[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.GRIDMAN EPISODE 4 - “SUSPICION”



There is maybe nothing I love more than a Summer Toku episode. It’s all overheated everything: romantic entanglements, frustrated villains, oblivious heroes, and cicada soundtracks. Melodrama comes as easy as melancholy, while the stakes are trivial and all-encompassing at the same time.

As such, boy, this one totally worked for me. I could’ve watched a full episode of Rikka accidentally going on a date with four college guys (creeps, probably for the best that they were monster-murdered) while Yuta slowly comes to terms with his incredibly obvious feelings for her. It’s an episode maybe less about furthering any sort of overarching storyline – we’re sort of circling Akane’s need to unearth Gridman’s identity, while Rikka maybe accidentally starts to lay the groundwork to connect Akane to the kaiju attacks; also, Gridman has Yuta’s amnesia, too – than it is about the general feeling of secrets coming to light, and the end of self-delusion, all sweated out in the summertime.

Naturally for two characters modeled after SG Optimus and SG Megatron (I think I’m right on this one?), we learn that Akane and Rikka were friends, and they sort of drifted apart for reasons that Rikka chalks up to coincidence, while Akane pointedly doesn’t treat it like it’s something she even noticed. (The end credits sort of make me think otherwise!)They’re both the same in how they react to the group date – neither wants to be there – but where Rikka’s empathy keeps her from holding a bad date against some creepy college guy (It’s creepy! She’s a high school girl! I’m not overthinking this!), Akane immediately wants to murder all four of them the second they invade her personal space. It’s… these two girls are the same, but one of them is tuned to megalomaniacal retribution, and the other for basic humanity.

Beyond another killer Rikka story, we get some romantic comedy hijinks with a smitten/protective Yuta, and a variably engaged Utsumi. (I love that the second Akane is out of the picture, Utsumi’s interest in Yuta’s romantic dilemma vanishes. He is a very good friend, so long as there’s something in it for him!) The whole thing is hapless, even by this show’s standard of easily distracted teens and their Greek chorus of sentient weaponry. Yuta et al never really learn anything through their investigation – Rikka just straight up tells Yuta at the end of the episode – and nothing else is even accidentally uncovered in the course of their buffonery, but the buffonery is kind of more than enough? It’s just bumbling, and I think that’s this show’s best gear.

The whole episode works because it starts with Rikka complaining about the heat and then catching a bus, and it never loses that lazy, sweaty feeling of things not being worth any exertion. Even the fight against the kaiju takes a break in the middle, because it’s too hot out to not cool off for a minute. I love it, man. I love summer episodes of toku!