Gridman finally finds himself and the battle is slowly turning its last pages. There are still many questions unanswered but at least we are on the conclusion route that will probably have a few side casualties we didn’t expect.

Japanese Title: 決・戦

Plot

This episode focuses on the DECISIVE BATTLE (name of the episode) that precedes the final boss. Alexis decides that since Akane is not there to create new monsters, he could just summon all the previous Kaiju to attack the city. As Yuta is in the process of discovering that he is not Yuta after all, it’s up to the new Gridman, Anti, to take the mantle of the hero and save the day. He transforms to his new form, GridKnight, and attacks the Kaiju. Later, it is revealed that he is a full-blown Hyper Agent since he can use Calibur (and probably all the rest Men in Black) as well. This is also a way for Anti to atone for his action when he was still a Kaiju. To be honest, it’s hard to accuse him for being a simple-minded idiot. After a glorious battle where Anti decides to name all his moves by using his new moniker, he gets to fight WITH Gridman. Epicness.

Episode Highlights

I REMEMBER: For the first time in the series, Gridman doesn’t appear when Yuta approaches Junk.

Useless: Foreshadowing 101, people. Utsumi is going to play an important role in the last episode. His moments of self doubt have set the stage for his one big moment in the series.

What irony: Alexis is not impressed with Rikka’s efforts to approach Akane. In fact, he just disregards the whole thing as ridiculous:

‘Excuse me, as I interrupt this pointless conversation.’

Line Bomb: And then you have Alexis drop the bomb at the most unexpected moment. It seems that his ability to turn things into kaiju extends to living people as well. It seems he didn’t need Akane after all. Or he needed her for this specific moment; to turn her hatred and sadness into the most powerful kaiju.

Themes & Trivia

What is friendship? Anime has been exploring themes like identity and friendship since its inception. Central to Japanese philosophy about cooperation and camaraderie, the bonds of friendship exist in tandem with other concepts such as duty and honor. Rikka and Akane’s friendship displays one such conflict, where compassion exists even after Akane takes the train with no return after stabbing Yuta.

Episode 10: Just something I forgot to mention. Utsumi notepad had the slogan of Nerv from Neon Genesis Evangelion, ‘God’s in his heaven, All’s right with the world’.

Comments

SSSS.Gridman is full of little moments that make the show worthwhile if only one pays the attention it needs. Rikka’s mom has the most amazing scenes in this show as she is the one always in the sidelines who is somehow oblivious to what’s happening. Yet, her reaction when the Men in Black transfer into Junk indicates that she is not as clueless as we would have thought her to be. The show is full of these little bits.

To the Final Battle

This is one dark tokusatsu anime and I’m not convinced that we’ll have a happy ending after all. What’s more likely is that we’ll have a cliffhanger in place of whatever ending they had prepared when they first talked about the series to set the stage for a second season due to the popularity of the series.

Did you like Episode 11 of anime SSSS.Gridman? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check the rest of our Fall 2018 anime reviews!

SSSS.Gridman

Fall 2018 | Anime Info | Simulcast