Hime and Samurai

is a manga series published in Monthly Comic Alive magazine, running from October 26, 2019https://comic-alive.jp/blog/news/entry-7622.html, and also officially made available through Kadokawa's online publishing service Comic Walkerhttps://twitter.com/torukei/status/1221635644931235841, being updated on the 27th of every month. It is a spin-off of the anime show SSSS.GRIDMAN, set before the start of the first episode of the series. The manga is written and illustrated by by Kei Toru.
==Characters==
*Hime Kudzuki
*Samurai・Calibur
*Akane Shinjo
*Kaguya Kudzuki
*
*Rikka Takarada
*Sho Utsumi
==Plot==
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Hime Kudzuki, an excitable girl in the first year of middle school, has always felt like she has a 'mission'. Her life is changed when a meteor crashes into her, and she is unscathed by it. Samurai・Calibur appears, telling her that the danger is approaching. When a monster rampages in the city, he gives her one of his swords so that she can transform into an armored warrior through an app in her smartphone.
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Hime and Calibur come across a mysterious girl with glasses who runs away from them. With the help of another girl with long hair, they locate the person they were searching for. A monster appears in the arcade, prompting Hime to transform once more and defeat it. Strangely, they are covered in fog after the battle; the arcade is repaired and everyone acts like nothing had happened. Only Hime and the girl she was looking for had kept their memories of the attack. The two other girls introduce themselves as Rikka Takarada and Akane Shinjo.
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Hime introduces Calibur to Akane, and propose her to join their team, the . Akane reveals that she had lost all her memories, and the earliest memory was a shining light approaching her at the scene of the first monster attack before being chased by someone. The three of them come up with the theory that people were being turned into monsters. After leaving, Calibur is attacked by a strange creature.
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Calibur encounters a mysterious figure who appears to be the controller of the Kaiju. However, things are not as they seem to be as she questions and refuses to attack him.
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Hime rises early due to a lack of sleep, because Akane fell asleep next to her the night before. She trains with a pole until Calibur comes along to teach her more about her powers, and grants her a sword summon from her phone app, which she is barely able to carry. A monster attacks later but Hime is unable to damage it with the Barrier Gear. Akane's analysis of the battle may hold the key to victory.
Eventually, Akane finds the monster's weakness and informs Hime, allowing her to slice it in half. After the battle, Akane suddenly has a realization that she had been somehow subconsciously involved with the appearance of monsters, without her own prior knowledge. She confesses to the others.
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Akane confesses to Calibur and Hime for her wrongdoings. Instead of punishing her, Hime brings Akane out to go window shopping to help her feel better. They come across Calibur walking alone and decide to follow him to see what he is up to. Calibur follows a cat around to give it some food, before a boy appears and tries to ambush him. Amazed by Calibur, he asks him to teach him the way of the sword, and Calibur agrees to do so. A group of bullies arrive and beat both the boy and the cat, but Calibur and the girls simply watch. After the boy gets up and promises to get better, Akane and Hime walk away from the scene.
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The monster attacks get more frequent. The mysterious figure who once approached Calibur appears and threatens Akane's, seeking to "return" her to her "self". The Manager makes more monsters by throwing cutter knives at people, figuring out the trio's weakness; only Hime has the power to actually defeat monsters despite Calibur's presence as well. The Manager throws a knife at Hime, which turns her Barrier Gear into a copy of herself.
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After a rather rude introduction, the Hime duplicate remodels herself into , who becomes Hime's "sister" and recognizes Calibur has her "father" due to being split from the Barrier Gear that came from one of Calibur's swords in the first place. She quickly becomes popular and steals all of Hime's friends. Now without any defenses, the Manager targets Hime. The Manager turns a crowd into monsters, causing Hime and Kaguya to have to merge into one to fight against them.
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After merging, Kaguya emerges in a new black Barrier Gear called and defeats the Kaiju. Hime loses confidence in herself and runs away. Kaguya reminds Hime of her dream of helping others when she used to cosplay as a magical girl called , as the world starts to break down. Akane is attacked by the Manager and Calibur becomes the final opponent.
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The Manager has absorbed Akane and her memories, turning into an adult copy of her. She tells Calibur, Hime and Kaguya that the city is falling apart, and everyone and everything will die along with it should the collapse happen. The Manger claims to be able to recreate the city, but the power that Calibur gave to Hime, now manifested as Kaguya, is blocking her. She offers to return Calibur's true power, allowing him to leave the world and go back to his teammates, but he has to get rid of Kaguya first. Hime and Kaguya transform and fight against Calibur.
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Hime cannot win against Calibur and she starts to lose her resolve. Kaguya has to remind Hime of her dream, allowing them to reform back into one. A powerful attack from Hime destroys a part of the outer wall of the world, revealing dolls of Kaiju on the other side. The Manager starts to reveal that everyone and everything in this world is a fake, and that there is another world outside. It is revealed that the entire city is simply rendered inside a globe-like sphere on a Kaiju's back in the real Akane Shinjo's room full of rubbish.
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The Manager tells Hime about the truth of the world; that she and everyone in it are merely artificial creations made to replicate an "ideal world" envisioned by the "creator on the outside", because even in that outside world, there are "imperfections" beyond the control of the creator. She transforms into a giant Kiaju and starts to forcibly convert everyone into monsters by drowning them in the shadows of their own negative emotions, but those who had come in contact with Calibur and Hime refuse to give up and help to pull others out of their shadows, overcoming the Manager's control.
Despite the odds, Hime refuses to give in either and tells her that even if everyone and everything was fake, this was still the world that they lived in, and for that alone, it was worth fighting for. She attacks the Manager, which gives Calibur an opening to return to his comrades in the world outside. The Manager attempts to kill Hime, but Akane's consciousness stops her, saying that she wants to live in this world too, which causes the Manager to disappear.
With the Manager gone, Kaiju cease to exist, and with Calibur gone, the Samurai Barrier Gear disappears as well. Hime, Kaguya and Akane continue on living their daily lives.
Outside, Calibur looks uo to see a Venora in the mist if Tsutsujidai, and leaps away.
==References==
Category:SSSS.GRIDMAN
Category:Spin-Offs
Category:Manga
Category:Gridman Franchise