically saw costumed heroes using their vehicles, weapons, and actors dressed as giant robots to make actors dressed in rubber, evil monster suits explode), shooting new scenes for local audiences, and cutting the two together (with the local actors dubbing lines over the legacy footage) in a way that tried to make sense. ABC's attempt at the Ameri-satsu formula was a single season series starring Matthew Lawrence (Money Plane), titled Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, which was based on the Japanese series, Gridman: The HyperAgent. Tsuburaya Productions, the owners of the Gridman and Ultraman franchises, also co-produced Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad with DIC Entertainment and ABC. They also co-created SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon with Studio Trigger.

SSSS.Gridman has a lot of clear anime tropes, and tropes often seen in previous Gainax and Trigger productions, specifically FLCL. Like in most anime, you can pick out the romantic leads by their hair color, and those paired hair colors are generally red and black. The main character of Gridman is a red-headed high school boy named Yuta, who has amnesia after some sort of unexplained accident (perhaps some psychotic alien chick ran him over with her scooter?), and soon discovers that a giant robot named Gridman is living in an old computer in a local junk shop, and he's the only one who can see or hear it. As if the FLCL references weren't obvious enough, SSSS.Gridman serves as Yuta's coming-of-age story, as he navigates his feelings for his dark haired, female classmate, Rikka. That is, when he's not helping Gridman save their city from eerily convenient kaiju attacks. Things get existentially Twilight Zone-ier and WandaVision-ier when blurry Godzilla statues begin appearing in the distance, the city is seemingly isolated from the rest of the world, buildings that were destroyed in kaiju attacks are magically rebuilt the next day with no one remembering what happened (a unique twist on explaining the "Japan rebuilds quickly after monster attacks" trope from various kaiju franchises), and people who were killed in those attacks seem to go forgotten by everyone but Yuta, as though they had never existed. Also, the classic tokusatsu tropes like the evil version of the hero, combining vehicles and weapons, and new power-ups and team members (embodied in the "Neon Genesis Junior High Students," because Gainax did Neon Genesis Evangelion and the comedic irony that they're all too old to be in Junior High School, nor are they students), all go through their natural progression. One of the main draws of the Gridman anime, besides the character dynamics, the sci-fi mystery, and the epic banger of a theme song, is the animation. It's a pretty fluid combination of hand-drawn and CGI, but everything is animated to move like practical effects, from the perfectly replicated zoom sequence that makes Gridman grow, to the lumbering, floppy, rubbery movement of the kaiju that makes them look like puppeteers and actors in cheap costumes, to the way certain close-up "shots" are composed to make it look like the scenery has stage hands moving it around from behind the scenes, to Gridman doing slow, floaty jumpkicks like he's being lifted by wires. It's incredible how well Trigger and Tsuburaya were able to replicate the live-action feel of the Gridman vs. kaiju sequences, while also putting Trigger/Gainax's insane, speed-line-infused artistic flair on the fight choreography and finishing energy blasts. I love it!
The reason behind the kaiju and why the world is the way it is has some FLCL influence to it as well, but it's not worth spoiling beyond that, and there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it post-credits scene that will break your brain. So despite all the tropes, this one's a very high recommend from me.

The sequel is never as good as the original. There are cases, like Terminator 2, Evil Dead 2, and Aliens, where it's as good or even better. But Studio Trigger is no James Cameron or Sam Raimi, and SSSS.Dynazenon sounds more like a sleep aid for snakes than a blockbuster sequel worthy of what came before it.

In terms of world building, Dynazenon has almost nothing in common with Gridman aside from the presence of kaiju, and the kaiju don't even operate on the same rules as before. It's not a case of lore expansion or power scaling; it's just completely different rules. Instead of being created by someone, kaiju just exist now, and there are people who can use the Vulcan salute to impose their wills on the kaiju. No existential crisis or rebuilding overnight as before; things get destroyed and there's collateral damage (barely), and that's it. Even when the hero, Yomogi (who looks like an amalgamation of Hiro and Ichigo from Darling In the FRANXX, so not even the character designs are given much effort), figures out he can also do the Vulcan mind meld trick with kaiju, it's almost a one-off, and the reason is never explored, whereas the events of Gridman had a high-concept, but reasonable explanation within the scope of the established world.

The cast on both sides of Dynazenon's conflict is bloated and underdeveloped, the coming-of-age romantic beats are given focus but are weak in importance to character motivation or plot progression, the animation is far less practical-looking, the theme song isn't as good, the series feels more like a collection of Dynazenon toy commercials (four vehicles, a robot, a gold dragon, a "GridKnight," and at least a dozen combined forms throughout as many episodes) than an engaging plot.

If you can even remember or recognize them by the time they show up, there are two returning characters who had varying degrees of importance in the Gridman series, but I had to Google them, and even then, I didn't care. Maybe I distracted myself too much in anticipation of how the "Gridman Universe" would fit together, but that anticipation was the only thing that kept me engaged, and with my thoughts on everything else about Dynazenon, it amounted to a soulless tease.

Funny that I would call the two above anime the "Gridman Universe," because in 2023 (with little to no fanfare that I was aware of because I didn't know it existed until now, two years later), Tsuburaya Productions and Studio Trigger brought us the crossover film, Gridman Universe, which I watched with subtitles because there is no dub.

Having learned from the letdown that was Dynazenon, they set Gridman Universe in the...Gridman...Universe, bringing back all of the existential horror and high-concept, reality-warping, mind-bending awesomeness that series had to offer.

Several months have passed since the Gridman Alliance helped free Akane Shinjo (the goddess of their reality and creator of the kaiju) from the influence of series villain Alexis Kerib, and Yuta (the red-headed protag-kun who bonded with Gridman) is the only one to not remember the events of the series because Gridman maybe kind of took over his body back then. His friends and classmates are putting together a school play of the anime (still in the scripting stages) when a new kaiju attacks and Yuta begins to hear Gridman's voice again after taking a volleyball to the face (calling the reality of the ensuing events of the movie into question).

Soon, Yuta starts seeing "ghosts," and the cast of Dynazenon suddenly shows up because of something the Neon Genesis Junior High Students theorize to be a Big Crunch (an opposite to the Big Bang, such that reality is shrinking and folding over on itself, merging Universes together like that folded paper wormhole analogy from every science fiction movie ever,

just with a multiverse and awkward Japanese youth romance hand-sandwiches)...except Kerib is suddenly randomly Rikka's dad for five seconds, Gauma (the weird guy from Dynazenon) gets a lore drop that only makes sense if you've seen Gridman: The HyperAgent (he's a multi-milennia-old evil scientist who turned against his colleagues to protect his princess—who is now selling seafood at a street fair—and was killed, mummified, and reincarnated as a giant, mechanical, fire-breathing dinosaur because anime), and the Dynazenon cast pixelate out of existence because it wasn't the Big Crunch after all, but Gridman himself.

See, Gridman isn't real. And I don't mean in the sense of being a fictional character because that's obvious; I mean that in the franchise, he's a collection of energy given temporary form and identity by a concept and human will, similar to how a Tulpa works in Buddhist mythology, except that the wills of the humans he associated with were so powerful that he gained a will of his own and grew to merge himself with the Universe (hence the title). So the suggestion is that Gridman created the Dynazenon reality (explaining...ish why things don't work the same as in the main? reality) and kaiju have become something of an autoimmune reflex to defend his Universe-sized body from anomalous human behavior (like when one shows up that can tank two finishing beams at once and casually ragdoll Gridman and GridKnight in their strongest combiner forms, or when they have to contend with a small army of generic Godzillas who can fly, when previously they only had to face one or two kaiju at a time).

Oh, and GridKnight is just a creation of Gridman's body, too, as we learn when another GridKnight shows up suddenly to kill the regular-sized Gridman and wipe out the Dynazenon characters (except for Yomogi because of his "strong connection to the kaiju," a.k.a. the Vulcan mind meld thing he can do that is still never explained beyond the evil scientists and Akane being able to do it, too), giving Yuta the opportunity to try bonding with Gridman Universe, which brings him to the attention of Akane in the real world.

Yeah, I think enough time has passed that I can spoil Gridman's post-credits scene by revealing that Akane Shinjo is a real, non-animated Japanese human girl in the franchise, strongly suggested to have created the SSSS.Gridman anime within the scope of its own continuity. She tells Yuta that Gridman was manipulated by an intelligent kaiju called Mad Origin (a "cluster of kaiju origins...[that]...embodies the worst of humanity" and wants to plunge the Universe into chaos), and magical girl henshins herself back into her animated form with Kerib under her control to join an "everyone is here...again!" fight against Mad Origin.

Like with Dynazenon, the animation looks considerably less tokusatsu than in the Gridman series, using too much cheap-looking, poorly composited CGI for my taste and making the giant characters far too acrobatic.

And taking the final fight (and the film as a whole) down to its thematic basics, we have not only yet another "multiverse in peril with legacy characters" movie, but a blatant commentary on creative freedom, executive meddling, and toxic fandom, delivered with all the subtlety of a giant robot punching you in the face and all the intelligence and clarity of focus of your average collective social injustice protest movement. Yuta and his friends joined their creative efforts to restore Gridman to his original form, which is good. Mad Origin is essentially toxic fandom personified: a collective creation of kaiju given life by the worst of humanity, who knows everyone's moves by rote memorization and would rather destroy something beloved in the chaos of making it their own than see someone else do it justice, which is bad but also the same thing the heroes did, just with negatively coded language so he loses. Oh, and he eats Kerib for a power boost at one point like he's Moro or something.

Meanwhile, Akane being a literal OP self-insert character in her own creation and controlling the villain to act out of character is also framed as a good thing, and erasing and redrawing something until you get it right by yourself is a bad thing unless it's used to defeat the evil-coded monster that the villain said was a villain because villains can be trusted, just like sarcasm.

So...Fandom is good but bad, teamwork is good but bad, perfection is good but bad, creative vision is good but bad,.... Welcome to Studio Trigger, where the stakes are made up and the point doesn't matter! They even throw in a "fuck you" to the Darling In the FRANXX haters by having some random woman in a bodysuit grow giant and merge with an airship to become a human tank Transformer.

Don't get me wrong; the character dynamics are amazing, seeing all the characters fight together and swap combiner gear in a flurry of CGI metal, Gainax-y backgrounds, and screen-filling laser beams was just enough visual overload to not feel like visual overload (just think of your favorite Bay-formers action scene and make it a hundred times more anime), and the "what if Gridman kept growing?" concept behind his Universe form was just simple enough to land solidly for me as a functional high-concept plot visual. But like M. Night Shyamalan with his teeth latched onto a "good" twist, the movie tries to be ambitious and clever at the expense of a clear point.

In the end, everyone goes back to their respective realities, the "Gridman Universe" play is a smash hit at the school festival, Yuta finally gets the girl because the journey being more important than the destination is the only message this movie gets right (even more right than the blatant, "trash in nature equals bad" environmental message it throws in by having real-world Akane turn off the movie she's in and clean up litter with her friends for less than a second), Kerib may not be dead so more shows and movies can happen, and a post-credits scene is wasted on Yomogi eating crabs with his family that Gauma probably left sitting in rubble for several hours while the fight with Mad Origin was happening.

It was nice to see the Gridman story continue and the Dynazenon story almost get explained, but by the end, I was so jaded by the film's many failed attempts at several coherent messages that I stopped caring about what I was watching.

I hate when I start out these things in a positive light ("two of the three Gridman entries are good, actually!") and turn negative the more thinking I do. I guess that makes Gridman Universe just an okay movie?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this look back at the animated UniverSSSSe, and that you please remember to Become A Ticketholder for real because Akane knows you haven't yet, leave a comment at the bottom of this post to keep the kaiju from erasing my presence, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to compose my content on a piece of Junk, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.


Animeister,
Out.