Akane Shinjou

**Akane Shinjou** is one of the main characters of the *SSSS.Gridman* anime.

A girl at the same high school as the others, who is seen to be a perfect student and is very popular. This hides her true capricious and vindictive personality traits that come out when she has Alexis bring her Kaiju to life to right perceived wrongs with the city.

In the AWA fics, Akane is listed as a purchased prisoner from the Slave Fortress. She is later rescued and now attends the AWA Academy as a student.

In the TWA fics, Akane debuted in the Twisted World Animania - SSSS.Gridman.

## **Appearance**

### **Human Form**

Akane is a young girl who is easily recognizable by her pale pink, bob-styled short hair and reddish pink eyes. She is normally seen wearing an outfit comprised of a white, button-up shirt, purple ribbon, dark purple jacket with pink trim and a black lining, a charcoal gray skirt, light gray leggings, and black shoes. She is usually barefoot at home, and wears pink glasses with a cracked right lens, along with a headset to communicate with Alexis Kerib.

During the field trip in the mountains, she wore a ruffled white bikini top that exposed her cleavage, along with a matching skirt-like bottom.

Throughout the series she is noted to be very beautiful and to have a full figure by other classmates, especially Utsumi.

### **Kaiju Form**

As Zegga, Akane assumed a tentacled kaiju form encased in crude, spherical gray shell that break into several parts, revealing two pair of small claws (rear pair on the side of the tail and front pair on the front of the body), two pairs of barbed, clawed tentacles on the sides of her body that protrudes forward, a long tail, and multi-eyed skull which jaws can split into six parts. It also has what appeared to be a large human face and a pair of skeletal hands inside its maw, with Akane's human body trapped within.

## **Personality**

### **Human**

Akane appears to be a nice girl, offering Yuta a special dog when he forgets his lunch. However, behind that facade lies a mentally troubled individual with sociopathic tendencies, easily harboring petty grudges against anyone who wrongs her, even if it was an accident. In the first episode, the special dog she offered Yuta gets knocked to the floor because of a volleyball thrown by Sakiru Tonkawa. Akane retaliated by sending Ghoulghilas to kill Tonkawa while it wreaked havoc on the city. This malice even extended to her homeroom teacher, whom she nearly killed with Devadadan after he bumped into her without apologizing. She is also shown to be extremely manipulative. She keeps up her kind and peaceful charade on a daily basis, only showing her true colors to those who knew before hand, or figure out the truth for themselves. This plays into her manipulation tactics.

She also displays violent tendencies when she gets frustrated. For instance, she kicks her monitor, throws things, and shatters the screens of all her computers, phones, and tablets. Alexis Kerib even remarks on this, and calls her "violent."

### **Kaiju**

As Zegga, Akane displayed feral and out-of-control behavior. This is because her human self is trapped within the core of her kaiju form, tormented by memories of those she killed with her kaijus.

## **Abilities**

### **Human Form**

Akane is stated to be a gifted young woman who, according to Sho, is skillful in many things. She is shown to be very adept at art, and has no trouble sculpting the forms of kaiju for Alexis to bring to life. These kaiju are extremely detailed in both design and aesthetics - akin to ones made by a professional modeler.

In addition to artistic skills, Akane is also remarkable when it comes to technology. This can be shown through her use of a remote control drone via her tablet computer, though it's yet to revealed whether her drone is a homemade one.

### **Kaiju Form**

Upon turned into a kaiju, Akane, as Zegga, gains numerous abilities: She gains powerful shell with unknown level of durability, able to uproot buildings on ease with her scream alone, and her body can produce electric shock strong enough to briefly staggered Anti's Gridknight form, and can also use her tentacles to grab thinks. Because Zegga form was bestowed by Alexis Kerib against her will in order to lure Anti out, Akane cannot control it, and only provide moderate challenge to Gridknight. Should Akane is forcibly removed from her kaiju body within its core, Zegga will die, though its body only destroyed after struck by Gridman's Fixer Beam.

## **Trivia**

* Akane's character is partly based on Takeshi Todo from live-action Gridman series.
* She was one of the characters in the scrapped show Gridman F.
* Her design is most likely a reference to Optimus Prime's *Shattered Glass* incarnation, with her color scheme. In addition, the glasses she wears are cracked in its right side, just like one of the parts of Shattered Glass' Optimus Prime, and she's similarly evil, too.
* Akane's voice actress, Reina Ueda, also voices Jasminka Antonenko from *Little Witch Academia*, another Trigger production.
* Whereas Takeshi is evidently an unlucky individual and is an introvert, Akane manages to put up a friendly facade in front of everyone and is the ace of her class, further reinforcing her disguise.