[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.DYNAZENON EPISODE 2 - “WHAT’S YOUR REASON FOR FIGHTING?”



Much improved second episode for me, where the tricky act of opening yourself up to someone and the tricky act of learning to pilot a variably-combining giant robot interweave in delightful, exciting ways.

Like, I’m into a whole episode where Yomogi forces himself into the background, and mostly leaves people hanging – it’s a less showy version of what Yume does, but equally as frustrating and sabotaging. It’s theoretically in service to Yomogi’s ill-defined afterschool job, but that feels less like a burning motivation and more like a convenient cover to skip out on his friends, and avoid the possibility of new connections with the Dynazenon Alliance. It’s almost a reflex for him, and it’s most apparent when Yume finally opens up to him on their little afternoon excursion.

It’s hugely consequential, in ways both personal and heroic. The heroic part is Yume trying to make clear to Yomogi that what they’re doing as Dynazenon isn’t some burden or goofy accident, it’s saving lives, and Yomogi needs to understand the stakes. Showing him both the damage they caused during their fight and the people they protected as a result is her attempt to get him to see that this isn’t some other part of his life he can fade away from, it’s massively important. But the personal part is more interesting to me, because while the heroic part is Yume trying to make the scale bigger for Yomogi, the personal part is her trying to make their new group of robot pilots into less of an abstraction, and more of a group of damaged people trying to do something with their darkness.

And Yomogi biffs it? Yume tells Yomogi that her older sister died a few years ago, and it was at the tower we’ve frequently seen her at. And Yomogi just lets this information wash over him, not disturbing it with a response or support or anything that’d normally speak to a human connection. Yomogi just sort of lets it pass by him, rather than get caught up in it.

But life isn’t just something you can let happen around you, no matter how nice it might be to disengage and concentrate on your internal self. (The previous series is basically all about that!) The world will eventually involve you in it, and you will need to connect with people. You might not even get to choose them! But it’ll happen, and you need to figure out how to be present for it.

All of that was great, but my favorite part of this episode is how it takes all of that, and argues for the value of play in engaging with the world. While Gridman spent a lot of time talking about the value of narrative and world-building, this show is immediately differentiating itself by handing four people action figures and toy vehicles and asking them to play with them. Just the visual of them holding their Zord Parts or whatever, it’s magical. This show has spent a lot of time already on the anchors of our past, and that needs to be counterbalanced by showing how fun it can be to see the world like a kid does, even if it’s just for a little while. It’s arguing for toys, and play, and it’s doing it while talking about how we find it easier as we grow up to find less value in the world around us. It’s making things tactile, and I love that.

This thing is winning me over!

[DreamSword]

I liked Yomogi in episode 1, and then episode 2 decided that I shouldn't like him anymore.



Gauma remains a hoot though.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

I liked Yomogi in episode 1, and then episode 2 decided that I shouldn't like him anymore.

Wow, exact opposite reaction from me. (I didn't hate him in Episode 1, but I found him to be less compelling. Turns out that was by design!) Sorry this one didn't work for you.

[Androzani84]

So a bit of an Easter egg is that the radio in Koyomi’s house is playing the theme song to Ultraman R/B, which was sung by the same guy who sang the OP to both SSSS shows.

And in addition to seeing we won’t be just copying the individual component combinations from Gridman wholesale with DynaWing form a backpack instead of a chest plate, we also meet our bad guys for the season, with the Kaiju Eugenicists. Only two of them talk here, but both have been in other Toku.

Juuga (no, not George Karizaki. The smart dressed man in a white coat and glasses) is voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya, who was also the Ghost Imagin/Kamen Roder Yuuki Skull Form in Farewell Den-O, Shou Ronpo/Ryu Commander in Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger, Baridelo in the Geats/Revice movie and Charge Team Captain MadRex/MadRex Fury in Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger.

And Yuma Uchida, the voice of Onija was previously half of the Bujin Riders in the Wizard/Gaim movie and Ultraman Tregear in several Ultra Series instalments, but most notably Ultraman Taiga. He’s also the younger brother of Maya Uchida, who sings the ED songs for the SSSS shows.

And as for our monster, his design continues the toku theme of the franchise’s monsters by looking like he was cannibalised from Anti and his name Greyjhom continues the psychology theme by being a reference to the grey zone concept.

[Frontier]

I like how Dyna Soldier gets a Rise Sequence.

Also the female Kaiju Eugenicist here because there's a contractual obligation for at least one character in a Gridman anime to have killer thighs.

[Fish Sandwich]

This episode is probably at least as special to me as that Gridman finale, which means I also wouldn't really know how to properly articulate why right now. Suffice it to say the emotional intimacy of it really pulled me into the characters, which allowed me to appreciate the smart construction, and I was totally sold on the show from that point on.

As for *something* a little more specific, I'll choose to note here how much fun it is how the start of this one immediately recontextualizes the fight from the premiere in a way that's not only humorous on the face of it, but also serves a dramatic purpose in how it frames Yomogi's (lack of) proper involvement with the story, setting up the whole rest of the episode. Again, the construction is pretty smart!

Oh, and there's also this that I liked:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Just the visual of them holding their Zord Parts or whatever, it's magical.

I'm sure there's been at least one (and probably several dozen) other animated mecha shows that hit upon similar ideas, but I really adore how live action it feels to literally sell the fantasy of Dynazenon by having its components shrink down to fit in the characters hands, as though the DX toy is being used as props, like Super Sentai has found excuses to do on occasion. I love the way it sparks the imagination to have a scale figure that's also a role-play item at the same time, and it's a very this staff making this show idea to do that in a series aimed at an older audience.

(Plus, I mean, there *was* merchandise aimed at that audience they were already hyping up while these early episodes were airing. Good Smile's DX Dynazenon was actually a huge redemption arc sorta deal after the lukewarm reception to their Full Power Gridman, being of a much higher quality, and based on a design that was actually consciously designed by Tsuyoshi Nonaka to *be* a toy this time, rather than just looking toyetic. Kinda getting into a whole other anecdote now, though!)

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Only two of them talk here, but both have been in other Toku.

Neat! Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frontier

Also the female Kaiju Eugenicist here because there's a contractual obligation for at least one character in a Gridman anime to have killer thighs.

It is a heck of a character design. Nice to see it's warm out in Dynazenon City!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Suffice it to say the emotional intimacy of it really pulled me into the characters, which allowed me to appreciate the smart construction, and I was totally sold on the show from that point on.

I just love how much this episode is Yume pulling Yomogi into the group, which is a) the opposite way a lot of other shows would've gone with it, and b) such a nice way of leveling Yomogi and Yume out after Episode 1. People are complicated, and they don't always meet you halfway, but it doesn't mean that trying to bridge that distance is a waste of time. Sometimes trying to connect with someone makes you more of a person worth connecting with?

[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.DYNAZENON EPISODE 3 - “WHAT IS A TRAITOR?”



A nicely goofy, mostly ridiculous episode, one that foregrounds the same tricky new relationships of the previous team-building episode, but flips things around by interrogating Gauma’s weird reluctance to talk about his former friends, the Kaiju Eugenicists.

That’s my favorite part, throughout this episode: it’s just New Friends vs Old Friends. Whatever cataclysmic terror the Kaiju Eugenicists (and the kaiju themselves) have represented in the past is largely subsumed into this episode’s sunny idiocy, where Juuga’s just like Hey Man Why Are We Fighting When You Don’t Even Know Me to one of the giant robot pilots who’ve thwarted his immaculately-dressed team’s plans, and Gauma’s big secret can incorrectly-but-hysterically be boiled to down He’s Got To See About A Girl. It’s a bright and sort of dumb episode, in the way that the Gridman Universe’s mixture of underreaction and overreaction excels at.

There’s a whole scene of Koyomi running into Yomogi’s boss! It’s just a meet-cute (or reunion-cute, since they went to school together) and it may or my not portend anything major for the plot (Gauma’s mystery woman?!?!), but it’s warm and sweet and just letting you know what kind of guy Koyomi is. (He did not realize he was the "responsible adult” of the group! And he’s so crestfallen when he learns that even Gauma has a job!) This episode does its main job – great big fight against a kaiju – while still providing a mountain of cute moments to fill out its world.

Getting back to the main plot, though, I really love how heated and goofy it was. Gridman played the Akane/Alexis stuff first for terror in its indifferent sadism, and then for terror in its brutal self-negation. Dynazenon latches onto Gauma as the focal point for an antagonist group, which means the Kaiju Eugenicists are a nearly unintelligible collection of puffed-up bullies, laconic beauties, and well-mannered conversationalists. (Also, one of them has a hat!) Getting to know them both personalizes the struggle, by giving them history with Gauma, and heightens it into metaphor, because they’re pissed with each other in such a childish, chaotic way. This is not a bold stratagem pursued with precision, they just hate this guy for burning them, and he hates them right back. It’s the friend group thing of trying to figure out if the guy in your group is toxic, or if his old friends are toxic and he just escaped them. I think that’s sort of a universal adolescent thing? People moving between groups, and needing to figure out how to frame their history in a way that explains their actions? It’s easy to want to just reinvent yourself, but as Dynazenon is fond of reminding us, even 5000 years can’t let us escape the consequences of our past.

It all leads to a rousing combination sequence, a space battle, a rousing transformation sequence, and the possibility that that the Kaiju Eugenicists could resurrect Yume’s late sister. Because what could go wrong with letting the past catch up to us?

[DreamSword]

The Kaiju Eugenicists have been actively blowing things up and likely killing people en mass.

"But are they REALLY the bad guys, though?"

This episode annoyed me.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

"But are they REALLY the bad guys, though?"

I don't know if that's how I'd characterize it? The Dynazenon Alliance (sans a crab-obsessed Gauma) pretty clearly doesn't trust the K.E., but they also can't trust a Gauma who refuses to talk about why he abandoned them, and especially one who won't fight for the same reasons the three of them do. The three other pilots aren't letting the K.E. off of the hook -- they drop what they're doing to stop their kaiju rampage, even if "ditching gym" is not the hardest sell to high school students -- they just need more honesty from a guy they're letting lead them into battle.

(Even the chatting scene between Yomogi and Juuga... like, he's not joining Juuga's team or nothing, he's just trying to understand exactly what he's in the middle of.)