For the tokusatsu designs, that responsibility fell into the hands of several people. The design of the new Gridman was made by the legendary Masayuki Goto known for working on the Gridman Ultra series. A new refreshing take on Gridman, that is detailed, yet sophisticated. Even the original Gridman voice actor Hidoru Morikawa reprising his role
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The other Kaiju and support class designs were done by a myriad of mecha and tokusatsu legends. The support weapons were done by Tsuyoshi Nonaka who made some very gaudy designs. Hiroshi Maruyama, Mahiro Maeda, Osamu Yamaguchi, Shinji Nishikawa, and Ichiro Itano all added to the kanji monster designs, with each having an individual power, or attribute reflected in their appearance.



The character Anti’s Kaiju form is a direct reference to the original series Kaiju, Shinbilar

Speaking of references the show has so many to the original live action series and Masami Obari that a youtube channel D180223 made several videos about it

Even going so far to point out that the color schemes of a lot of characters are actually based off of the original Transformers designs. Amemiya is a genius

For action scenes, Studio Trigger collaborated with Studio Graphinica having a mixture of 2D and 3D action scenes. Trigger on 2D action handled by Hiroki Mutaguchi who went for very retro and desirable fight scenes, going for many super robot action devices, and pose heavy action. With so many Masami Obari references that he called Trigger, telling them just to ask for his help next time. After accusing them of a ton of plagiarism, Obari caved in and eventually did talk with Amemiya, drawing a few illustrations and the box covers for a Gridman toy package.

The 3D sequences by Graphinica were the source of some praise, and contention. On the one hand they are beat for beat in their references to the original series, making the 3D models move like they were actual guys in rubber suits duking it out with destruction and debris breaking up every fight.


The contention coming around on why these scenes weren’t hand drawn? The answer was ultimately time. Tsuburaya and Trigger would’ve had to have a real big 2D team to pull that off, and considering the the already premium schedule Trigger usually get this would have lead to a less then pleasing and likely rushed project, and Trigger wasn’t really adept at trying to redo another Kill La Kill situation, wanting to bolster up the work of the in-house staff.

The real strengths of the series is the character arc of Akane Shinjo herself.

Akane being the person she is, is lonely much like the other series antagonist Takeshi, albeit with much more sympathy and relatability that he did not have. While Takeshi was a petty revenge type, Akane seemed nearly irredeemable in her methods, killing people she didn’t seem fit to her vision of the world. This then leads her into the themes of the show which I think propel the series into being one of the best of Trigger’s roster. Shuttering yourself off from the world to bask in your own pain, and wanting everything to end is an incredibly self destructive trait that I think some people can strongly relate to. Making a world of your own filled with superficial notoriety is only a vehicle for a person to receive the short end of more pain and hurt people around you rather then be the center of attention. The show actively dismisses the notion of nihilism, and embraces rejecting a false persona that can cripple one’s self-esteem. It is incredibly well done, with a stellar evolving performance by Reina Ueda

The episode pacing of Gridman is really well done. With second unit director Yoshihiro Miyajima taking up a brunt of several episodes. One of the best episodes of the series goes to the warp and dreamlike Episode 9, helmed by newly emerging Trigger star animator Kai Ikarashi. After showcasing his talents of magical action and character animation on Yoh Yoshinari’s Little Witch Academia series here Ikarashi was finally able to flourish as an AD and storyboard artist making for an unsettling and capitulating episode, that melds together the relationship between Akane and the rest of the cast. All within a plot to befriend them on the surface, but in the end to break them.




Throughout the episode Ikarashi’s AD is all over the place intentionally simplifying the character designs to pretty bare bones appearances. His take on the characters resemble some of Imaishi’s more easy going sensibilities, but unlike Imaishi he is way different in framing devices, allowing a dynamic sense of line blurring between the real world and Akane’s aperture of a dream. If you watch the series I highly recommend this episode with multiple viewings as the compositional focus here is off the charts. The episode features appearances from several freelancers outside of Trigger, including appearances by Ken Yamamoto aka Leaf, Kenta Yokoya, and Toya Oshima all well rounded character and mecha animators that are the best for this kind of material. Ikarashi is the standout animator in the episode, animating some warped perspective shots with sketchy line work.

Once you get to the end of the series, the viewer is hit with some of the best tokusatsu action, but also an emotional sendoff that is well worth the 12 episodes.

After Gridman finished airing Amemiya went back to animating, he assisted Natsume briefly on Boogiepop Wa Wawanarai, but more importantly on Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Promare

A wild and fun movie, bursting with the explosive and intentionally over the top nonsense you would expect from Imaishi. Amemiya was a key animator for the film working on the oh so dramatic plot twist scene, and of course some mecha transformations, but that is not all that he did. Amemiya was the CG special effects unit director for the film placing alongside Studio Sanzigen to make sure that the 3D explosions, fires, sparks, and debris have as much personality as they would if they were 2D

The 3D scenes are neon coated and gorgeous, and worth the watch if you have time.

Once Promare was done, Amemiya wasted no time working on the sequel series to SSSS Gridman, SSSS Dynazenon released in spring of 2021

Tsuburaya was very pleased with the release of SSSS Gridman so much so that a sequel was an inevitability. The only issue with that was Gridman already had an ending with everything wrapping together in a tight little bow. When scouring through the original Gridman Amemiya thought back to a discussion he had with Hidoru Morikawa that he was initially disappointed with the lack of Dyna Dragon from the old tv show, and if they did make a follow up it should spotlight that character. After making some modifications, Amemiya opted for an alternate retelling of the character with having four pilots control Dyna Dragon, and then sorting out the rest of the plot points to Keiichi Hasegawa, who reprised his role as head writer. Many other players came on board including Graphinica, and the entire SSSS Gridman team

“All of the staff members have grown even more since last time, and their quality work meant that I had a fairly easy time as director. I felt that I had done a good job for my first for SSSS Gridman, but SSSS Dynazenon went even more smoothly. There were many experienced people on staff who had built up knowledge from last time, and those who were new this time around delivered quality work as well. For me, it was a positive experience all throughout, and I really enjoyed my time working on it. I feel blessed on my work” - Amemiya

SSSS Dynazenon is a significant improvement in quality from the former series, some how having a larger cast of characters, but being smarter with regards to them spending plenty of time to hash out their traits, personalities, and internal conflicts. The show starts off much like the original series, although the main cast is already established with the exception of Gauma, a wayward stranger from the past who was a so called Kaiju user. His former colleagues, the Kaiju Eugenicists enter the world hell bent on destroying Gauma for betraying them leading to an epic battle between their Kaiju and Dynazenon appear with characters Yomogi, Yume, Koyomi, are swept up by Gauma to pilot and defeat the Kaiju by the first episode.

Dynazenon is branched somewhat between a multiverse of different Gridman influenced worlds . There are similarities to Gridman in the way the characters look, but changes in subtle ways. Once again Masaru Sakamoto was back on character designs. To distinguish from the previous series, Sakamoto modified the appearance of the eyes, making the highlighted under side of the iris have more of a fanning wing like shape to it, as opposed to the saw swirls of the Gridman world.



Dynazenon does such a great job having a large cast and giving them a lot of personality, which comes through way more then Gridman. The ensemble nature of cast makes for brilliant character interloping, ranging from marital conflicts, to romance subplots, and even struggles of just wanting to be a better person. It is so ambitious in the marks it wants to hit, and hits them every single time.

That kind of variety is also found once again in the Kaiju with a plethora of industry veterans coming to assist Amemiya. Tsuyoshi Nonaka returned once again, this time coming on to design Dynazenon, and the Dyna Dragon form.


Many of the Kaiju designers from Gridman returned with new names like Hideo Okamoto and Kiyotaka Taguchi providing very wacky neon coated designs.


And despite not having any Gridman to work with, Masayuki Goto got to design the Kaiju near the end of the show called Gagula…and I mean look at it

Also Nonaka probably does his busiest and most epic design. Gridknight x Goldburn x and Dynazenon combo form, brought to life in 2D by mecha wunderkind Gen Asano

CHA CHINGG

The 2D and 3D team got to have fun with the action as before, stepping up the profile and variety of action that feels less Obari homage based and more like its own original thing.

Much like Gridman, this show is rife with fantastic scenery and sound design, focusing on another fictional Tokyo inspired district. This eye candy is then match with top notch sound designs like children playing at a pool, the background stirs of a mall, and the swashing waves of the water, it is a great show to watch with headphones on.




The soundscapes are hilariously pointed in one “beach” episode where Yume is eating a churro and Yomogi asks if she likes it.

It is a bizarre scene for anime, that even got trending on Twitter for how unusual and very stripped down it was for anime.

Per usual there is a fantastic serving of episodes with quiet scenes in a calm and blissful city juxtaposed by large and over the top Tokusatsu staged scenes. Once again we get another highlight episode storyboarded and AD’d by Kai Ikarashi with Episode 10, who manages to outdo himself after Episode 9 of Gridman. Probably one of the best episodes of tv anime so far this decade, Ikarashi was back on a similar premise where characters are stuck in a dream and need to escape. Unlike the last time where it was maniacal machinations of Alexis Kerib and Akane Shinjo, this time its a lone Kaiju summoned by the Kaiju Eugenicists that manages to erase every single thing within the city. It’s a scarily executed sequence of characters disappearing one by one leaving apparitions of smeared shadows being the only thing that cemented them ever existing.

Yomogi has to be consumed by the Kaiju in order to save his friends and even the Eugenicists.

Ikarashi does so much in this episode to distort and exaggerate the body language of the characters as he can, making the smeared and warped angularity pushed to a breaking point, being perfectly in synch with the cerebral mind f*** the episode is going for.


Leaf’s section of the memory maze is the most interesting portion of the episode with character designs going completely off model instead he was totally uncorrected by Ikarashi getting to show off his character’s spaced out eyes, and feathery and soft edge work.


The episode then closes out with the group fighting, and defeating the Kaiju with Toshiyuki Sato and Amemiya themselves animating the segment.

The actual final episode has one of the best interpersonal final fight scenes I’ve seen in a show, really great way to close out the series.

In summation Dynazenon is a masterpiece, and it was soon followed up two years later by a crossover Gridman film, Gridman Universe released in March of this year

Ahhhhhh. Amemiya and his team are practically doing this in their sleep. With a lot of love for both series, this same team was more adept then ever to handle a short narrative bringing together the two series cast through the common trend of multiverse storytelling. I can’t say much about the film other that it was almost a 10/10 for me. The first half of the film was such a vibe, and relaxing experience that once the action started I actually wanted more of the character stuff. But the action is great, the characters are great, it closes out Rikka and Yuta’s will they won’t they arc, and I adore everyone being here. It is a heavy fan service movie that juggles a lot of characters, but they all feel equally important to help mash the big bad guy. Gen Asano, and several other animators put on an insane display of combo transformations, as shown here, and of course Kai Ikarashi does a mind melting scene, with almost Yuasa esque camera work and warping, nightmarish. It’s a great film definitely worth appraisal as anime film of the year.

That is Akira Amemiya. A mecha and tokusatsu encyclopedia, in his own right, coming up as the protege of Imaishi I feel like Amemiya seriously distinguished himself from the other big three animators of studio Trigger. Amemiya is the mecha guy, and while yes Imaishi, Yoshinari, and Sushio could also hold that title, Amemiya is THE MECHA GUY. But he’s even more than that he is the studio’s best director, hashing out more emotional and serious story beats than I think Imaishi or even Yoshinari could even try to execute. This was not an overnight effort though. Through his work on Gurren Lagann, Panty and Stocking and learning some restraint through Kouno, Amemiya was long overdue for directing a real series like SSSS Gridman. Yes originally he was more of an Imaishi-esque follower on Inferno Cop, and Ninja Slayer, but his prerogative and desire for real material showed in spades on the Gridman franchise. Amemiya is one of the best directors in the industry, and the greatest Takara stan of all time.

Akira Amemiya personal artwork and Gridman official Artwork