Larryb posted:

Rikka and Akane definitely have some sort of connection (otherwise why would they put them together in the ED?) which will be interesting to see explored further. From some of her dialogue when talking with him in this episode it seems she might possibly know who Yuta really is as well.

But yeah, I kind of like Akane as a villain so far (she's a sociopath but at the same time there are hints that there might be a few more layers to her underneath).

Ranzear posted:

And the underlying premise is just

I forget where I posted about this possibly involving kaiju battles with collateral damage, but it got even more sinister in a hurry.

Schwarzwald posted:

Her targeting the teacher and treatment of Anti suggest she's acting out of some sense of ressentiment more than a "for the lulz" general glee for evil.

Blaze Dragon posted:

That said, I do think we don't quite have everything to understand her yet. I feel there's more to her, and she's probably the most interesting character right now.

Jekyll and Hyde posted:

why does the show keep focusing on Akane's feet

Wark Say posted:

His partner is a teen who appears to have a giant chip in her shoulder. Maybe he's like "Jaaackpooot" as far as he's concerned.

Lurking Haro posted:

Fetish or something about her character.
It appears as if Akane isn't really part of the class. The class photo in the OP doesn't feature her, at least not how she looks now.
Everything is also hinting at the Gridman Alliance having to save her.
The lyrics when the Gridman blows the windows up are "I've come to save you from boredom".
So Akane might have been a hikikomori or physically frail girl.

Condiv posted:

it feels like he's encouraging and nourishing her antisocial tendencies. to what end i can't say, but it feels to me like he's making her worse and worse

Squidster posted:

My prediction: before the show began, Akane confessed to Yuta. He rejected her for Rikka, and she killed him via Kaiju. Then she rebuilt a perfect version of him to be her matrix husbando. The reason he can merge with Gridman is because he's a fake, just like the creatures he fights.

Ibblebibble posted:

Fans too horny, don't send nudes

Sindai posted:

Also at first I thought the ending was kaiju boy digging himself out of the rubble, but I guess it was actually the whole area being unloaded now that it's no longer needed? RIP river rafting guides.

Dessel posted:

Show is still good but I can't be the only one starting to want the supporting cast (Who am I kidding, I mean Rikka) to have some more agency in the show.

Wark Say posted:

Let's go back to "Show is currently lowkey Akane vs Rikka" theories.

Rand Brittain posted:

My impression of Franxx was that it really wanted to talk about gender but had absolutely no valuable ideas about that subject.

dogsicle posted:

I'm not sure what it would be able to do to even earn that comparison at this point. just let shows exist

CrashScreen posted:

What did it do with the subject instead?

Logicblade posted:

Oh, I have zero faith that this show will deliver on any sort of promise for a satisfying ending, but at this point I don't care and I am just watching for the kaiju fights, mecha anime callbacks, and the nice legs. If it does do something neat with the plot, I'd be down, but I'll enjoy this either way I'm sure.

Spiritus Nox posted:

I know about Akane's nameless background friends apparently being the main characters from a Yuri novella the director wrote a while back. Anything else?

Spiritus Nox posted:

I want Akane and Rikka to kiss

Wark Say posted:

Yeah, that's a fair assessment. It's the nice thing that this anime has a ton of little character moments showing up. Like Max being a good big bro wrt his associates(which is funny taking into account Konishi is voicing him).

Rand Brittain posted:

Akane doesn't really seem to have any problem-solving mechanisms that don't involve kaiju.

Kaiju can't take out the trash, so, uh, she just doesn't take out the trash, ever. Kaiju can't fix your cracked phone screen (although apparently they can fix buildings???) so there's no point in worrying about it. There's no point in communicating with other people — either they're exactly how you want them, or you have a kaiju murder them.

It's frankly amazing she can get dressed in the morning.

Darth Walrus posted:

Here you go. They're only a couple of short sentences each, and pretty vague, but remember, kids, these are spoilers for future episodes.

Darth Walrus posted:

It's a bit more complicated than your standard abuse metaphor, though, because this is literally Akane's fantasy world. This whole show is taking place inside her head. What she's saying isn't just about Rikka, it's about the world she felt the need to create for herself. Makes you wonder if the NPCs self-actualising and developing their own lives without her is just a manifestation of her apocalyptic self-loathing. How much of Rikka is Akane?

Ibblebibble posted:

TheFireMagi posted:

Just the first couple minutes had me very confused, and then very tense as I realized what was going on. Very good episode.

also anti continues to be the most powerful, watching him hop around was the best thing

Artum posted:

The distant honk of cars every time he landed between jumps killed me.

Yak of Wrath posted:

Yeah, Akane is so desperately alone and without any connection to people, she has no family (except in the dream when she briefly imitated Rikka). She created her Kaiju world where even was to like her, and she could erase anything that went "wrong". Then she made the dream within the dream, where the gridman alliance loved her. She doesn't want them to need her so much as she needs them. And Alexis certainly doesn't have her best interests at heart, keeping her isolated and angry brings out the best of kaiju after all.

Spiritus Nox posted:

Anyway I just rewatched it and, man, what a stunner. I liked Little Witch Academia more than a lot of people I know, but if you had told me before the season that a Trigger reboot of an obscure sentai show would deliver a strong contender for the best episode of anime I've seen all year, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

Caphi posted:

What if it's Rikka that liked Akane?

I don't know, Akane cast Yuta as her boyfriend and Rikka as her bestie, and something about the bus scene made me feel like Rikka rejected the dream because "you're one of my friends too!" is not what she wanted to hear as an answer to "what about all the other girls you hang out with?" The poster goes both ways.

Spiritus Nox posted:

Yeah. The show's felt really interested in playing the notion of Toku shows as big silly action spectacles with goofy villains and loudly declared attack names and poo poo like that against the notion of the world as a mundane, intricate, and at times incomprehensible or alienating place since the very beginning. I wouldn't even say it's trying to do like a take down or !DECONSTRUCTION! or anything like that, but there's definitely a fascination with sort of competing perspectives there, or something.

Having a little trouble articulating what I'm getting at here tbh.

Wark Say posted:

It was a fun, harmless show with some good moments that basically went nowhere, as SatoshiMiwa so helpfully explained already. It had one of the best moments of voice acting of recent years when Saori Hayami (Kokoro in DitF, Yumeko in Kakegurui, Yukino in Oregairu, among many other roles) knocked it out of the park with a 2 minute, 15 second (give or take) rant that was just... unexpected in how great it was. I mean, nobody was doubting that Ms. Hayami is a great VA, but it was still pretty out of left field, like a band/artist you like/used to like playing a song that they haven't played in years or never played live, but they changed a couple of things / played an extended version and they absolutely slayed it.

e: Beaten like the chump I am! That'll learn me.

Hidingo Kojimba posted:

This doesn't really seem like the type of show that's been designed with a second season in mind, given how self-contained this plot seems to be. Would love to see Trigger try their hand at another toku anime though. (Didn't they originally want to do the Ultra series?)

Larryb posted:

I'm not sure if Trigger is handling it but wasn't there supposed to be some kind of Ultraman anime coming out next year?

Ibblebibble posted:

I think they mentioned that it was close by in episode 9, and Rikka and Akane take the same bus so it makes sense that they're close by. I laughed when it turned out that they were neighbours though.

Helter Skelter posted:

She mentioned it during the dream in the last episode, but I think you're right.

Spiritus Nox posted:

I wouldn't be surprised if we get more Gridman or at least Toku stuff if this show does well, but assuming they stick the landing I don't think I'd want another season with this specific cast. The show's been so very tightly focused on Akane and her story, and we're so obviously close to the end of that, it'd feel weird to get another season with her and Yuta and the gang.

Keep Gridman and maybe the Neon Genesis team, but give them a new storyline like Final Fantasy style.

chiasaur11 posted:

It could all crash and burn (call no man happy until he's dead and that), but right now Gridman's looking amazing. Not only as a show (because, yeah, it's good), but its dramatically exceeding sales expectations, and it finished production weeks ago.

Spiritus Nox posted:

At this point I'm very much expecting this to be a sort of show where you get the ending to Akane's personal story with depression and isolation and loathing and poo poo but a lot of the broader mysteries of the setting are left unexplained - and I'm perfectly okay with that. Akane's story is a lot more fascinating to me than any of the logistics of how the simulation is working or any of that anyway.

Spiritus Nox posted:

who preys upon vulnerable people and fosters hatred because that's just how he do.

Larryb posted:

Of course then at the end of that movie the truamatized girl then captures said Savior when all is said and done and then traps everyone in a new reality that she controls. Speaking of which it's kind of a pity that the proposed third movie in that series never got off the ground.

galagazombie posted:

Gridman only has one episode to ruin it's sterling reputation, so this last episode will have to be bad on an unprecedented scale to really do that. Franxx on the other hand built up it's catastrophic plunge in audience endearment starting around the mid-way point culminating in a villain reveal and entire final arc of absolute garbage. Gridman has it's work cut out for it if it wants to be turned on by the fans so absolutely like Franxx was.

Spiritus Nox posted:

I am a little mixed on Akane having to leave the Gridworld forever, though, especially since by all appearances it still exists and has its own agency. Akane might be able to go score with Real!Rikka or whatever, but it feels a little dismissive of Grid!Rikka's agency to have to put aside her feelings for Akane, IMO.

Ranzear posted:

"Anti isn't reverse Gridman, he's reverse Akane" is a bit of a mindblower and certainly could have come up earlier in the series. That is one hell of a post indeed.

Cephas posted:

Alternate take: a serious, 12 episode seinen story following Akane as she tries to become a functional human being in the real world, using her experiences with Gridman as a source of internal motivation

including a very important episode where she asks the real Rikka out on a date to a live action tokusatsu show but Hibiki and Utsumi are already in the crowd watching it

Spiritus Nox posted:

Curious to see what the Akane spinoff's gonna be about.

Nate RFB posted:

Having watched the series twice over relatively recently (the first time I was pretty ambivalent, the second time following some discussion with folks that ultimately led to me enjoying it a lot more) I really don't know how I'd feel about any sort of non-comedic follow up. Like knowing Akane's backstory just feels like something I'm better off not knowing or leaving up to interpretation. Can't hurt to see/try, of course.

FilthyImp posted:

Hilighted part is what kills fun stuff in CineD, for example.
"No, actually, I think Akane's story is quite obviously her reckoning with a failed abortion attempt that leaves her barren it's all laid out in my labored reading of these selected scenes. I will continue to bring this up until I'm a black hole of discussion here"