In the annals of Japanese superhero history are household names like Ultraman and Kamen Rider. Then there’s Gridman. Like Ultraman, Gridman was the brainchild of special effects house Tsuburaya. But unlike his ultra-sibling, giant superhero Gridman came and went in a single season of cheesy mid-1990s television, thereafter destined for obscurity.
Gridman remained in the shadows of pop culture until being repurposed in 2018 as the hero of “SSSS.Gridman,” a delightful anime series by Studio Trigger (“Promare,” “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners”). “SSSS.Gridman” revolved around an amnesiac high schooler named Yuta (voiced by Yuya Hirose) who merges with Gridman (Hikaru Midorikawa) to grow to super-size and defend his city from rampaging monsters with support from classmates Rikka (Yume Miyamoto) and Utsumi (Soma Saito).
In 2021, the team behind “SSSS.Gridman” returned for “SSSS.Dynazenon,” another series with similar themes and a couple of crossover characters. This one centered on a quartet of young people brought together by chance to co-pilot a giant robot and — you guessed it — defend their city from monsters.