Come on Trigger, you’re my only hope. How Evil is SSSS.Gridman’s 9th episode?

SSSS.Gridman
Studio: Trigger
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Mecha

This episode had me sooo worried. It got me thinking that Trigger was gonna pull the “it was a just a dream” garbage that I absolutely despise. Thankfully that isn’t what happened. Instead, we got kind of a recap episode where Akane tried to convince Yuta, Rikka, and  Shou to become her friends in a strange dreamland, created by her newest Kaiju. It was a clever way to recap the show.

We revisited a few key points like Yuta waking up without his memories, but instead of Rikka being there to greet him it was Akane. She was trying to convince Yuta that she was his girlfriend and it seemed to be working too. Shou was reliving the day that he spent with Akane shopping for Kaiju stuff. It went a bit differently than the original, as Shou seemed to be getting a lot more stuff and he seemed a little more obsessed. Rikka’s side of things seemed like it was all new. I think it’s because she never viewed Akane as an enemy, to begin with.  It was nice of them to throw in something original with all the older things. As neat as it was, the thing was still a dream and our heroes were stuck sleeping while The Neon Genesis Junior High Students tried and failed to revive them.

While the three mains were trapped in the dream, Gridman was somehow manipulating the dream, trying to break them out. He appeared in windows, billboards, and a lot of other places that you might not expect. It was like reading one of the Where’s Waldo books but everything is moving.

At some point in the dream, all three members of the main cast realized that they are in a dream world. Rikka realized it because things just didn’t add up. For Shou it was the whole “it was too good to be true” thing. And Yuta’s Gridman alarm snapped him out of it.

The Kaiju that created the dream was invincible as long as the main cast were trapped in its world. Meaning The Neon Genesis Junior High Students couldn’t do anything about it. It was funny when they tricked Anti into trying to do something and even funnier when his efforts were completely futile.

With the main cast freed, the Kaiju lost its invincibility, allowing The Neon Genesis Junior High Students to form their own giant robot. Wait, if they could do this the whole time why do they need Gridman? They chumped the Kaiju too. It wasn’t even a real fight. (Voyager: To be fair, they probably didn’t know they *could* do this until the previous episode, seeing as they hadn’t thought about the reduced output thing at all) Well, at least they did something I wasn’t expecting?

Overall, I’d say this episode is about as Evil as a Villian (9). If you get the chance check out our Top 5 Ops and Eds article. Well, that’s all I have for you today. Thanks for letting me waste your time, people.

SSSS.Gridman is on Crunchyroll.

Keep It Classy,
Evil Bob