The monster of the week is this little deformed creature that can magically paint over things. Sizumu comes across it first but dismisses it. Gauma learns of the kaiju when he gets magic paint on his face and he rallies the team in locating it.
We see a little bit of the usual plot threads before Gauma calls his team. Last episode, Yume found out about another person connected to Kano named Futaba. Unfortunately, Futaba has moved out of his last known residence so for this episode, Yume is at a dead end. Meanwhile, Koyomi is still thinking about Inamoto despite cutting ties with her. In a new flashback, we see Inamoto showing Koyomi a bag of money she found and asking him to run away with her. Koyomi instead runs off in fear, making the moment a massive what-if in his life. That helps explain why Koyomi is so hung up on Inamoto but the poor guy really needs to move on.
Eventually, Yomogi and Yume find and capture the kaiju. Gauma prepares to put it out of its misery (and to be honest, the kaiju does look like it wants to die) but his friends talk him out of it since the kaiju is small and harmless. I’m not saying the show shouldn’t explore the ethics of killing kaiju but we are two thirds in. It seems a bit late for the characters to second guess. SSSS.Gridman explored this a little bit though it was at the third episode and that early on, it made sense for Yuta to hesitate on fighting Anti.
The Gridknight Alliance show up to discuss with the Dynazenon team on what to do with the kaiju. The Second reiterates what Sizumu explained earlier in the show, that kaiju are born out of human emotions. She then adds onto this tidbit by explaining that the kaiju is currently harmless because it is “incomplete”, presumably due to its human “creator” being “incomplete” as well. Eventually however, the kaiju will grow and become a threat so the Second recommends killing it before that happens. A really humorous moment in this scene is when Gauma asks how the Alliance knows so much about kaiju and both Knight and the Second are completely silent. The only way this could be funnier is if one of them whistled.
Honestly, the fact that the Alliance is comprised of kaiju makes you wonder why they have no qualms with fighting and killing what is technically members of their kind. Knight did fight a couple kaiju back in SSSS.Gridman but that could be chalked up to them getting in the way of his vendetta against Gridman and it doesn’t explain why he’s hunting kaiju now. My guess is that they identify more as humans than kaiju and/or the danger kaiju poses is enough justification to stop them.
Despite the Second’s recommendation, the Dynazenon team decides to spare the kaiju. In doing so however, the monster grows into enormous and it begins to run amok. Gauma and Koyomi fend it off first, with Koyomi display some newfound care to his surroundings. I assume this stems from the scene in the last episode when Koyomi found Inamoto’s husband in the wreckage. Yume gets trapped and she briefly loses Dyna Wing. Knight offers to team up with Yomogi, allowing Dyna Soldier to assume a new and really cool weapon mode called Dynamic Cannon for Gridknight to use. I really like the dilemma Yomogi has during the fight. After the talk with his team and the Gridknight Alliance, Yomogi is hesitant to kill the kaiju. However, the kaiju narrows in on the mall where Yume is trapped so if Yomogi doesn’t fire in time, Yume and the others in the mall will die.
Earlier in the episode, Gauma tries to control the kaiju so that it’s less likely to cause trouble. When his Kaiju related abilities fail to manifest, the others decide to copy Gauma for fun. Surprisingly however, Yomogi manages to get a reaction out of the kaiju. During the fight, Yomogi tries again and he gets a more pronounced mental link with it but it’s not strong enough to control the kaiju from attacking the mall. There’s two possibilities to this. One is simply that Yomogi is developing Kaiju User abilities. The other, and this might actually be more likely, is that Yomogi was able to get a reaction out of the kaiju because it’s his kaiju. As mentioned before, kaiju are born from human emotions so it’s entirely possible that any of our heroes might inadvertently create kaiju. The Second also said the human creator for the monster of the week might be “incomplete”, as in the creator is still developing as a person. Given Yomogi’s age and his budding relationship with Yume, it’s plausible for him to fit the bill. This might be a stretch but it’s possible that the kaiju is subconsciously doing something for Yomogi. Yomogi wants Yume to reciprocates his feelings towards her and the kaiju just so happens to close in on where Yume is, giving Yomogi the opportunity to save Yume’s life. It even ends with Yume warming up to Yomogi and asking him to hang out with her. It’s a hunch but all the signs do point towards the kaiju being connected to Yomogi.
When Yomogi tries to control the kaiju for the second time, the show briefly shows what looks like some sort of seed inside the kaiju. I neglected to mention this, because it admittedly didn’t seem all that important, but earlier in the show, Chise comes across a similar looking seed. The implication from this episode is that human emotions create the seeds and then kaiju are born out of it. If that’s the case however, I’m worried about Chise having a seed in her possession. Is she eventually going to create a kaiju? Admittedly, this would give Chise something to do. Poor girl is still a benchwarmer for the team so I’ve been wondering what the show has in store for her.
As for the Kaiju Eugenicists, they’re hilariously absent from the battle and they instead spend the day at a recreational center and a movie theater. Can anyone picture Akane doing this is in SSSS.Gridman. I certainly can’t. I do find it interesting that Sizumu is the one leading this hangout and he doesn’t bring up the kaiju to any of his teammates. That makes me wonder if he is deliberately dismissing the kaiju and preventing his team from using it. But would he do that? Maybe he thinks the kaiju isn’t particularly useful at first glance and he doesn’t realize its potential until after it’s defeated. Another possibility, though this is a stretch, is that he might have figured out that the kaiju is related to Yomogi and he didn’t want the team to meddle with it.
Watch SSSS.DYNAZENON on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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