This episode reminds me greatly of the ninth episode in SSSS.GRIDMAN (my favorite one in the previous series), in which the monster of the week traps the Gridman Alliance in a bunch of dreams where they experience past events differently. The context in DYNAZENON’s version is slightly different. Rather than put people to sleep, the kaiju seemingly erases people from the plane of existence, leaving only their shadow behind. Instead of dreaming, the people who get caught by the kaiju are trapped in their own memories.
Pretty much the entire main cast gets trapped here, including the Kaiju Eugenicists. The only exceptions are Yomogi, Chise, and the Second. Goldburn protects Chise and the Second from getting deleted (I guess that’s a thing it can do now) while Yomogi ventures into the kaiju to rescue his friends. I really like that Yomogi does the heavy lifting. In GRIDMAN, the Gridman Alliance escapes their dreams simply by realizing that they’re each in a dream. That’s fine though I can’t deny that they got lucky there and it left all their allies with little to do other than wait (or in Anti’s case, hit the kaiju in vain). I suppose this issue is still present in the DYNAZENON variant but it is mitigated by having someone actively trying to break everyone free.
The ninth episode of GRIDMAN had some really great direction that conveyed the eeriness of its plot and the same can be said in this episode of DYNAZENON. One particular cue that it seems to borrow from GRIDMAN is that Yomogi’s friends initially can’t see him and we see him appearing only in reflective surfaces, similar to Gridman’s appearances in the dream scenes. DYNAZENON adds a neat spin on it by having Yomogi physically break through the barrier like it’s made out of glass, which Gridman did not do (he instead just waited for everyone to snap out of it and that does sound lame by comparison). My favorite bit of direction however would have to be when the kaiju “deletes” everyone. There’s no effect for when the characters poof out of existence. The show just cuts to a frame where they’re no longer present, sometimes in the middle of their dialogue, and then it cuts to their silhouette. It feels very ominous when it happens, especially in rapid succession.
In GRIDMAN, Akane interjected herself into the heroes’ dreams, setting their “programming” back to what she intended. Yuta, Rikka, and Utsumi all reject the dream and by extension, Akane’s attempt at friendship and her delusions. The scenario was really less about the Gridman Alliance and more about Akane. By comparison, DYNAZENON’s take is a bit more interpersonal. Yume relives the last few days she spent when Kano was alive. Koyomi returns to that day Inamoto asked him to run away with her. Gauma returns to 5,000 years when he’s part of the Kaiju Eugenicists. Knight literally gets trapped in episodes of GRIDMAN. These scenarios are very much about its respective character.
With Yume and Koyomi, the show has them explore alternate routes in their past. With encouragement from Yomogi, Yume confronts Kano the day she’s supposed to die and has a heart-to-heart with her about her being suicidal and their relationship with one another. Koyomi meanwhile decides to follow through with running away with Inamoto, resulting in the two losing all of their money and Koyomi realizing that this is not the life he wants.
I’m not sure how I feel about Yume talking to Kano directly. If the Kano here isn’t the real one, is she necessarily telling the truth that she isn’t suicidal? Is her death truly accidental and all the stuff with the pranking and Futaba is just coincidental? Did she really care about Yume and she just couldn’t figure out how to express it? Or, is all of this what Yume wants to hear and not necessarily the truth? I just don’t know if the Kano presented here is that reliable of a source. I suppose however that Yume has to draw her own conclusion from her research anyway. And regardless of if this Kano is real or not, being able to interact with her one more time helps Yume obtain closure over her death.
As for Koyomi’s alternate history, I find it plausible that he and Inamoto would run out of money and that the latter would not care. From the few flashbacks we’ve gotten, Inamoto was a troublemaker so it would not surprise me if she only cared about living in the moment. Really, Koyomi’s decision to run away from Inamoto did her a favor as she straightened her life after that. And had Koyomi gone this route, his life would either be similar to the one he has right now or worse. It simply wouldn’t work out and that’s the realization Koyomi needs in order to fully let go of his lingering feelings towards his old crush.
Knight’s scenario is sparsely shown. I suppose that’s fair considering that there exists a 12 episode anime depicting this character’s origin story and you most likely watched it before getting to this series. Upon getting rescued, Knight claims he didn’t need any help. That’s admittedly typical behavior for him but he may be right about that. Everything that transpired in GRIDMAN is what led to Knight developing a sense of humanity and his identity as Gridknight. He probably isn’t fixated on what could have happened instead and likewise, he wouldn’t change anything in his past.
By far the most frustrating scenario is Gauma’s. We briefly get to see him be buddies with the Kaiju Eugenicists and the very bloody aftermath of his betrayal. Other than that, we really don’t learn anything new here. I thought this might reveal the identity of the “Princess”, the one Gauma is trying to find but the one time the girl appears, her face is obscured. Simply put, there’s a lack of new information and that puts Gauma’s memory scenes to waste. Still, there’s only two episodes left. The show has to reveal something…right?
Something that I have to wonder is what happened to the Kaiju Eugenicists. As mentioned earlier, they get trapped alongside most of Dynazenon team and the Gridknight Alliance. Oddly enough, we don’t see any of their memories and the episode doesn’t explicitly reveal what happens to them after Kaiser Gridknight kicks the kaiju’s butt. The Second mentions that everything will go back to normal once the kaiju is dead so I guess the simple solution is to assume that this extends to the Kaiju Eugenicists. Still, it’s weird how they’re not all that prevalent in the episode. We don’t even get Onija waking up and thinking he almost died (which the show stopped doing, much to my chagrin).
I think this episode is overall my favorite one in DYNAZENON so far though that does feel a bit awkward to say considering that it is very similar to my favorite episode in GRIDMAN and this is not the first time DYNAZENON has taken cues from its predecessors. To be fair, the similarity isn’t used to make a cheap callback or anything and it manages to add its own spin to the concept so I guess I’m okay with it.
Watch SSSS.DYNAZENON on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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