Originally posted to the r/Anime subreddit [04.11.18]
OK, so it’s currently 01.30, and I’m laying in my bed browsing Reddit. I’m tired, but unable to go to sleep.
So what better thing to do at this time than to rant about anime in a barely comprehensible Reddit post.
So, let’s talk about this seasons tokusatsu/mocha thingymajig from none other than Studio Trigger, SSSS Gridman.
As someone who never actually watched anything close to the genre of television this series is based on, I did not expect to like it. But the fight scenes and character interactions were both weirdly intriguing and unlike most of the stuff I’ve watched before. It was simply too interesting for me to drop it.
But those two things have already been talked about a lot already, so I thought I’d talk about something about the show, the story. (Not that that hasn’t been discussed a ton either already.)
To summarize it so far:
Exactly *what* the fuck is going on?
There’s just too much we don’t know.
A random group of people we know nothing about are able to interact with Gridman and regularly help the MC with defeating the kaiju.
We still don’t know why kaiju are just looming in the background. Why does the world seem to reset after each kaiju attack? What even is Gridman? How is Akane able to summon the kaiju into existence? Why are only a small group of people not getting their memories wiped? Why is the series structured like a monster of the week show? How did Rikka manage to become so god damn thicc?
To make my point more clear, I like mystery. I like vagueness. I like when I don’t know what’s around the next corner, and my whole being gets filled with suspense, and wanting to know what just what crazy thing is going to happen next. It’s the entire reason I prefer weekly viewing instead of binging. Even when I watch series that aren’t currently airing, I prefer to wait between each episode, just so I get to have a bit of wonder, even if it’s just for a day instead of an entire week.
But this is too much. We haven’t gotten a clue what’s going on. And this is starting to border on just bad writing instead of clever use of suspense. This would be fine if we were earlier in the series, but we’re almost halfway through, and all we know is that some shut-in high school girl is making kaiju figurines and summoning them into the real world. Another high schooler then transports himself into an old computer and combines himself with... something who calls itself Gridman.
To expand my point, I’d like to talk about series that tend to fall into the ‘mystery’ genre. A good mystery has an unforeseen conclusion. But not to the point where it doesn’t make any sense of was impossible to foresee. You want the viewer/reader (depending on what medium were in) to be surprised at the end, but still be given enough information to play along with the cast of the story, and make their own observations and theories. You want a “how didn’t I think of that” moment.
This would fall into the category of bad mystery. I do not have the adequate information required to come up with a possible conclusion of my own, and if a conclusion was reached it wouldn’t feel satisfying because we don’t know anything.
I know we’re only halfway through, and a lot could change but att this point, I’m not even sure Trigger themselves have a proper answer to all these questions. But I’ll keep watching it. Maybe I’ll drop it, but at this point I just want answers.
And more swimsuit Rikka of course. But then again, don’t we all?
I spent half an hour writing this mess.
Well, to learn to eat you first have to learn to vomit I guess.