I’ve championed this work, praising its composition and directorial acuity while fawning over its intricacy and tonal presence.

I’ve sat by eagerly as SSSS.Gridman established so many questions that genuinely held intrigue, even after we dug five weeks into watching it. There were many missing parts, and as many moving parts. Not to mention new parts not here long enough to show their true colors.

I thought of SSSS.Gridman as a fountain of potential, with a toolset to finish as a firmly constructed work; Balancing commendable character acting and thematic depth with ease, along with welding a narrative payoff that’s supported by excellent direction and sound design. The series already had a very distinct aesthetic personality beyond just “good quality” – there tends to be a high sense of purpose in each of its shots to lend flavor to whatever it’s capturing. A steady bridge between its assets practically spelled success.

Well, a funny thing has happened as we hit the halfway mark.

Gridman gave me the stark reminder, that for all its potential, its underlying writing is simply determined to be piss poor.

SSSS.Gridman episode 6 is just the most recent testament to this, conveying how inept Gridman can be when the cards are on the table, as it pulls off the grand feat of cramming in both an uninspiring reveal that viewers have predicted weeks ago, and a ridiculously contrived info dump into one 22 minutes bitter pill.

So you can handwave episode 5’s brilliant writing of  “let’s go on a school field trip to the mountains to raft, you know, far away from the city and the Gridman computer”  that somehow flew with little contention or concern from the cast. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? They have only been routinely attacked by Kaijus. God forbid if these kids take a day off from school to actually get to the bottom of that matter and not blatantly set themselves up for an attack while they’re the most vulnerable.

You can even handwave how ridiculously reactive the entire Alliance has been written thus far, coming off like their job is a minor after school hobby and not like a vital defense force against world threatening monsters. Yuta and gang will go to class, go on dates and just generally live teenage life – fighting Kaijus only as they pop up and then going right back to normalcy. It’s like no one actually cares. Proactively trying to stop the Kaijus apparently is a thought line that has never occurred. I guess the cast just has bigger fish to fry like homework or literally hanging around the house with nothing to do. 

But this? Episode 6? Handwaving simply won’t work. There’s too much poison to pick from.

Where do you want to start? Let’s just go over a few of your options:

How about how shitty Rikka’s logic has become. Let’s just turn a blind eye to the fact that she continues to be a socially awkward bitch to Yuta for something that he doesn’t even know he did because she won’t tell him – even though she could easily do so – but hey these writers need to drag out the Yuta amnesia narrative.  In 6 she feeds what she thinks is some random homeless middle schooler, asks for his name, he says it’s Anti and then she invites him into her house where she gives him a bath by hand.


Let me just repeat that for the people in the back.

Rikka, from her perspective, meets a completely random kid on the street in which she feeds.

She asks for his name.

HE SAYS IT’S FUCKING ANTI – you know, not like “Eric” or something normal, Anti. The kid literally says his name is Anti without a hint of irony.

Rikka barely skips a beat hearing that and goes on to invite him into her home where she actually gives him a bath.

This totally random kid. She just met five minutes ago. Named Anti. Is now in her house getting washed. Not on his own, she’s straight up washing him.

…

Maybe, just maybe, Gridman’s writing is a little bit dumb? Like even if you’re reading my blog here and you’re a fan of SSSS.Gridman, can we at least agree that the logic and writing for this particular sequence was just a teeny bit poor?

Okay, we can’t?

How about Yuta, conveniently running into this strange loli Kaiju:

Getting asked on a date by her, accepting that date despite having hardly any incentive to do so and a bunch of obvious reasons not to.

And then said loli Kaiju proceeding to infodump him, and by proxy, us, on virtually all of the series’ major mysteries at this point.

None of that’s contrived writing? Nah, that’s good in your book?  I guess we’re just going to look the other way on that one too.

Let’s try it from a different angle.

Does this exposition dump even feel earned to you? You know, given that the Alliance has done nothing in shown ways of gathering information on any of their predicaments on their own?

Yeah, I think that will suffice. This can go on for awhile otherwise, as we haven’t even touched on how unrewarding and called Akane’s reveal ended up being along with other corresponding elements that are far limper now that’s a reality. I’m sure someone, somewhere is disagreeing with all of this. None of what was outlined is even slightly an issue for them. Episode 6 was great and totally not some of the laziest storytelling this work has offered to date. Sure, whatever keeps you going. At the end of the day, I suppose I only have myself to blame. SSSS.Gridman has had plenty of textual red flags – primarily stemming from a weak undercooked protagonist trio with even flimsier relationships, yet I still held out hope. Held out hope that it would be all worth it. What I’ve gotten in return can’t be any further from that.