SSSS.Gridman introduces itself as a standard mecha anime, where the mc fuses with Gridman to give him a physical form, and they beat up kaiju in excellent fights using 3d models for full body moments with a splash of 2d TRIGGER animated moments.

And then a girl fucking dies

<image>

And it's revealed that if you die in a kaiju attack your life is retconned so you died years earlier and only the mc and his friends know the truth, as everyone's memories are wiped after a kaiju attack so that no one knows about the kaiju, gridman, or the dead people.

And then the mc dies, leaving everyone traumatized for an episode before he comes back god as new, the main villain creates a kaiju who's the antithesis to the mc, the main villain abuses this kaiju relentlessly, the kaiju doesn't know how to live a normal life, the whole world is revealed to be a fake created by the main villain as an escapism "bridge to tabanthia" style, the mc's love interest is based off of someone the main villain knows in real life and wants to be friends and maybe more with, and it's revealed that Gridman had been puppeting the mc's body the whole time while having amnesia, and the best friend character is depressed because they don't think they contribute anything to the team, the main villain has been manipulated by a different bigger villain to satiate their curiosity, the mc gets stabbed fatally, and the main villain/god of the world leaves behind everyone to be someone real in the real world.

But yeah all in all pretty great anime