Spring 2021 First Impressions – SSSS.Dynazenon

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Story Summary: The world is peaceful on the whole, but in the lives of its inhabitants, there is discord. Minami is a girl with the reputation of being a tease. She asks boys out and then drops them like yesterday’s garbage, leaving in her wake a trail of hurt feelings. Her friend warns her to stop making promises she can’t keep, but Minami’s noncommittal answer tells the whole story. Meanwhile, Yomogi, an earnest kid, meets a strange man underneath a bridge. This oddball, who calls himself Gauma and claims to be a “kaiju user,” is starving, and it’s Yomogi’s leftovers from lunch that rescue him from that fate. Gauma vows to repay the favor. The opportunity comes a few days later when Minami hones in on Yomogi as her next target. Gauma can’t stand to see his new “friend” get toyed with, but whatever words he has for Minami get put on the back-burner when a kaiju starts attacking the city. Gauma’s rantings about kaiju and such turn out to be more real than anyone may have suspected, when he draws forth an entity called “Dynazenon” to fight back against the kaiju. Minami, Yomogi, and a bystander are suddenly embroiled in the fight of their lives.

Impressions: Sometimes the universe leans into its coincidences; the anime club I attend is currently watching SSSS.Gridman, which, though I’ve watched the show before, has reminded me of just how good an anime it is. I think it’s put me into an especially fortunate state of mind to appreciate this initial episode of its successor (and indirect sequel?).

One highlight of Gridman for me was its stealthy establishment if the young women as its important, central characters. We might be initially fooled by Yuuta’s wholesome, protagonist-like personality, when it truth it’s Rikka and Akane’s friendship that forms the heart of the story. I get the impression that Dynazenon is fiddling around with this idea a bit and perhaps adding in some more complications. Here, Yomogi isn’t an amnesiac with conveniently absentee parents, but a kind, hard-working kid dealing with the prospect of his mother’s potential remarriage. On the other side of the coin is Minami, who in lesser series might be framed as a villain because of the way she toys with her male classmates. But here it’s clearly a symptom of a larger problem in her life; her parents still seem to dwell on the death of her sister(?), and Minami seems to feel that loss as well. It’s hard to say just what their relationship was like, but there’s some visual symbolism embedded in a puzzle toy Minami finds in her sister’s old room. In any case, any time there’s loss, especially when it’s unexpected, I imagine there’s some desire to take control of a seemingly uncontrollable life. It doesn’t surprise me that Minami might be searching for some way fill an emotional void while trying to maintain absolute control of the way in which she does so.

All of that comes prior to an exciting final act where we get to see this series’ titular mecha at play. I have to admit, I got a little teary-eyed as Dynazenon appeared, and then again as it transformed into its T-Rex form. I’ve never been a tokusatsu connoisseur, but I did watch Power Rangers back in the day and for that reason sometimes even these kinds of corny robot transformations touch on some memory deep inside me. I also love how Studio Trigger portrays the large-scale battles. You can tell that a lot of care and skill has gone into making the characters move like people wearing costumes; the kaiju especially are really evocative of that kind of live-action performance.

I don’t typically talk about many sequels in these First Impressions posts, because I feel like the information is already out there and I’m not necessarily adding much to the discourse. But there are just times where an episode gives me that tingle in the back of my neck and I can’t stop myself. I hope that alone might convey how good this episode is.

Pros: There are many visual callbacks in this episode to SSSS.Gridman, which tickles me. I suggest watching both first episodes back-to-back to get a feel for some of the similar framing between the two.

I already like the characters we’ve met. While he hasn’t been given near the depth of the other major characters, Gauma in particular is interesting to me, too – he reads less like a mysterious and powerful stranger and more like an aimless chuunii whose imagined dark abilities somehow just turned out to be real.

The sound design of this episode is also very good. I love how most of the scenes are peaceful, with just a hint of diegetic sound (TV in the background, the choir singing away in some other part of the high school). It gives an evocative feeling of the calm before the storm.

Cons: As inviting as this first episode is, dealing with completely separate characters from Gridman, I hear through the grapevine that it’s probably best to have seen this series’ predecessor before really diving in. Of course, that’s a stealthy “pro” because then you get to go watch SSSS.Gridman!

Content Warnings: Brief images of a deceased body in a medical setting. Fantasy violence. Destruction of setting/infrastructure that could recall real-live events. A character being talked about behind their back.

Would I Watch More? – It’s already on my to-watch list. That said, I might wait a couple of weeks to continue with it until my SSSS.Gridman re-watch is fully complete.