WARNING: The following contains spoilers for SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon, both of which are now streaming on Funimation.
The brand new SSSS.Dynazenon has been praised for its fantastic early episodes, with many saying that it's laying the foundation for something great. However, the fact that the show shares a world with SSSS.Gridman has many others speculating that something strange could be afoot. So, here is everything you need to know about the Gridman world and what it could mean for Dynazenon.
SSSS.Gridman was a reboot of the classic tokusatsu series Denkou Choujin Gridman (localized as Gridman the Hyper Agent) that only ran for a single year in the early '90s. It followed interdimensional police officer Gridman as he works with a group of kids to stop evil monsters from the computer world.
SSSS.Gridman follows Yūta Hibiki, a first-year high-school student. Yūta has amnesia and can't seem to remember anything about himself or his past. One day Rikka Takarada, another first-year student, finds him outside her house, and Yūta feels a strange attraction to an old computer that tells him to remember his purpose. When kaiju attack the city, Yūta goes into the computer and fuses with Gridman, allowing the giant robot to fight in the real world. But once the kaiju is down, things get stranger, as no one else can remember the monsters. Meanwhile, anyone killed by a kaiju seems to have been erased from history.
Desperate to get to the bottom of this mystery, Yūta forms the Gridman Alliance with Rikka and another student called Shō Utsumi. However, they soon find that another group of students, called Neon Genesis Junior High Students, also know about Gridman. These students are Hyper Agents who are fragments of Gridman. They can turn into assist weapons that fuse with Gridman, giving him new powers and abilities that allow him to fight kaiju.
The ending of the show is something to behold, and it raises questions about SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon. Prepare yourself for spoilers but, as the show progresses, it is revealed that Yūta's classmate, Akane Shinjō, is the one creating the monsters, while a being called Alexis Kerib is working with her to bring them to life. It also turns out that this world isn't the real world, but a Computer World created by Akane to escape her problems. Everyone in it is a counterpart of someone in the real world.
In the final episode, Akane and Alexis are defeated, thanks in part to Anti -- a monster created by Akane that is trying to atone for what it had done. After this, Akane returns to the real world, Gridman returns to the Hyper World and Yūta and his friends stay in the Computer World. But post-credits viewers were treated to a live-action segment, showing Akane waking up in the real world.
This episode also revealed that the 'SSSS' part of the name stands for "Special Signature to Save a Soul," referencing what the Gridman alliance is doing for Akane by allowing her to face her problems in the real world. The final episode also revealed that the show is part of the same continuity as the original Denkou Choujin Gridman (though this was made slightly unclear by Crunchyroll's subtitles being slightly off).
SSSS.Dynazenon's first episodes have fans excited about what is to come. And if SSSS.Gridman is any indication, viewers may quickly find that not everything is as it seems. Could this be another digital world? If so, are Yūta and his friends here? And will Akane and the live-action world of the post-credits sting make a reappearance? If the new show is as good as SSSS.Gridman, fans are in for a wild ride.
