Huh, I thought he was a "she" too, the Japanese voice sounds very female to me.

There are plenty of anime characters who are voiced by female VAs and look female but are actually male.

Borr's just a new one of many.

Is it just me or is that keyboard piano in episode 6 a nice nod to Syd? Right? Who's with me fellas?

"They shouldn't be making episodes without kaiju in them!"

I still liked this episode though, a lot of story stuff and a lot of weird stuff. I still can't tell if this is a sequel or not.

The keyboard guy was voiced by Naoto from the original show!

I usually don’t catch the various Transformers references in the series but seeing Ultraman Zero on that magazine cover was nice.

Anyways, I didn’t really understand this week’s episode, although I think you need to watch the original show to get it? The girl kaiju in particular felt like she’s from the old series.

Yep, he is credited as the customer and has went on his social media to confirm it by posting a clip of him doing a double access flash with Yuuta's voice actor. :rock:
Speaking of, apparently he seems to be a motorcycle enthusiast and runs a motorcycle-themed restaurant that mainly serves gyoza from the looks of it nowadays.

Yeah I'm mixed about this week's episodes. On one hand, it was particularly plot oriented/revealing (random mysterious kaiju girl reveals a bit to Yuta, etc.) but on the other, I found it really slow (I was repeatedly checking how long was left in the episode). So I'm gonna say it was meh/okay this week

Same, but only to see if they could still realistically fit in a Kaiju fight or if the "An episode without a monster fight is no good"-line was actually a reference aimed at themselves. Turns out it was :p

So the kaiju girl is credited as "Anoshiras II".

Anoshiras was a kaiju that Gridman spared in the original series. Her informing Yuta about Akane was her way of repaying Gridman for his kindness back then.

Which pushes this even closer to the sequel side of things.

The link back to Anoshiras was cool as heck. I didn't honestly feel like there were a whole lot of truly memorable kaiju in Gridman but that was one of them.

All the Transformers stuff was neat but that magazine cover had so many references on it, ranging from the obvious and symbolic to the obscure as heck. That's the kind of stuff I've been waiting for.

Great episode, even without any kaiju action. A lot of the story reveal didn't really come as a huge surprise but the way it was presented gave it exactly the right impact.

Honestly, I think it’s entirely a waste of time and effort. After it’s introduced, it’s like watching a murder mystery where in the first 10 minutes they out right tell you exactly who the killer is and the entire cast knows who the killer is but they keep pretending like they don’t know who the killer is until they “officially” declare who the killer is. It just gets grating.

Why can’t we have more female characters that look and sound like manly male characters but are actually unapologetically women and look it when they put on anything explicitly female like a swimsuit or girl’s school uniform? At least there would be some level of equal representation of a stupid meme that stopped being funny before it was ever introduced.

.....I have no idea what point you’re even trying to make with this.

Believe me dude, I don’t even know what my points are half the time.

Episode 07 though - wow.

First of all, great action scenes, I love the attention to detail. I noticed strings on the UFO at first and thought it was a jab at classic Toku but turns out there's actually a puppeteer Kaiju above, that's neat.

Then the twist - so the whole series takes place inside the computer world? Ouch. I fear for what will happen to the characters now.

Episode 7's best trivia moment was when Ultraman Hikari shows up in a Super Fighter Legend style anime.
And notice how Sky Vitor's attacks reference Lucky and Amp from SSSS. :rock:

New episode confirmed a detail seen since episode 1.

The protagonists' eye colors are all blue while the antagonists' are reddish. Rikka has some red in her iris along with blue, which was probably a hint that she was connected to Akane in some form. This week, she confirms that Rikka was created with the purpose of being Akane's friend and that everyone in the city likes her because she made things that way.

Ep 9.....

Just........

I cannot.....


I CANNOT HANDLE ALL THIS LOVE !

I will say this, I'm not that big into the Ultra series, but I'm loving this show. I don't know if it's because of the feel compared to some other ones.

This is easily one of my favorite new anime in a long time. Side note, all of these poses and gattai sequences are making me want to go watch the Brave series.

So I'm calling these right now:

Yuuta's parents are probably victims of the Kaiju attacks; it's likely he himself was a victim in some way as well, hence his amnesia and them being "out of town". I'm guessing he was ttacked, but somehow managed to survive, possibly saved by Gridman himself due to one of his parents being the actual original Gridman or even Gridman Sigma.

Rikka was someone Akane knew from "before" that she either wanted desperately as a friend, or with whom she was friends beforehand but had an irreconcilable falling out before whatever event put them all in the simulation. Hence why Rikka cannot seem to hate Akane whatever she does; she refuses to let go of her best, and possibly only, friend. (Hi Homura.)

This week did a good job of giving Akane a bit more fleshing out while also using the whole "stuck in a dream" toku trope to its advantage. It made a really enjoyable antagonist better by injecting a bit of humanity in her: Under everything, she's an extremely lonely kid who's left to her own devices.

Also Powered Xenon was a great surprise to see. And apparently the DX set can do the same combination, albeit without the same articulation levels as the Gridman forms, but the fact that it does it at all is fantastic.

Man, that whole episode was really good. Powered Xenon is super cool.

I started cackling like a madman when Powered Xenon showed up. It was stupid and awesome in all the best ways and I loved it! XD

Saw Episode 10 and just want to say...

Damn, that ending.

Spoiler tagging because ohhhhh boy...

Man, everything about that Kaiju was creepy. Plus with it representing the last, broken piece of Akane's humanity being destroyed, lead to her going 100% crazy and stabbing Yuta. That's fucked up. What the Hell.

I thought Anti would turn into a new Dyna Dragon (Maybe he still will?) but him becoming Gridknight is unexpectedly awesome. Toy now please.

This show is great.

*sees Gridknight*

WOW... CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY...

THAT. Was unexpected.

Speaking of ending, is it me or did they change up the ED? I don't remember the piano being prominent at the start, and I don't remember all the other girls appearing in the first section.

Or I could just not be paying attention to the ED as I'm wont to do.

That destructo disc...

Man this episode was great. It just didn't stop getting better and better.

So many great action-sequences, so many jaw-dropping story turns... wow.

That monster at the end with the Alien Baltan laugh was amazing. And Gridknight too!

Damn this episode. Just damn.

Gridman Sigma and Dyna Dragon minipla.

So I'm guessing it'll be Anti and Kaiju Girl from before. Pretty sure she's going to end up being Dyna Dragon.

I've been wondering about that since she showed up.

It seemed rather like she was intended as the further contrast to Akane.

Though I could see them going full twist and Akane becomes Dyna Dragon, but I think the Kaiju girl makes the most sense with established foreshadowing and how she appeared as suddenly as the others.

Could have a new Gridman live-action show ?

That'd be up to Tsuburaya if they feel he's been revitalized enough in a following.

I only know the anime has been paid for and supported for as long as they want to keep going. At least up to 26 episodes, maybe more if it keeps doing well. How they divide that up to seasons or runs is entirely up to them and I have no clue.

I lost track of how long it was set to run on this initial start, but I thought I heard something about up to 26 episodes at least possibly divided across 2 seasons or not, but don't remember fully and am feeling too lazy to google it. xD

*Edit*
Looked it up. Supposed to run 12 episodes, but I could have sworn at minimum it's supposed to be twice that.
So no clue. I'm guessing it's going to get a season 2 though then. Too much story to cram into only "2 episodes left" to go. Everything about the current story trajectory feels too much like an intentional mid-season shift.

SSSS. Gridman ends with Akane waking up from her artificial world, revealing that the real world is actually live action, and the second season if there is one is a full on tokusatsu show.

The show ratings are good ?

I'd like to think that the show's doing pretty well considering all the merchandise that's coming out for it.

It's in the top 3 anime of the season over in Japan. Plus yeah, the merchandising, they wouldn't be doing merchandising if it was a 12 and out.

Too much intentional revival elements. So it's going to get bigger still.

IIRC:
That was actually talked about at one point. Well, something like that. Not quite that exactly.

But the studio has done such a fantastic job and it's been such a hit, that may not be something until far later if they do it that way. They may instead keep with the animated method due to how iconic the two female leads have become and casting for them could break it too much if they aren't perfect.

So I'd think it's more likely to get at least 12 more episodes to go after this run of 12. With then Tsuburaya looking into a full live revitalization later.

I'd think you would have to recast everyone except Gridman and Alexis.Kerib in order to do that

Episode 11 was good, We find out what Yuta really is and good to see more Gridknight action.

Still, I wonder what Kaiju Akane will look like

Good episodeit be even funnier if this anime turns out to be a sequel in its own way where shop owner was one of original kids of the old show