I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Studio Trigger at this point. By which I mean, sometimes I love Trigger, and sometimes I hate them. I mean, while I absolutely adore Kiznaiver, and Little Witch Academia is one of my favorite shows ever, I also struggled to enjoy Kill la Kill, and Darling in the Franxx really disappointed me in the end, after really getting my hopes up near the beginning.

For all the hype i’ve seen in the community, I honestly found the first episode of SSSS.Gridman… pretty underwhelming, honestly. I mean, it looks great, for sure. The mech looks cool, the colors are vibrant, and the animation has the classic fluidity and quality we have come to expect from Trigger productions.

No, the problem I have with this show is something on a much more basic, fundamental level. It just feels so generic.

Well, I guess I should preface my complaints with the fact that i’m a huge fan of Mecha anime. I mean, my first anime was Gundam. I have seen dozens of mech shows, many of them still very near the top of my favorite anime lists. And Gridman… well, so far, anyways, hasn’t done anything I haven’t seen before.

Amnesia… being sucked into a virtual world… having to pilot a mech because somehow this random high-schooler is the only person who can pilot it, and conveniently finds it just before a giant monster appears to destroy the city… It’s all so cliche that it feels droll and uninspired to me. Also BAD CG KAIJU ALERT!!

I do realize that it’s based on an older mecha/tokusatsu show, but… I dunno, guys. It just feels so bland and unoriginal. I might keep up and see where it goes from here, but… Unless the characters get some real development, or the story takes a pretty drastic shift, I think this one might end up being a drop for me.

Anyways, enough about me. What did you guys think of this first episode of SSSS.Gridman? Did you enjoy it? Or did you feel it was kind of lacking? Let me know down in the comments, i’d love to know how others are responding to the show! Thank you all for reading, and i’ll see you all in the next post!