Tag Archives: ssss.dynazenon

Don’t Let Them Limit You: Gridman Universe

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It’s amazing to see what Gridman has become. Thanks to Studio Trigger’s SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon, we’ve had a franchise revival that’s a love letter to its origins as a 90s tokusatsu series (Gridman the Hyper Agent) while telling new and interesting stories. As someone who loved Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad as a kid (and always feels a little giddy at the inclusion of “SSSS” in Trigger’s anime titles), it feels great. So of course I’d want to see the latest movie, Gridman Universe, which promised from the start to bring together the characters of both SSSS series.

I had to wonder about one issue, however: While SSSS.Dynazeon is a “sequel,” it was never clear how exactly the two series connect. In fact, the finale of SSSS.Gridman makes fully reconciling it with other works seem impossible. Well, the movie does address this discrepancy, and the solution is both obvious in hindsight while still being fairly elegant, but it’s ultimately a less important factor. 

Gridman Universe is a compelling work whose success has little to do with considerations for “canon” and “lore.” In fact, it almost entirely eschews those elements. Rather than focus on them, it foregrounds three aspects in particular that have become the soul of the franchise in more recent times. First, there’s the characters, whose stories of healing are bolstered by how natural they feel, to the point that they sometimes don’t sound like anime characters. Second, there’s the sense of play that comes from its tokusatsu roots: endless transformations and awesome fight scenes, but also being vehicles for imagination and wonder. Third, there’s the Gridman name itself as a concept, brand, and source of nostalgia.

The movie begins with two of the characters trying to write a play for their school festival about Gridman. Takarada Rikka and Utsumi Sho are the the only ones left who remember the events of SSSS.Gridman—namely that monsters kept attacking the city, only to be defeated by the giant hero Gridman, and that series antagonist Shinjo Akane was actually an IRL human who created their very world as a way to deal with personal trauma. Rikka wants more than anything to tell everyone about Akane, while Sho is a tokusatsu fanboy who prioritizes monster fighting and cool action. In that contrast alone, the first two aspects of Gridman are evident. The problem is that their classmates keep rejecting their scripts because they think it’s too unrealistic and far-fetched, particularly the story of Akane as the forgotten “god” of their world. 

The third element comes into the spotlight through the character Hibiki Yuta, the very guy who merges with the entity known as Gridman to fight. Despite being the “hero,” he has no memories of what transpired, and only knows because Rikka and Sho have told him. This movie is actually the first time we really see Yuta’s true personality, because the ending of SSSS.Gridman reveals that Gridman had actually taken over Yuta’s body during that time. His own story involves not only trying to confess his feelings for Akane that were delayed due to that amnesia, but trying to see if his importance was reduced to just being a vessel for Gridman.

When the monsters start attacking again, Gridman returns, followed by Dynazenon characters and more as worlds collide. These events all contribute to the push-and-pull that exists between the characters’ goals for their play and in Gridman Universe as a whole. Not only does having everyone together mean more opportunities to see cool crossover moments, but paths open up to address unresolved emotions of all kinds, see how the cast of one show responds to the character dynamics in the other, and even bring in unexpected figures and reveals whose presences take the film even further into the territory of meta-commentary about what’s important to the thing we call Gridman. 

There’s a moment in the film that I think speaks to the core of Studio Trigger’s Gridman works, where a villain talks about knowing everything that the heroes are capable of, and can thus predict everything they do with ease. The heroes respond by basically just devising random new ideas on the spot, trying out every different combination sequence they can think of, as if they’re the toys of kids who are playing pretend and just making stuff up as they go along. While this scene most obviously connects to the tokusatsu side, it also carries the drama and the brand by being the culmination of Rikka’s hopes and Yuta’s self-reflection.

I actually had a chance to watch Gridman Universe a few years ago, but I wasn’t able to. While I wish the wait hadn’t been quite so long, I’m glad that it’s available to watch now. Gridman Universe is a brilliant movie that merges many seemingly disparate parts into a harmonious whole that really encourages viewers to think about how they engage with their favorite works, all while celebrating the simple fun and creativity that comes from the franchise itself, the creators who help bring it to life, and the fans who elevate it.

Play Therapy: SSSS.Dynazenon

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The first thing to know about SSSS.Dynazenon is that you don’t need to have watched any of the prequels to get into SSSS.Dynazenon. Sure, its name implies a connection to 2018’s SSSS.Gridman, which is itself a sequel of sorts to the 1993 live-action Gridman the Hyper Agent. Even so, SSSS.Dynazenon is an insightful anime that stands on its own merits. 

The story of SSSS.Dynazenon follows a teenage boy named Asanaka Yomogi. After encountering an eccentric guy named Gauma claiming to be a kaiju user, his city is attacked by actual kaiju. Gauma is able to call upon a giant robot named Dynazenon, and Yomogi (as well as a few others) end up becoming Gauma’s copilots. With a different part of Dynazenon in each of their hands in the form of toys, they battle a group known as the Kaiju Eugenicists, who have the ability to control kaiju by bending them to their will. 

One question to ask when looking at many tokusatsu and mecha series is how much the characters’ primary motivations tie into the larger overarching plot and setting. In Gundam, for example, the connection is usually extremely strong—protagonists like Amuro Ray are thrust into the middle of long and painful wars whose physical and mental scars are the primary driving force of these narratives. Evangelion takes a different approach, forefronting the existing psychologies of its characters and using its science fictional setting as a means to explore their traumas. With respect to that dynamic, SSSS.Dynazenon falls a little more towards the Eva side, but goes its own direction.

SSSS.Dynazenon has a grounded feel that highlights both its characters’ personal histories and how their current circumstances as impromptu heroes impacts their views.  As Yomogi and the others battle, they’re forced to confront their own unique fears and values. Yomogi is trying to cope with his parents’ divorce and his mom’s new boyfriend. Minami Yume, one of Yomogi’s classmates, is emotionally distant ever since the mysterious death of her sister. Yamanaka Koyomi is a NEET in his 30s who constantly regrets not making certain decisions in his life (particularly a romantic one) that could have brought him down a different path. Koyomi’s younger cousin, Asukagawa Chise, refuses to attend school. Gauma searches for his past, explaining to the others that he’s actually thousands of years old.

While it can seem as if the fantastical elements are just a flimsy backdrop to the human drama at play, that’s not the case. Rather, one of the key strengths of SSSS.Dynazenon is the way that feeling both the added responsibility and thrill of fighting kaiju reshapes or reinforces their priorities and core beliefs. The fact that they carry around their respective vehicles like toys before growing them to giant size also makes me feel that there’s a link between the childish notion of “playing with toys” as a way to engage with the world and connect with others. In that respect, the antagonists of SSSS.Dynazenon, the Kaiju Eugenicists, seem to also have their own hang-ups but engage with them in less healthy ways.

SSSS.Dynazenon is also different enough from its predecessors that those who didn’t enjoy Gridman the Hyper Agent or SSSS.Gridman might resonate with this series. In particular, its characters are portrayed in a more subdued manner than SSSS.Gridman, where the central female characters, Rikka and Akane, cast a long shadow and often stole the spotlight through their sensual portrayals and powerful yuri energy.

Though I say that knowing the prequels is unnecessary to gain something from SSSS.Dynazenon, that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to have been a fan. Using my personal experience as an example, I came to the series cognizant of the fact that “Dyna” and “Zenon” are references to support robots from the original Gridman due to having watched Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad (the Power Rangers-esque adaptation of Gridman the Hyper Agent), and later found myself excited over some mid-series character arrivals that call back to SSSS.Gridman. The key is that while the series does reward those with prior knowledge, it doesn’t punish those who are new and unfamiliar. 

SSSS.Dynazenon hints at ties to the prior series in everything from the title of the show to the character Gauma himself. However, unlike with SSSS.Gridman, the mystery of what exactly is going on is less of a core element and more an added bonus for existing fans of either one or both previous series. The core story—one of friendship and growth—remains.