[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.GRIDMAN EPISODE 5 - “PROVOCATION”



Well, it certainly was provocative!

Teens are horny, I get it. As much as I loved last episode, this one’s, uh, male gaze left me a little cold, and that’s plenty ironic for a summer episode of bikinis. While the various fascinations and flirtations continue in earnest – Yuta/Rikka, Akane/Yuta, Utsumi/Akane, Akane/Rikka – the way this one leaned heavier on fan-service kind of… it sort of isn’t my preferred mode of anime storytelling? It’s sort of the reason I don’t watch a ton of anime, if I’m being honest.

This episode, and my ambivalence towards it setting its sights on Lingering Shots Of Akane In A Bikini as an entire genre of storytelling, is maybe the point in which I mention that my enjoyment of the previous four episodes is partially due to my initial fear that I’d mostly be confronted with character designs I’d glimpsed through merchandise listings like this one and this one, and my utter relief that the characters weren’t actually showcased in ways that I’d feel like I couldn’t talk about in public without having to defend a piece of art as Horny About High School Girls, But Still Very Smart. This was just a smart show about teens, and their hormones acted as a catalyst, not as a license.

For this one, I sort of felt like it stranded itself a little too much in the licentious zone, where I just don’t find as much story potential in lingering shots of Akane in a bikini. (Multiple times! She’s an attractive drawing, but I don’t need as much screentime devoted to that concept! Fairly well established by this point in the narrative!) The rest of the episode has some fun with the dilemma of a field trip delaying access to Gridman, and every moment of that problem-solving was a blast. (I honestly wish the train ride for the Neon Genesis Junior High cast was just twenty minutes of quick-cut montage editing; amazing, continuously hilarious.) I just… I don’t know that there was a ton else here for me? Little moments of interaction, but between swimsuit stuff and the (admittedly very funny) delays in even getting ready for a fight, I don’t feel like I can point to a whole lot that I could engage with either metaphorically or dramatically.

(My favorite story beat in the entire episode was a tossed-off line from Utsumi, about how the terror of the frozen kaiju fades as they just become scenery, and I like how that reinforced the fear of adulthood that the kids grappled with in the earlier episodes. Their future is just there, and it’s scary or dangerous or heroic or bright, but it’s not here yet, so they just sort of forget it’s imminent. That was a great line!)

I guess this one just wasn’t for me? Cute for parts, but thin on the ground in the places I most want to engage with. Glad the kids had a fun day, for the most part!