SSSS Gridman Episode 3

Hibiki Yuta and the rest of the Gridman Alliance continues to unravel the mystery of their city forgetting a kaiju attack and a whole lot more. This is also the introduction of new characters lovingly calling themselves the Neon Genesis Junior High students. Here’s my SSSS Gridman Episode 3 review.

This episode starts slow with Akane meeting a young boy she refers to as Anti. Meanwhile Rikka encounters the same boy on her way to school. Their meeting gets cut short when Akane orders Anti to transfer into this episode’s kaiju.

Calibur invades Yuta’s class and claims the three and bring them back to Junk where Yuta can interface with Gridman.

The fight between Anti and Gridman is pretty one sided and even with the help of Gridman Calibur, they get their asses handed to them. And the scary thing is Yuta doesn’t materialize after defeat. Junk instead shuts down leaving Rikka and Utsumi scratching their heads.

Later in the episode, the Neon Genesis Junior High School students dropby and make the Gridman Alliance realize how they can reach Yuta Hibiki.

Gridman re-emerges and gets a rematch with Anti. The big difference is that he adds in a little juice in the form of Battle Tractor Max and they bring their A-game and win.

SSSS Gridman officially introduces the Junior high team to the trio. Episode ends with Akane dumping food on Anti’s head after his failure to kill Gridman.

The visuals are superb for this episode. Truly Studio Trigger is God’s gift to anime fans. Seeing Max and the tractor combination was such a treat (again because I was a big fan of the Western live action adaptation.

I really love the design for Anti and they gave him a cool moment where he slowly inches his way to the high school (which is a really scary thought by the way). Plus his weapons are nice. Episode 3 and we already saw the main character get beaten.

I like where the potential romance between Rikka and Yuta is going. Hopefully as the episodes go further we see a good connection. We even get some unsettled issues that could play into the next episodes of Gridman. And here’s also to hoping that they actually end up together.

I like this episode a lot because of the tension it provided. Tension between the team, tension for the audience and even tension with the battle. Love the slow build for characterization for Akane too. Gives us more insight into her cruelty. Her line about monsters was very ironic especially since she herself can also be considered a monster in her own right.

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