SSSS.Dynazenon – 2-3

We’re only three episodes in, and Trigger’s latest TV anime has already been to space.

2018’s SSSS.Gridman wasn’t one of my favorite shows of that year, despite its enticingly off-kilter direction. With an amnesiac protagonist and a pair of sidekicks forming the series’ core, I often felt as though the story was holding me at arm’s length. Luckily, its new companion series doesn’t share that issue – so far, I’m buying nearly everything Dynazenon is selling. A lot of my investment comes from the same things that Gridman did well: moody atmosphere, heavy use of symbolism, a deft mix of 2D and 3D animation during combat scenes. At the same time, though, Dynazenon has been much more ambitious in its character building, at least after three weeks. The robot from the title needs four pilots to function, and the show has seen fit to include the same number of major antagonists, resulting in a big cast with lots of potential for dynamic encounters. Some of them are still shrouded in secrecy, but the ones we’ve come to know well are more than capable of carrying the rest for now.

Take Yomogi, for instance. In the premiere, we saw him put a gift from his mom’s new boyfriend into a tip jar – a sure sign of his displeasure with their arrangement. These two episodes followed up on that emotion, but rather than resorting to confrontation, they did it subtly. He’s the last member of Team Dynazenon to start attending regular training sessions, since he’s committed to his part-time job as a first step in achieving independence. That lack of practice makes him a liability during battle, as seen during the team’s second kaiju fight, where he stood in place and helplessly flailed the arms of his Dyna Soldier unit. By contrast, Yume and Koyomi’s feelings of emptiness (stemming from a death in the family and an extended period of unemployment, respectively) led them to direct all their energy into pilot training. Their differing ability levels can be traced back to the circumstances of their personal lives, creating an effective link between the show’s human and mecha aspects.

And then there’s Gauma, the mystery man with the duct tape crop top. Even though we’re missing all sorts of critical info about him, his solid grasp of Dynazenon’s mechanics makes for a refreshing change from the uncertainty of Yuta (Gridman’s alter ego). Gauma’s introduction as a “kaiju user” was reminiscent of Anti (the human/kaiju hybrid from the same prequel series), right down to their shared starvation, but he’s since become a much more fascinating figure. Despite mooching at Yomogi’s place for a bit, he quickly established himself as the leader of Team Dynazenon, organizing practices and even finding part-time work to stay self-sufficient. Plus, there’s the tiny detail of his former partnership with the series’ villains, the Kaiju Eugenicists, whose existence dates back some 5000 years. If I have one complaint about these episodes, it’s that the third one was hyper-focused on that fact – in fairness, though, I’d obsess over a reincarnated acquaintance if I had one.

That third episode’s over-the-top kaiju battle culminated in an escape from Earth’s atmosphere, as I mentioned at the start of this post. It also marked the first time that all four Dynazenon pilots worked as a team instead of winging it or getting bailed out by a single member’s strength. That’s great news for the core cast, but as far as combat goes, my heart belongs to episode 2 – hot damn, was that some sweet mecha animation during Yomogi and Yume’s second gattai scene (the spectacle starts at 19:17 if you’ve got the video file handy). The fire animation peppered throughout their combination made it feel so propulsive, and the brief smears as parts of their mechs swiveled into position fit perfectly with the sound effects. Don’t be surprised to see these cuts recycled throughout the series, because somebody must have dumped days of their life into realizing them. I found this week’s full Dragon Dynazenon transformation to be underwhelming by comparison, but at least it had those choral vocals to give it an unholy vibe.

Speaking of production touches, I’ve got to shout out one of my favorite decisions by director Akira Amemiya: the return of Gridman’s wide dialogue shots. The Dynazenon premiere featured one of these as Yuta and his friends crossed a bridge on their way home from school, keeping the camera still and allowing us to focus on the kids’ overlapping conversations. This is among the show’s best methods of feeding information to its audience, so I was ecstatic that we received not one, but two similar scenes in episode 3. The first brought Yomogi and Yume closer together in the wake of her decision to confide in him, and the second underscored the characters’ worries about Gauma’s association with the Eugenicists. In both instances, we were allowed to learn what people were feeling without the need for narration, exposition, or audience surrogates. Amemiya and his team have confidence that we’re paying attention, even without extreme close-ups or inner monologues polluting our screens and speakers. I love intriguing characters and badass robots, but I’ve got to say, that level of trust is something I appreciate even more.

Other notes:

– I’m curious about the pearls that we’ve seen scattered throughout the show thus far. A human hand dropped them from the sky in the premiere, but the kaiju have been the ones spreading them recently. Chise (Koyomi’s cousin) found one on the ground at the start of last week’s episode, as well. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re kaiju eggs, but that’s far from my final answer.
– I’ve got a pet theory that Chise is (or will be) the Akane of this new series – she’s suspiciously prominent for a non-pilot.
– Yomogi’s supervisor at work is a bit of an enigma herself. She’s flirty with her teenage coworker despite being married, and she was a window-breaking delinquent back when she was classmates with Koyomi. If people start turning into kaiju at some point in this story, she’ll be the first.
– Based on the concepts being discussed in Yomogi and Yume’s class, we may be in for a metaphysical twist or two. Two of Zeno’s paradoxes have been mentioned thus far, alluding to the division of space and the illusion of motion. I wouldn’t be surprised if these ideas took the form of time travel – this is anime, after all.
– Yume’s got it in her head that the kaiju’s powers could be the key to reviving her late sister. This won’t end well, but I hope the show keeps exploring the idea – Kano’s death is one of Dynazenon’s subtler mysteries.