AKA: ダンダダン

Genre: Fantasy/Action/Romance/Comedy

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each

Distributor: Currently licensed by GKids, available streaming on Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu.

Content Rating: 16+ (Violence, mature themes, sexual organs as subject matter.)

Related Series: Dan Da Dan: First Encounter (anime movie, 2024)

Also Recommended: Kill la Kill; Dark Gathering; Mysterious Disappearances; The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Notes: Based on manga by Yukinobu Tatsu, published on Shueisha's Shonen Jump + app

Rating:

Dan Da Dan

Synopsis

After a breakup from a jerk "boyfriend", Momo Ayase spends a moment with a social outcast boy (his name is Ken Takakura, but he's never called that again in Momo's presence, at her insistence.) They get into a dispute about the occult- he believes in UFOs but not ghosts/yokai, while her beliefs are the exact opposite- and they challenge each other to go to places supposedly frequented by the objects of their particular beliefs. And it seems that the answer to the question of whose beliefs are correct might be, "Why not both?"

Review

Some say this was the best anime of Fall 2024, and they might be right- though I thought the Fall 2024 season rather weak, sorely afflicted by Isekai-itis as many previous seasons have been. I'll concede this was certainly the flashiest show, and seems to have been carried on more platforms than most shows.

Of all the anime I've seen, I'd say that large chunks of Dan Da Dan most resemble the rather similarly titled Kill la Kill, especially the battle scenes: in both shows, they're manic, surreal, often incomprehensible, and frequently injected with puerile humor. (Here we get an ode to salarymen in the midst of a deadly struggle.) I'd also note that Dan Da Dan's school nurse (and dominatrix) "Queen Sensei" would have fit seamlessly into the Kill la Kill universe.

But Dan Da Dan is a series that tries for many moods- even heartstring tugging (in the backstory of a yokai called Acrobatic Silky.)

There's also a rather conventional anime romance in here, between Momo and "Okarun". (Momo calls him that because his real name, Ken Takakura, happens to also be the name of an actor she idolizes, and I guess she can't psychologically process connecting that macho star with this nerdy, timid kid with self esteem issues- despite his strong sense of ethics, and his growing loyalty to her.) Complicating the issue is that both the aliens (from Planet Serpo), AND a troublesome yokai called Turbo Granny, want to rob our pair of their reproductive organs. The Serpoians call them our "banana organs", but despite that term they're mainly after female (Momo's) reproductive equipment; while Granny robs "Okarun" of all HIS equipment, which only gets recovered in a piecemeal fashion. (Reclaiming his family jewels becomes an important quest for both Momo and Okarun, despite her finding his plight hilarious at one point. I couldn't forgive her for that; many of us guys harbor Freudian terror about things like that.)

As noted, there's a somewhat conventional growing relationship between Momo and Okarun, which means we'll have the usual obstacles: they quarrel a lot, have many misunderstandings, and, of course, a rival emerges for each of their affections. Momo's rival is a girl named Aira Shiratori. Aira originally seems just a narcissist, but she eventually goes completely delusional about Momo and Okarun, thinking they're both demons, but nevertheless developing a crush on Okarun. (This makes neither less sense, nor more sense, than anything else in the show.) A rival to Okarun for Momo's attention, named Jin Enjoji, will appear later, but I thought him too much a goofball to be a credible threat (except in his rare serious moments.) He nevertheless ingratiates himself with Momo's "grandmother", named Seiko, by sheer flattery; she keeps responding with this show's favorite catch-phrase compliment, "Are you a genius?".

Seiko is pretty bizarre even for THIS show, and that's saying something. Supposedly a "fake" psychic, she looks about 40 years too young to be Momo's grandmother. (Perhaps she learned the age-reversal spell Sumireko used in Mysterious Disappearances. Oh, ANOTHER thing here that reminded me of THAT show: characters who receive magical powers/transformations via supernatural intervention retain those abilities even when their original source is removed. This helps to make Okarun useful in combat- his changed form is powerful, lightning-quick, but a bit toothy, and given to grousing. Momo didn't need a physical transformation, just an awakening of her latent psychic abilities. This is just as well, since the physically-transformed folks have appearances resembling a cross between the spectres in Dark Gathering and the monsters in Kaiju #8.)

That little diversion kept me from finishing my description of Seiko: besides looking WAY too young, she wears what seems to be a corset for loungewear, and has THE most extreme example of an upswept hairdo I've ever seen. And while Momo may have been skeptical about the existence of aliens, Seiko takes it to the extreme of literally denying what's in front of her. She's irascible, and somewhat sadistic (though her paper fan is probably not as painful as Queen Sensei's whip.) Okarun says at one point, of Momo and Seiko, " This family is insane!", and he may have a point.

Still, Momo, despite possible insanity, has some wonderful one-line quips, and the show does a good job with depicting the tentative approaches Momo and Okarun make to each other. (I read somewhere that the manga author did extensive reading of shojo manga to get it right.) Momo is pragmatic, sarcastic, and somewhat short-tempered; but there is a gentleness in her (even if she usually tries to hide it.) When she breaks up with the obnoxious suitor at the beginning of the show, she declares that she will "find my own Ken Takakura"; she just doesn't realize that she's finally DONE so, name and all.

There were some pickable nits here:

-Okarun's glasses seem to be self-healing. (I think this was around Ep. 2.)

-At approximately that same point, the "sumo alien" is dealt with using a spell against yokai. In fairness, muddying the distinction between aliens and yokai seems to be one of the show's (and Okarun's in particular) missions.

-Momo's instruction to "strip down" to reduce water resistance seems to have not included HER OWN shoes and baggy socks. (THAT battle's taking place in an "enclosed space" made me think of Haruhi, so I added her show to the Recs. That one could get pretty random too, you know.)

- I didn't particularly care for the show's hip-hoppy OP, though I suppose its weird, frenetic vibe fits this well enough.

The show's Second Season has been announced, but you're gonna want to find out what happens after the Season One end a lot sooner than that. Trust me.

To some degree, I had the same feeling here I had with the similarly hyped Chainsaw Man: the show's not necessarily my own preference (I prefer a more serious show with a little more real plot structure), though you have to admire its sheer energy and creativity, no matter how chaotic and deeply silly it gets (and boy, does it.) But HERE, I really DID like the developing chemistry between Momo and Okarun, and was eventually watching it mainly for that. (Note: in anime relationships, fealty is apparently expected long before any formal confessions.) If you put your mind on hold, Dan Da Dan is mostly a fun ride. — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Crunchy says 16+. The search for Okarun's missing genitals becomes a quest in the show, though when you DO see one piece of those, it's been magically transformed, so no visual offenses committed here. Momo's down to bra-and-panties twice (well, AND socks-and-shoes); and Aira is once, though Momo's dismissive (with a marvelous line!) of anyone's interest in HER. Momo's reproductive organs are also threatened with some wicked-looking mechanical apparatus. So violence, fanservice, sexual innuendo, and threatened sexual violence.