SSSS.Dynazenon Episode 1

SSSS.Dynazenon Episode 1

Speedrunning Cast Introductions

SSSS.Dynazenon is a spin-off of the SSSS.Gridman series from 2018. Since I reviewed that weekly, and also since there weren’t many anime airing this season that I actually wanted to write about weekly, here we are.

If you watched Gridman, something you may have remembered is that the first few episodes weren’t very good. I don’t think it was until episode 3 or 4 that I bumped my rating of the series up out of “bad” territory. Luckily, this first episode of Dynazenon was better than that.

However, I still wouldn’t call this episode good. I have it at a 5/10 right now. So, what’s wrong with the series so far?

The first issue I have with the series is how it decided to introduce us to the various characters. A common trope in series like this is for a bunch of unrelated characters to all be thrown together to form the main cast. Dynazenon follows it to a T.

Yume Minami from the anime series SSSS.Dynazenon
Yume Minami

While there are plenty of tropes that I think are good, or that I don’t mind, this isn’t one of them. I’m just not a fan of series that bounce around between a bunch of disconnected characters and situations as a way to introduce us to all of them at once.

I think my main problem with this type of character introduction is that I’m always left feeling like I wasn’t actually introduced to the characters. For example, we know that Yume had an older sister who died and that she likes to ditch boys she asks out.

That’s some oddly specific information we’re given about her, and I could make inferences from it. But at the end of the day, I don’t really know anything about her character.

Slow Start, As Expected

While the character introductions were sped through, the actual plot of this series seems like it’s going to be slow — just as it was with Gridman. I don’t think I became really interested and invested in Gridman until the final third of the series. And I could see that being the case here as well.

Some people might say that this wasn’t a slow episode because we got action at the end. A kaiju appeared, Dynazenon was summoned, and a battle ensued. Sure, but did that battle mean anything? Not really. It was just a way to bring all the characters together.

By the end of the episode, we know some of the main character’s names (I don’t think we even know all of them), and that’s it. The characters haven’t really even been introduced to each other aside from the few who already had some connections.

Chise Asukagawa from the anime series SSSS.Dynazenon
Chise Asukagawa

Based on what we know of the characters so far, the only one I’m actually interested in is Chise. Sure, the primary reason I’m interested in her is her character design. But she’s also the only character so far who seems to have a real personality.

And the messed up part about that is she’s the only apparent main character to be left out of Dynazenon. As we’re told, it requires four people to pilot. And those four pilots are Gauma, Yomogi, Yume, and Koyomi (I don’t think he was named).

Gridman did eventually become interesting and good. I expect the same to happen with Dynazenon, but at the same time, I’m not really looking forward to waiting 8 or so episodes to get to that point. Hopefully, Dynazenon will begin to flesh out its characters and introduce complex plot points earlier on.

Dynazenon’s Dyna Rex

This might seem odd considering I’m planning to review this series weekly and did the same for Gridman, but I don’t actually care about super robot mecha series. Of course, there are some good ones that I like. But the subgenre as a whole doesn’t interest me all that much.

Though, I will say that I don’t really understand people who’ve decided that they just hate all mecha anime. Usually, people who say things like that tend not to have actually watched any mecha anime, or they only watched one and assumed the entire genre is the same.

Now, why am I bringing all of this up? Because despite how Dynazenon does seem to be extremely similar to Gridman in a lot of ways, it has its own quirks that are already apparent. If you’re thinking that this series is going to just be a Gridman clone, I would caution against that assumption.

Dynazenon's Dyna Rex form from the anime series SSSS.Dynazenon
Dynazenon’s Dyna Rex form

The part of the series I’m most interested in having explored is this whole “Dyna Rex” thing. I think Dynazenon is a pre-existing series like Gridman was. But regardless, I know absolutely nothing about it. So I’m looking forward to seeing what that’s all about.

Obviously, we saw the standard Dynazenon mech transform into Dyna Rex. So is that its only transformation? Are we going to see it transform into other mecha dinosaurs? Will there be additional mechs that transform into other dinosaurs?

Modern super robot series like this already hit on nostalgia for a lot of people. But mechs and dinosaurs, now that’s what I’m talking about. I can’t put into words how disappointed I’m going to be if it turns out there are no other dinosaur mechs in this series.

I do think it’s unlikely that there will be additional mechs considering there are 5 main characters and 4 are required to pilot Dynazenon. But I’m holding out hope that it has additional transformations.

Conclusion

What do you think of SSSS.Dynazenon Episode 1? If you watched Gridman as well, how do you think this episode compares to the first episode of that series? And, who’s your favorite character so far? If it’s not Chise, you’re wrong.

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My review of Episode 2 is available.

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