[DreamSword]

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

This wasn't directed at me, but if I might elaborate a bit myself -- since I've used this thread to talk about my weirdly intense personal history with the anime Gridman stuff before -- I thought the movie was an extremely heartfelt and thoughtfully constructed love letter to the entire concept of fiction itself.

By all means!

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You seem to believe you might be overthinking the subplot about the script, but if anything, you're *under*thinking it, because if you start looking at the story more from that perspective, especially keeping in mind the creators in this case are fans in their own right, you'll quickly start to see that most of the things in the film are commenting on similar themes in some way or another.

Hey, entirely possible. I admitted that alot of stuff that Dynazenon seems to be getting at went way over my head back when I watched it, so it wouldn't surprised me if it happened again with Universe here. While the story serving as an allegory for authors and the stories they create is something that I would be totally down with, from my perspective the idea just seemed abandoned once the third act hit and most of it just sort of became an extended action sequence. Not to say those things can't coexist, mind you, but the "story about stories" aspect just seemed to be shoved aside.

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Whether or not that improves your overall view of the movie is a choice only you can make, but speaking for myself, the fact they decided to take the story in that direction resonated with me in a way that's definitely going to be greater than the average person. SSSS Gridman ended up teaching me a lot about myself and how I view stories to begin with, so to have a big movie epilogue come along with this sort of meta narrative going on felt like a perfect culmination of a personal journey I didn't even realize wasn't over after already loving Dynazenon.

I've said before, I'll say it again. I will never blame anyone for finding a story that really resonates with them, even if it's one that I'm not a super huge fan of. Heck, I'm just as guilty on these very forums. I'm the only fan of stuff like Power Rangers and Samurai Flamenco, afterall!

As for trying to see everything under the lens of the meta commentary though... I dunno. Part of me feels like if I were to try and rewatch the film with that lens anytime soon that I'd just be forcing it. Not saying your view isn't totally valid, just that, with my own mental space, it'll take me some time to sort out.

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It actually prompted me to rewatch not only the film itself several times over, but to go back and watch ALL the prior stuff -- the OG show, both anime, and all the voice dramas -- which was fun just on its own merits, but also gave me an even greater appreciation of just how intricately crafted the anime stuff actually is. This was during that whole Geats/Gotchard period where I was barely on the forum (hence why I could make the time for that!), and the thought that I one day want to get some of the thoughts I have about this stuff out there genuinely helped motivate me to try getting back into the swing of things on here. Which I suppose is just one more thing on the increasingly huge list of things I should be thanking SSSS Gridman for.

Frankly, that's incredible. And it surprises me that you came back into the swing of things with Kamen Rider Wizard rather than Hyper Agent Gridman, actually(not that I don't appreciate that thread as well). Given how you initially weren't too keen on SSSS.Gridman, this (possible) turnabout is rather nice to see, even if our graphs ended up going in opposite slopes, so to speak.