Is it just me or Akane’s face is too pink this week?
GRIDMAN doesn’t break its formula this week. Structure-wise, it’s another first-half minimalist building up and second-half grand battle between kaiju of the week and Gridman. It’s up the stage for sure, this kaiju is promised to be the strongest one yet, and it’s the first time where Gridman manages to get all the boost-up items at once. But by all means I still enjoy GRIDMAN greatly. After all, repetition is the game here. These last episodes it has been opened itself up a lot to reveal many crucial points. This week, it’s a reveal from Akane that Rikka is created in a way the she can’t possibly hate Akane, by her kaiju no less. Well, I take all Akane egotistical view with a grain of salt, but it begs a question on how real everything is. If Rikka – the only cast member who acts like real human – is fake, then what about Yuuta (who has amnesia) or Shou in general?
Gotta say I really enjoy the way GRIDMAN counts down the cultural fest. It builds up a sense of anticipation, although with the main cast it has little to do with the fest itself. Akane challenges the Gridman’s team head-on by announcing her plan of kaiju’s attack on the day, in which our team responses by attacking first instead.By doing so, the students are forced to evacuate before Akane does the real damage. It’s still hilarious to see the scale-down Gridman against the giant monster nearly double his size and the real battle is GRIDMAN’s most over-the-top set pieces so far this season. There has been an ongoing claims over GRIDMAN’s blatant plagiarism from its inspiration but I don’t buy it. One of GRIDMAN’s aim is to pay homage to its source, from Gridman franchise to NGE so it doesn’t surprise me if the show uses many of its inspiration’s iconic scenes.
Meanwhile, Anti shows up at the gang’s hang out looking for Rikka. While he missed her this time, it bounds for a development between them since it marks the first time where Anti looks for someone else other than Akane, and that he doesn’t join the battle to kill Gridman. Is it a change of heart of a temporary retreat? I suppose it’s a latter but I won’t be surprised if Rikka can change him. Now that Akane is lost for an x time, and that we reach to the point where both Akane’s kaiju and Gridman are in their best form, I guess it’s time where they end this Gridman vs kaiju stage and reach to the next stage with a new final boss.
Can’t wait for more revelations, the series is pretty good for speculation. I mean there are a lot of kaiju for example – the girl that was talking to Yuta and her predecessor who knew Yuta, both are older than Akane. Then there are the Godzillas that rebuild the city and the not-yet-seen kaiju that manipulates the people into liking Akane.
The question is who is even real if everything is a VR world here which was kind of hinted a lot of times (would kaiju be AI programs in that case?). More than everything though, I do wonder about Akane’s relationships with the others before she became a God. My guess is that she was bullied (her living style really fits that of a young social outcast), met Alexis and created her own escapism world in which everyone, including bullies, love her. But let’s wait for the next episode first, wouldn’t be the first time that the series does something I didn’t see coming at all.
Heck, just now I come up with a theory that Rikka might be Akane’s split image, like 2 sides of the same coin. It’s all the embracing stuffs (Rikka putting suncream to Akane and now Akane hugs her from behind), and the bus ride that somehow feels like they’re one. Thematically it makes sense too but hopefully the show doesn’t go that way since there are many shows that does that already.
For a character that tries best to be “normal”, in a show that is nothing but normal, Rikka surprinsly stick out as really, really good character
Yeah, whatever happens in the end I think we can all agree that they wrote Rikka really well. She doesn’t fall into any category female main characters are usually part of (especially the -dere types) and I like how much of her thoughts and feelings are simply shown by her expressing them instead of talking about them.
I ended up deciding to watch all nine available episodes of Gridman
I do think this series stands out in its quieter moments and non-chalance, casual approach to some of its non-action parts which is helped by the lighting and the voice acting and lack of music in certain scenes. I find myself predictably getting more out of those non-actiony elements more.
And given that I don’t usually get much out of super robot shows that aren’t Mazinger/Mazinkaiser, I think Gridman did well to get me to enjoy it to some degree so far.
Akane seems like a fun character though and they seem to be going for a sympathy angle now, felt like it really got going in episode six and then in episode eight with the revelations about Akane and Rikka respectively, the latter actually seems pretty likeable.
The second half has brought up my opinion on the series.
Despite not really being enamoured with any of Triggers previous works, nonetheless I think I still got more out of Gridman so far than I thought I would.
I don’t like the animation or the cgi though.
@Mario: Hey, thats a pretty good idea regarding Akane and Rikka, I’d be happy if the show decided to go with it.