[Fish Sandwich]

It's hard to even know where to start with this one, for me?

I mean, first of all, happy to have you back, is probably the most important thing to say. I'm definitely looking forward to getting your perspective on these shows as someone coming in from the outside in so many ways. Even as a toku fan, your interest has always been pretty specifically with Rider, so you're sort of *double* lost going into this one? Which is maybe kind of perfect, actually? It's not really a surprise this first episode clicked with you, in that context. If you're exploring this weird new world, struggling to find your own meaning in it while dealing with some sense there's a drive or purpose you once had that you're only beginning to rediscover... hopefully that helps you connect with this story in a way that's entirely unique to you. (Or, failing that, hopefully a total episode count around half the length of one of your usual threads at least makes this a more manageable experience.)

I'd like to talk about the unique way *I* feel connected with this whole Universe of Gridman media -- and I may have chewed someone's ear off about it in some other thread a few times -- but it's sort of hard to break it into digestible chunks? Trying to keep it relevant specifically to this premiere, I was going in as a fan of the original Gridman series, and it ended up leaving me feeling cold for reasons I had to spend a lot of time (i.e. the entire rest of the broadcast run) untangling before beginning to understand how lucky I actually was to have this show in my life.

So that's the oversimplified version, anyway! Skipping way ahead to entirely present tense feelings, though, I do think this series made a lot of really smart decisions in how it chose to present itself to new audiences first, and as is often the case with you, Die, despite only being one episode in, you're actually already a lot closer to grasping some of those big picture ideas than you probably realize right now.