[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.GRIDMAN EPISODE 12 - “AWAKENING -FIN-”



I don’t want to talk about Yuta. I want to talk about Rikka, and about Akane.

Rikka’s the hero of this series, even if she’s a villain for making me cry in the middle of this episode. That Rikka/Akane scene… beautiful. Top 3 toku moment of all time, for how it expresses the themes of accepting every part of yourself without judgment – your cowardice, your cruelty, your shame, your jealousy, your hope, your strength, your love, your potential – and letting yourself be accepted for it. As much as the heroic henshin of the totality of Gridman’s identity is the literalization of that theme, I will always, always prefer the smaller moment of vulnerability, where a character sees another character, doesn’t blink, and tells them that they’re still their friend.

This whole show is about how connected everyone is, even when they don’t know it, so the button on this show for me was never going to be the defeat of Alexis Kerib, or the Truth of Gridman, or any of the niggling details about how/why/when the series shifted into toku dimensions. It only works as a story if you let it be messy, and off-putting, and conflicted. It only works when you let it be a story, and discover its meaning for yourself.

Having the victory condition be that a sad girl who hid herself away from the world in a fandom that eventually became a prison ended up liberating herself from that, so she could look back on that story as a way of processing her loneliness and self-loathing, and here was the show where that story existed for twelve episodes… boy, that’s the show for me. It’s a show equally about the thrills of toku as it is how we use toku to understand ourselves and each other better; Akane is us, the ones who need toku to see things from a different perspective, or to see ourselves a little more honestly. It’s for children who need a path to be an adult, yeah – but it’s also for adults who need to think more about the path they’ve taken.

Waking up to a real world, one where Gridman is the story that helped Akane overcome her trauma, is more hopeful and beautiful to me than all of the little (very sweet) epilogues for our full cast. It’s a perfect message, that we are allowed to put ourselves into these stories to work through things, and then pull ourselves back out a little kinder, a little wiser, a little more willing to connect with each other in the world. Gridman’s a vessel for Rikka’s empathy, Yuta’s bravery, Utsumi’s dedication, and, yes, even Akane’s despair. Gridman is a way of rebuilding a dark world into something more reflective of the light that exists in everyone, if we can see it in ourselves, and help each other see it within themselves.

That’s the story of Gridman, sure. But it’s also the story of Akane, and of Rikka.