SSSS.Dynazenon - Capitalizing Its Own Weakness

You know the drill, it’s Trigger, and it’s another SSSS.whatever series, so expect what to be expected: Mecha, Kaiju, some juvenile non-sense, and of course, unclear narratives is on the menu.

However, I must say that while there are quite a considerable amount of flaws leaving their traces all around the entire anime, Trigger sure has stepped up their game in terms of “deflecting” the problem and instead leveraging its own shortcoming to become something more entertaining than it looks. Throughout the anime (at least till this point, episode 11), I have noticed a pretty distinct pattern, and it’s quite intriguing, to say the least.

Anyway, to put it bluntly, Dynazenon will shower you with all of the Trigger-like material that you can ever think of. The plot is messy and there’s no solid structure to it. Awkward cut to create cheap suspense (feel like they’re not even trying lmao) is the norm in this series. And while world-building isn’t bad, the lack of exposition is clearly the biggest issue I’ve had with this anime.

Like, for one moment, shit happens, the next one, they immediately switch to resolution without any explanation whatsoever, thus leaving me with more annoyance than enjoyment overall. In other words, it feels extremely convoluted and half-assedly done.

They don’t even seem to have a clear idea of what they are doing or presenting. Regarding the cast, they do get some “development”, but so far, none of the focus makes much sense nor holds substantial value even when combined together, it’s kind of a giant mess of incoherency.

That being said, whether it was intentional or not, I find most of the conversation-oriented moments of Dynazenon much more engaging than they appear to be AND (sadly) all of the mumble-jumble about Kaiju (which is supposed to be the main focus of the show).

When I say this anime has good conversations, it does not mean that there are mind-blowing 2deep4u talks whatsoever in the show. If anything, it’s the complete opposite, just very, very ordinary dialogues, or, occasionally, bs/pretentious stuff even lol.

Instead, the main selling point of this element lies in the neat execution delivered by Trigger, combined with the setting of Dynazenon which somehow blends in so well with the “air” of this show.

To be more specific, while watching this anime, oft time I would find myself being engulfed in a weird sense of isolation or boxed-up feeling (which unironically reflects the global state of 2021 lel) as the characters casually deliver their heart-to-heart convos or just basic daily activities.

Like, while everything in this series seems to be moving distinctly when observed from the oddly established setting, there seems to exist an immensely powerful sense of mystery that lingers around.

The Kaiju matter might be non-sensical, and the action has a repetitive pattern, but then, something feels off. You understand what they are doing, even though it’s absurd, even though they all seem to have a purpose and goal here, but again, something is missing, and there’s this strange emptiness that resides within some particularly special shots of the show.

And with all of those elements mentioned above, this is exactly why most of the conversation in Dynazenon works so well, at least to me. With Trigger’s tendency of cutting corners and leaving long pauses in-between of certain scenes, on top of the absolute absence of dynamic sound effects or any extra music, they all align to create a complete picture that depicts a semi-mysterious (or just quiet) world of Dynazenon, which can get rather oddly satisfying and a bit unnerving.

Apart from that, character expressions/gestures, in general, are pretty well handled, whether by clever angles or quick cuts which tend to emphasize the focus of the dialogue, leaving no room for boredom to arise, regardless of how lengthy a talk can be.

So yeah, again, I don’t know for sure if this was planned by Trigger (or dumb luck😂), and maybe many people would find all of these dull or meaningless (which is true), but the end result is that I still managed to crank up some enjoyment out of this weird card of Spring 2021, so it might not be too bad of an anime experience overall.

P/S: in case you’re curious, best girl to me is Mujina (but Yume isn’t bad at all).