Dan da Dan is a diamond in the rough, as so far this decade, most anime released have been generally underwhelming – a sea of constant adaptations bombarding us. There’s too much anime being made, not to mention conditions of workers and animators are notoriously terrible. For many, they’re being underpaid to draw over-the-top action scenes with no plot or creating love stories that are just so grossly made to be a perverted fantasy of reality, or even worse…an isekai into a fantasy RPG. One could say like with much of the media in this current landscape, we are in our slop era of anime, and it doesn’t help that the US is racing to produce anime, with many big studios producing slightly more detailed action cartoons in Georgia to falsely market it as anime. But, in comes this adaptation of a little manga called Dan da Dan to show the world something audiences haven’t seen in a couple years – something like Mob Psycho 100 – and it’s what happens when a studio that has the time and budget gets to draw a story they actually love and appreciate.
What is Dan da Dan? The show is an action-romance anime about 2 awkward high schoolers falling in love in the most wild scenario. There’s boy named Ken Takakura, nicknamed Okarun…who’s an awkward, off-putting nerd and has an obsession with aliens, and a girl named Momo Ayase, who believes ghosts exist, as her grandma is a professional exorcist. One day, Momo tries to make friends with Okarun, and they challenge each other to prove what they believe is true. Momo makes Okarun go into a tunnel where a yokai claimed to live and Momo goes to a building where there was an alleged alien sighting only to find out…they’re both right. Okarun is possessed by the yokai, Turbo Granny, and Momo is abducted by aliens and awakens her psychic powers.
The studio behind this show is Science Saru Inc, a multicultural Japanese animation studio who hires a diverse talent pool and started off as a subcontractor for Adventure Time episodes and the anime adaptation for Ping Pong: The Animation. You also might know them as the team who made the Devilman Crybaby anime, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and one of my personal favorites, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!. They’re not Mappa Studio levels of fame because they don’t make isekais, or shonen battle anime; they have an eclectic library of shows, making them the right fit for Dan da Dan.
During the start of the season, Momo’s cliffhanger is immediately resolved by her fending off the grey-skinned men (with the help of Turbo Granny’s good luck) causing the building to fall on them. After that, she makes her escape and investigates the local spirits of the town. Jiji’s and Okarun’s arc resolves around their new neighbors entering Jiji’s house, as they turn out to be its true owners: more grey-skinned beings called the Kirta Clan. While there isn’t a big point to be made here, it’s still annoying that we waited months for this week “cliffhanger” from Season 1, only for it to be resolved in about 2 minutes with the debut of this new season.
What then happens is a rising scale of too much happening. The gray men who attack Momo visit Jiji’s house afterwards, serving as the muscle for the Kirta Clan. They’ve been using Jiji’s new home as a location to sacrifice people, as they believe for the past 100 years that they are appeasing the serpent god who keeps the volcano inactive. This is why Jiji’s family moved in for free; they were going to get murdered. Momo concludes there’s no spirits and busts into a house where all cover is blown. At this point you would expect the Kirta clan to be the main villains…but no. We’re about to stack threats like it’s a Lego set.
When Jiji and Okarun get thrown into the hole, it sinks, so Momo goes to save them. However, Momo causes everyone to fall in when trying to save the boys. They sink down to a massive mountain-sized hole full of houses (after every sacrifice, the Kirtas bury the house and build a new one). To make things worse, the “Serpent God” appears, and it turns out to be a kaiju sized Mongolian Death Worm, creating one of the most engaging and interesting locations and fights I’ve seen in a shonen anime in a hot minute. The constant changing of different periods of architecture and scenery of past houses as the worm tries to eat them is so visually stunning, with every scene having so much love and attention put into it. A gripe I had with the last season, the monsters being CGI, means nothing now, as this MASSIVE worm is fully 2D animated. For this arc, the animation is 10/10.
The Mongolian Death Worm is a super interesting creature, as it is blind, so in order for it to eat, it emits psychic energy pulses that make all surrounding people wish to kill themselves and once it feels your body drop, it eats you. If it can’t find you underground, it makes little poison wells to make the air toxin so you, again, fall down and it can find you. This now is an increasingly bad situation in which Jiji saves Okarun and Momo for a bit, but the worm is too strong for the Kirta clan, too strong for Momo, and Okarun attempts to kill it, but it can regenerate. So at this point, is the Worm the villain?
NO. It gets worse, and the overall theme of the arc clicks with me with how haphazard it seems. Because after that, a yokai appears and convinces Jiji to find it. The yokai revealed to be the Evil Eye – the first victim of the volcano – and its hatred comes from how humanity let this child suffer when all he wanted to do is play with the other kids his age. Jiji believes he can help and promises to play with him forever, so the main villain of this arc ends up being the Evil Eye possessing Jiji.
I really adore The Evil Eye’s design, and honestly, I like it more as a character and design than Turbo Granny at times. It’s a soccer ball of death inhabited by spirits of hatred that bounces and homes in on you after being kicked, kind of like Doomsday’s eye beams a tiny bit. The 3rd eye is super cool, and it reminds me so much of Pain’s Rinnegan Eyes from Naruto Shippuden, one of my favorite designed villains in anime.
Unfortunately, I will say the pacing of this arc feels really off, as it feels like it’s trying too hard to speed run more and more threats to artificially make the stakes higher and higher. The closure we get with each character is great, but we have some lumps. The Kirta Clan are not interesting AT ALL and they are one of the 3 main villains of the arc. Now, this can be a positive or a negative, as the bouncing around from threat to threat is so fast, the Kirtas are just forgotten for an episode. My enjoyment of them during that episode wasn’t substantially impacted, as there’s no backstory to any of them or any real interesting goal they have other than they tricked a town and perform their sacrifices. There’s some implications that the cops were in on this whole thing, but the plot is too busy adding more and more stakes and villains to the arc’s ever growing roster of antagonists.
While a lot went on this arc and it was kind of a mess of bad things on top of bad things happening to the cast with no breaks, it actually did feel like a good closure for the last season. A lot of narrative themes come around here, good character development, fun new cast members introduced like Jiji and the adorable son of the Dover Demon. The major gripe is that this should have been the final bunch of episodes of season 1. I’m thinking of giving this like a 7/10, Very fun, enjoyable arc but there are much better arcs before and well, after.
EVIL EYE ARC
How do you follow up an action-filled arc with really good character development and fun comedy? You get the next arc of the show, titled The Evil Eye Arc. We pick up after the revelation that Jiji is just Ranma now, so Jiji has to stay at the Ayase estate until The Evil Eye is exorcized from him. Meanwhile, Momo goes to school and asks Okarun and Aira to help by living with her for a bit.
The highlight episode of the entire season, in my opinion, is Episode 8, “You Can Do It Okarun,” where Okarun decides he needs to learn how to punch better to beat the snot out of The Evil Eye for seemingly very machismo and aggressive reasoning and no one wants to help him, so Turbo Granny suggests a way to train him and Aira is nosy and follows. The logic is that Turbo Granny is fast and Okarun has to use that to his advantage instead of brute strength, so after breaking into their school, Turbo Granny summons spirits of dead composers to have Okarun fight at an increased tempo.
If you had “bobblehead versions of Bach and Mozart shooting explosive music notes” on your anime bingo list this year… you’d be correct. Also, why did you write that down? As we come to find out, Okarun doesn’t listen to music, his tempo is bad, and he has a really slow reaction time, causing great difficulty in this training. This becomes one of the most visually stunning episodes, with an incredibly fun action sequence. Aira can dodge every attack but can’t hit the ghost composer, so Okarun needs to pick up the pace, and by the power of heavy metal, Okarun gets a tempo by humming the metal song The Hiyashi plays throughout the fight.
It’s actually insane how weird the fight gets, where it’s to the point there’s kaiju-sized opera singers that Acrobatic Silkie has to swing around like Spider-Man in order to fight them. It’s insane and visually striking. They’re in a painting so everything is grayscale, except the eyes of all the characters, Okarun’s red markings, Aira’s pink hair, and the music note attacks… and it looks so good. It’s probably one of the most fun and creative fight scenes of the year in animation, maybe even so far this decade. And the best part is that this is merely training; Okarun doesn’t get an unearned power-up and win: he’s got to actually learn how to fight, and that’s really refreshing.
All of this hype leads to Okarun challenging the Evil Eye to a fight. It is pretty clear they spent the budget on the music fight instead of this fight, as it’s pretty floaty at times. Some of the punches don’t have a lot of impact, feeling more like a Dragon Ball Z-esque fight scene with people teleporting, doing one frame of a punch, and disappearing. On the flip slide, some of the most impactful hits of the series are also in this fight, so it’s a little mixed.
Also in this arc, Seiko gets her first round of character development, as she is conflicted on trying to be a mother figure to everyone while never showing weakness. As Jiji’s situation gets worse, she has no idea what to do after initially thinking that letting Jiji be himself would solve it. Now after the final Jiji and Okarun fight, her house went from being half cardboard to nothing, just a pile of rubble. After initially refusing help from The Dover Demon and the rest of the cast, Seiko gives into her pride and has to break it when seeing the kindness these kids and aliens have toward her due to her kindness towards them. It is really wholesome and a fun way to end the arc. Other than some animation flubs, this is probably one of my favorite arcs in the show next to Acrobatic Silkie Arc.
The Evil Eye Arc has all the character development the last arc was missing in a nice low key way that kind of shows the strongest aspects of a lot of the cast. I love Okarun’s constant desire of improvement to help others and the scene where Okarun showed genuine emotion to Aira for the first time, with Aira actually stopping in her tracks, as she never gotten that reaction from people before. Jiji was genuinely trying his best to fulfill his promise to make sure no one got hurt and his promise to The Evil Eye to play with him forever, but it was eating him away. Seiko finally got some development, as this is the first major development she had since the 1st arc. Momo swallowed her pride to help her grandma by getting the most humiliating job of being in a maid cafe.
For all of the characters’ development, everything was great. The fights were great, the animation was solid, the voice cast was impressive, Minecraft Steve (The Dover Demon) was fun, the comedy was funny. Everything was firing on all cylinders, yet it’s the most low stakes arc the series has at this point. I’m thinking of giving Evil Eye Arc a 9/10, which leads us to the arc that’s the main reason that this review is even on this site…
KAIJU ARC
The most-awaited arc in this season (to the point where it got an after credit scene to hype it up after Episode 9, AND the arc got its OWN TRAILER?) is the Kaiju Arc. So what is this arc even about, you ask? A kaiju. Okay, the kaiju isn’t the real reason fans like this, there’s more to this arc than just the monster of the week. Here, we are introduced to the fan-favorite character, Kinta Sakata, a character with obvious cliche fat nerd stereotypes, realizing that while Okarun is a nerd like him. He follows Okarun around in a comedic shot-for-shot remake of a scene in Season 1 Episode 5, titled “Where Are Your Balls?”
For context, the scene was Momo and Okarun secretly trying to meet up, but they are unable to locate each other throughout the school, and it’d cut to Okarun sighing, then Momo sighing, and going back and forth between the two. This new episode would add Kinta sighing, copying Okaru, shoehorning him in the whole episode for the bit. I was in hysterics, especially since he declares Okarun a rival after seeing the accidental kiss between him and Momo, fast forwarding us in time to Kinta confronting Okarun. This goes terrible for Kinta, as everyone ignores him, and we get an exposition dump about the actual plot…which is that students are sharing a ghost story and our heroes realize it’s Okarun’s other ball. Kinta follows Momo and Okarun because since they were talking about balls, he thinks the way to be popular is to talk naughty and vulgar, and spies on them to learn more, which is how we get great scenes like this.
So they find the kintama and chase it, but it has an invisible monster around it. Kinta helps, and is a good opposite, since Okarun likes aliens, it turns out that Kinta…LOVES ROBOTS, and deduces how a cloaking device works, beating the threat fairly quickly. The sky then turns green, which is what happens whenever the aliens appear and activate the Empty Space. The invisible creature was a tiny kaiju and it turns actual Kaiju sized, trapping Kinta, Okarun, Momo, Jiji, and Aira (since they were in the city and empty space traps all people with high spiritual energy).
What follows is a really great action scene as they fight the kaiju, whose name is Bamora, being an obvious nod to Gomora from Ultraman. The kaiju is again, taller than the buildings while fighting the kids, so things don’t go well. This gets to the point where Jiji runs away with Kinta and Kinta’s sweat touches him, activating The Evil Eye. A very funny subplot this arc then ensures of trying to find ways to avoid The Evil Eye fighting Bamora due to Okaruns deal…and also for the fact that Evil Eye would probably beat it real easy.
So you’d think at this point the joke of Kinta being completely useless would get old, but I was really enjoying it, as not only is the writing hilarious with him, there is this relentless attitude he has that’s super endearing to watch, as he’s the only reason they stand a chance. After the kids get rocked by Bamora, Okarun wants to use the nanoskin that repaired Momo’s house to fight the kaiju. Kinta immediately understands what to do and turns the house into a mech since it’s fueled on imagination. He makes a giant MECHA BUDDHA TO FIGHT THE KAIJU, and it’s awesome.
As he fights we learn why he’s relentless in a scene that’s really cliche. Kinta has flashbacks to bringing home a mecha model kit toy and everyone mocks him calling him a child, ugly, fat, and just about every name in the book. And while a lot of anime will turn scenes like this into revenge fantasies (with a recent example being Jujutsu Kaisen), we learn why Kinta is fine with this…why should he care what others think? He loves robots. I wasn’t expecting his constant optimism to come from this raw happiness he gets from robots. He is free from cringe; that word means nothing to him as he enjoys a life of building one robot at a time with a simple dream to one day pilot a real robot, and now he gets to do so.
The fighting is top notch here, because all random kaiju and mecha fights in anime rock. That’s why Gaara vs Naruto is one of the best fights in Naruto; variety is the spice of life in these Shonen manga, with this fight being no exception. There’s a great moment when the kids are piloting the mecha, called the Great Kinta Bodhisattva, and get a power boost, putting their spirit energy in the mech, leading to it being able to use Silkie’s hair and Momo’s Psychic powers.
I would complain about Bamora being an uninteresting creature, but the arc is so well-paced it didn’t feel like the monster overstayed their welcome. Especially with the plot twist revealing the true identity of what Bamora really is, setting up the next arc into the next season. They didn’t finish the arc but we have a great cliff hanger to lead us into the next arc and next season, that being the Space Globalists Arc. Don’t worry about it leading to another 5 episode arc like this season, they just introduce some characters that will be resolved in Episode 1 of the now confirmed third season of the series.
I can see why people love this arc, as Kinta is a great character, but I will be honest, I find Acrobat Silkie to be a better arc to introduce a new main cast member. Not to say this is a bad arc, this is a really great one. It’s very simple, has on the nose character introduction, and features really good action meant to tide you over and set you up for the next BIG arc. So, I am thinking of giving this arc a solid 8/10.
THE INTRO AND OUTROS
I didn’t know where to put this, but in anime fashion, we got a new intro and outro for the season.
The new intro, “On The Way” by AiNA THE END, is very okay. I like, it but the song itself feels like 7 genres sloppily put together and is nowhere close to as good of a track “Otonoke” was. The way the intro is cut alongside the animation makes the chorus ending feel abrupt. However, I do love the visuals for the intro, with the stylized cuts in the verse with the kind of 80’s PBS floating boxes of Okarun running and the final chorus art style of Momo piggybacking on Okarun being peak art style choices.
The outro, “Doukashiteru” by WurtS, is fantastic. A fun, cheery dance party of a song called “Something’s Wrong with Them” is ironic, but it doesn’t matter. The cast happily dancing finding and comfort in each other really sells the theme of the show and is a great way to end every episode. The song itself is a cheery, high energy pop rock song that will now lead me down a rabbit hole to check out WurtS.
WRAP UP
Overall, this was another really solid season of Dan da Dan. This season had great action scenes, fantastic writing, awesome characters, and overall fun vibes. I think some standout episodes here are Episode 4: “That’s, Like, Way Deadly,” Episode 6: “We Became A Family,” the previously mentioned Episode 8: “You Can Do It, Okarun!,” and the season finale “Clash! Space Kaiju vs. Giant Robot!” While I don’t think there’s a BAD episode here, the first episode: “Like, This Is the Legend of the Giant Snake” really didn’t have the pop I was hoping for compared to Season 1’s first episode.
I really think this is the anime for you if you need some animation that, while full of action, is very positive and hopeful at the end of the day. There’s a lot of emotion put into the story and the animators made sure to put their own love into every scene. There’s a lot of anime out right now that’s just “cool guys looking cool” with zero plot or nuance in anything, making your brain turn to drivel as you watch TikTok edits of the show. This isn’t the case here, as I feel like Dan da Dan cares about the story it’s making: at the end of the day, we all should be nice to one another and care about the meals we have with our family, and hope for a better future…or date someone cute. I don’t know, I can’t control what you interpret from this show. But as a season overall, I’m going to give Dan da Dan Season 2 an averaged score of 8/10. It’s worth your time!
