Awakening (final episode)

***Awakening*** (覚醒, *Kakusei*) is the twelfth and final episode of *SSSS.GRIDMAN*.

Monster of the week: Zegga

## Summary

Alexis Kerib has just transformed Akane Shinjo into the kaiju Zegga, and it proceeds to stomp the city. Yuta Hibiki arrives at the pawn shop, now with his full memories as Gridman the Hyper Agent. Anti, having defeated the last of the resurrected kaiju, touches base there with the others, then heads out to challenge Zegga, somehow understanding that Akane's soul is trapped inside.

Rikka Takarada and Alexis Kerib are still on the roof, and they have a conversation. He is quite amused by the situation; of the girl who creates kaiju becoming a kaiju. He belittles Rikka for thinking that she is Akane’s friend, when she is Akane’s own creation.

“A friend, you say? Wouldn’t that be nice? You’re a counterfeit born from Akane’s kaiju. A fabricated human… A replica (repli-compoid). You’re a creation that Akane made for her own benefit. A creation that thinks they are human. A creation that believes their god is a friend. How sad that is.”
Yuta uses Sky Vittor to collect Rikka and Utsumi, bringing them back to the shop to help in the fight.

Gridknight pries open Zegga’s jaws, then transforms into human form as Anti, falling into the depths. He seeks out Akane, and brings her out, and they stand on the outer shell of Zegga, which is rendered immobile without Akane empowering it. As they talk, Alexis Kerib arrives and stabs Anti through the back. He then absorbs Akane into himself, and grows to kaiju size, ready for battle.

At the shop, each of the NGJHS and Yuta have been given an Accepter. This lets them join their hearts, and merge to become one. With a cry of “Access Flash”, they enter the computer, Junk. Junk then demands the access code, which is required to launch Gridman. Utsumi whispers the access code, “Gridman”, and Rikka types it in. On Junk’s screen it is revealed what “SSSS” stands for in the show’s title. The query to the dialog for entering the access code is, “Special Signature to Save a Soul”. Anti lies in the street bleeding to death. He too has one of the new Accepters, but lacks the strength to speak the phrase.

Gridman materializes in his true form, looking just like he did in *Denkou Choujin Gridman*, and with his original theme song backing him. He attacks Alexis Kerib. Alexis gets sliced apart, but he regenerates. Alexis explains that he can do so forever. He is immortal and infinite, but immortality has its price, which is why he is using Akane,

“My life is endless and infinite. –But that leaves me with deep emptiness inside. Which is why the only thing that satisfies my heart are the emotions of people like Akane.”
Akane sought Alexis Kerib, and he enabled her to create the city. However, she was frustrated by the imperfections, and sent kaiju after kaiju to destroy and rebuild. Alexis revelled in her emotional torment as this happened over and over.

Gridman realizes that he cannot destroy Alexis, and will eventually be worn down and killed. As an alternative to destruction, he engages Fixer Beam, to repair the city, and everything in it, including Akane’s heart. She hears the voices of Rikka, Utsumi, and Yuta. They tell her the message of Gridman, “You are not alone”. Akane chooses to accept their help, and opens the door to her heart…

The Fixer Beam causes the image of Computer World to melt away, and the façade of the city is renewed, this time enlarged with the entire planet beyond the city.

At Akane’s house, her things are all packed into boxes. No longer willing to be the god of this world, she is returning back to the human world where she came from. She sits with Rikka, and apologizes for all of the hurt she caused everyone in this world. Rikka gives her a goodbye present; a holder for her transit pass. Then Akane is gone, and the packed boxes with her, and inexplicably, so is the air conditioner, but that’s okay; the weather has turned cold outside.

At the pawn shop, everyone is back to human form, and Gridman is about to depart. With Akane freed, Gridman was able to encase Alexis Kerib in a container, and is taking him away to Hyper World. He reminds the others that once he is gone, Yuta will awaken with no memory of what has happened during Gridman’s use of his body.

As snow falls, Anti is awakened by kaiju-girl Anosillus, who has saved his life.

The final scene is live-action. In the human world, Akane wakes up in her bedroom. In the same fashion as Gridman does in the opening credits, she looks to the sky.

## Voice Drama

* **12.12: Return of Akane (帰ってきたアカネ, *Kaettekita Akane*)**
	+ Rikka and Utsumi see Akane pass by, but upon closer investigation, they find out it's not really her.
	+ (This voice drama was only exclusively included in Volume 4 of the SSSS.GRIDMAN Blu-ray and DVD release.)

## Trivia

* "Yume no Hero", the original opening theme from *Denkou Choujin Gridman*, is played while Gridman fights Alexis.
* A piano instrumental version of "Motto Kimi wo Shireba", the original ending theme from *Denkou Choujin Gridman*, is played during Akane's farewell to Rikka scene.
* During Alexis's conversation with Rikka, he calls her a "fabricated meat-thing", a callback to how Kilokahn from *Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad* referred to humans as "meat-thing"s.
* Alexis Kerib describes Rikka as a replica. If you watch the subtitled edition, you can hear him, in Japanese, call her a "repli-compoid". This hearkens back to Melody of Terror, in which we met Unison, known in that show’s reference material as a compoid. Herein is revealed a joke from Episode 4, when Calibur walks into a karaoke room, and three guys are singing "Futatsu no Yuuki". The song was written as an insert song for *Denkou Choujin Gridman*, and performed by the group Compoid Three. Here we have three compoids singing a song which was originally by Compoid Three.
* Akane’s packing boxes are labelled 取扱注意 – Handle with care
* The sparkling background that appears when the Gridman Alliance talks to Akane is similar to the background in the Ultraseven finale, Episode 49, where Dan Moroboshi reveals his secret identity to Anne Yuri, and tells her that he is returning to his homeworld.
* This episode resembles *Ultraman Cosmos* Episode 16, “The Flying Whale”, which was also written by *SSSS.Gridman* writer Keiichi Hasegawa. In it, a girl named Akane has her imaginary whale turned into reality by Chaos Header, the extraterrestrial antagonist of that series. Akane is later merged with this creation to become the kaiju Chaos Jirak to fight Ultraman Cosmos.
* Zegga was designed by Mahiro Maeda, a veteran of such productions as *Gamera 2*, *Gamera 3*, *Shin Godzilla*, and of course, *Neon Genesis Evangelion*. Anti’s giant clawed hand grabbing Akane’s soul within Zegga is a reference to *Gamera 3*.
* Zegga’s roar is a modulated version of Akane’s voice actor screaming. Separate versions were created for the Japanese and English editions of the show, using the local voice actor.
* The rolling body of Zegga, while Gridman uses Fixer Beam, is done as an homage to kaiju Dancan from Ultraseven Episode 34 (teased by Utsumi back in Episode 8). This was revealed by the creators in the magazine Uchusen Separate Volume SSSS.Gridman.
* Gridman’s attack Superconductive Kick was previously used in Earth in Danger, Episode 38 of *Denkou Choujin Gridman*.
* Fixer Beam was used in most every episode of *Denkou Choujin Gridman*.

Things in Akane’s room in the post-credits live-action scene:

* Akane's cracked phone and the transit-pass holder which Rikka gave her. The implication is that these items were transferred here to the real world from Computer World when Akane came back.
* On the table below the window is a photo collage, with the name “Akane” at the top.
* To the right of the Promare poster (Studio Trigger’s subsequent project btw) dangles a plush Midori from Space Patrol Luluco.

## Gallery

Gridknight charges ZeggaZegga burns down Tsutsuji-daiThe SSSS in *SSSS.Gridman* - Special Signature to Save a SoulGridman holds Alexis Kerib in the palm of his handAkane wakes up in the human worldThe pass holder which Rikka gave to AkaneAkane's cracked phonePhoto collage of Akane's friendsMidori hanging by the window
## References

1. ↑ Mike Dent blog on *Medium*: SSSS.Gridman Reference Recap #12
Much of the trivia is sourced from the *Mach Dent* twitter feed, as well as the summaries which he wrote to the Mike Dent blog in which he aggregated all the the Twitter posts into a single write-up for each episode. It seems he got much of the info from the special edition of *Uchusen* magazine, *Uchusen Separate Volume SSSS.Gridman*.

*Twitter*: Mach Dent

*Amazon*: Uchusen Separate Volume SSSS.Gridman

See also: *Sakuga Blog*: SSSS.Gridman production notes for Episode 12