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ultraericthered · 10 months ago

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I'll repeat my comment here:

Tbf, half of the SSSS Gridman main cast were literal weapons and thus totally one dimensional as characters. Aside from the Triple A's (Akane, Alexis and Anti), I like Rikka and her friends fine enough but that's it. Everyone else is just sort of *there*, and Yuta Hibiki is a total nothing who could completely fade away and I'd not notice nor care.

Your review also didn't mention this but what the actual fuck did they think they were doing with Alexis Kerib in this movie? In theory it's something I could accept and appreciate, but in execution I was just asking myself "How?" and "why?" too much for it to land with me.

Anyway, the CD Drama where Rikka ends up with Akane's virtual doppelganger is still canon to me.

Short Reflection: Gridman Universe

In some respects, Gridman Universe was nothing like the movie I expected it to be. I came in prepared for a multiversal mashup or Trigger's series of high-concept sentai reimaginings, and that's definitely what I got. But I also got something a lot weirder and wilder, a movie that in many ways is trying to be a definitive statement on the nature of Gridman itself. It's a film deeply obsessed with its own concept and place in the world, not simply as a means of reference-pandering for longtime sentai fans but as an examination of what it even means to exist as a story like this to exist and have meaning and let meaning be taken from it that may not even be there. And yet at the same time, it's also a big goofy crossover that feels like playing with all the toys in your toybox at once without caring much about making it all make sense because isn't the point of having fun to just, you know, have fun?

Which seems only fitting. Gridman and Dynazenon have been one of the most conceptually bizarre undertakings in Trigger's history, marrying the Saturday morning cartoon spirit of Ultraman with more existential, metaphysical themes and an eclectic directing style that feels more like a proper successor to Evangelion than anything else besides the Rebuilds. It's simultaneously pretentiously highbrow and shamelessly lowbrow, while also being just kind of unapologetically normiecore somewhere in the middle with how it depicts the awkward mundanity of normal life juxtaposed with mecha-on-kaiju action and universe-reshaping cosmic high concepts. It's a bizarre concoction that by all rights shouldn't work, and yet it does? Somehow, director Akira Amemiya has figured out how to make all these disparate tones sing together in harmony, and the result has been one of anime's most singular voices in the modern era. And this movie is just that on the biggest scale imaginable, throwing all restrictions to the wind and seeing just how far it can push this absurd, experimental niche it's carved for itself.

At least on paper, the plot is simple. Gridman protagonist Yuta Hibiki is working up the courage to ask out his crush Rikka Takarada, but that's all thrown into chaos when kaiju once again start appearing in his world. It soon becomes clear that some unknown threat is starting to merge universes together, leading to the cast of Dynazenon crashing into Gridman's world and kaiju going on the rampage. So the two groups must put their giant robots together- both metaphorically and literally- to face down the new threat and put the universe back in order. It's an extremely by-the-numbers setup for a crossover movie... at least until we get into the back half and reveal the nature of what's actually happening. And then things get so high-concept and reality bending that it's honestly kind of funny. I won't spoil the reveal of what's actually going on cause it's worth discovering yourself, but suffice to say, not only does it answer a lot of long-standing questions about the nature of this world in the trippiest way possible, it also sets up Gridman Universe as an answer to the question of its own existence.

See, in many ways, the mismatch at the heart of Gridman's aesthetics is the entire thematic point it's trying to make. Why redo a simple, straightforward sentai show as something so weighty and almost intellectual in its presentation? Why attach so much existentialism and cinematic complexity to something that's still, at heart, about punching big monsters in the face? Or, more broadly, why do we, as people, seek to draw meaning from art, even art as simple as giant robots fighting Godzilla? These questions may have been floating in the background of both TV shows, but they are the driving force of Gridman Universe. There are multiple times when characters will comment on the nature of Gridman, as a character, as a concept, as an idea, as an active force with a tangible effect on the world. The ultimate reveal of what's going on entirely rests on pushing this question to its logical extreme. It's simultaneously a celebration, interrogation, and deconstruction of the lizard-brain desire for popcorn entertainment and our ability to read deeper meanings where they may not actually exist, and whether or not it matters what a piece of art "intended" as long as you found something powerful in it.

There are so many ways a metatextual metaphor this tangled and self-fellating should have fallen apart. And yet, once again, by some magic, it all makes sense. Yes, the movie seems to say, Gridman is all these things. It's absurd rock-em sock-em action that speaks to your inner child, and it's weird-ass mind-bending sci-fi, and it's genuinely grounded naturalism that perfectly captures that particular teenage mindset of half-sleeping your way through life as you figure your shit out trying to put the world's bigger, more existential questions out of mind because hay, kaiju or not, you've still got college exams to worry about, right? It's all of these things at once, and it has a right to be all of these things at once, and you have the right to find power in them no matter how silly it may seem on the outside. And it justifies it all by once again just doing it all really, really fucking well. It's a bizarre, purposefully overthought stream of consciousness that's all about the importance of letting ourselves overthink the stories we love, putting our own meaning into them and forging our own relationship with them to better understand ourselves as individuals and a collective. It's an argument for art as an active conversation, even with something as simple and silly as this.

And yet, there's a problem.

See, while this movie is billed as a Gridman x Dynazenon crossover, it's really more of a Gridman movie. The title Gridman Universe is not an accident: this movie is centered on Gridman and its cast of characters first and foremost, with the Dynazenon crew mostly playing backup and hanging around for some character banter. Yomogi, Yume, Gauma, and all the rest are bit players meant to spice of a narrative that's all about Hibiki and his desire to go steady with Rikka. And unfortunately, this ends up confirming something I've believed ever since this series started:

The main cast of Gridamn is the single most boring aspect of this entire Gridman experiment.

Look, I'm sorry, but Hibiki sucks. He's an utter void of character and personality, as blank a blank slate as you can possibly get. Even your average isekai potato-kun tends to come off as smug and self-satisfied thanks to the power fantasy that guides the author's writing process, and while that's definitely obnoxious, it's at least something. But Hibiki's entire existence in both the show and movie is little more than taking in information, making bland observations, and spouting generic hero motivations whenever it's time for an action scene to happen. And you could maybe justify that in the show because he's technically a dormant passenger in his own body for most of that, but now that he's back to normal in the movie, it's painfully clear that the central figure around which this entire franchise revolves is little more than featureless white noise.

And that only becomes clearer when contrasted against the Dynazenon crew. I had my issues with Dynazenon- much weaker villains, no real standout moments- but the reason I ultimately prefer it to Gridman is because everyone in its cast is full of life and personality. They're all still awkward, mumblecore teenagers for the most part, but they're believably awkward, mumblecore teenagers who come by their personalities with purpose and meaning. So you've got Hibiki and his pals bumming around not being much of anything while the script insists on putting all the focus on them, while you've got this much more interesting crew running circles around them in basically every interaction they have. Seriously, every second Yomogi is on screen is basically walking proof of how to write a "generic" protagonist well in contrast to Hibiki's extreme nothingburger of an existence. Yes, Akane Shinjou was a spectacular character, but it's clear that Gridman put all its writing chops into her and no one else, but Dynazenon spread it out evenly. And now that she's gone, there's nothing left to distract from how much the people at the core of this narrative just don't measure up to their much more interesting backup singers.

And that's not even going into the "romance" that's supposed to be the emotional center of this whole affair. Hibiki and Rikka's love story is one of the most generic "boy pines after girl until she falls for him" plots I've seen in a long time. The fact it's merely boring instead of actively painful is wholly thanks to how damn good both their voice actors are at selling the scenes between them; whatever chemistry these two have is wholly thanks to how good Yuuya Hirose and Yume Miyamoto are at playing believably low-key teenagers navigating the liminal space of a changing relationship. But the writing just gives them nothing to play off of, and it never feels like anything more than a one-sided crush on Hibiki's end, which makes Rikka's eventual reciprocation feel wholly unjustified. Which only stands out more in contrast with Yomogi and Yume's utterly natural couple dynamic and- hilariously- Rikka's own unresolved feelings for Akane. Yes, the most blatant queerbait this side of Kumirei makes another brief appearance in this movie, and the brief twenty seconds it takes up have more believable chemistry, intimacy, and yearning to be together than the entire rest of the movie trying to sell you on the watered-down heterosexual alternative. Talk about an unforced error.

Ultimately, Gridman Universe is at its best when it embraces the philosophy at its core. As a showcase of everything worthwhile about this franchise- the believable teenage moodiness, the overturned-toybox action sensibilities, the willingness to go trippy and weird and artistically ambitious- it's as good as this franchise has even been. As an argument for being such a bizarre mishmash in the first place, it's the stuff of high concept metafictional wet dreams. But if it wanted to be a true masterpiece, it needed to tie all those wonderful elements to a central narrative and a main protagonist that were actually worth a damn. Yes, we can find meaning in even the silliest of stories, but we can just as easily find even the most ambitious experiments lacking. And until Gridman figures out how to make its main cast even half as interesting as their spinoff bretheren, then this story's ability to reach me will always remain a half-measure. For that, I give Gridman Universe a score of:

6.5/10

Man, it feels good to be home again. Hopefully I'll find the energy to start watching more anime now that I'm on vacation. Fingers crossed!

#SSSS Gridman #Gridman Universe #anime #review #opinion #criticism #Yuta Hibiki #Rikka Takarada #Akane Shinjo #Alexis Kerib #bad writing #bad romance #they wasted a perfectly good plot #anti yuta hibiki

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