Dandadan

This review is basic and provisional and aims to recommending the manga to those interested in the elements I will cover. In addition to reduce the excessive hype among manga readers that may affect the enjoyment of anime-only watchers.

Dandadan is a shonen manga that returns to the old, less dark days of Jump (Although drama and dark elements are a constant presence, the anime is, above all, colorful and exciting, it is not based on being dark like JJK or Chainsaw Man, for example), but also bringing its "new" features: a gyaru girl shares the lead with a nerdy boy and the modern use of yokais and aliens, uniting the supernatural with ufology/science-fiction, as well as other conspiracy theories, creepypasta, modern myths and pop culture like heavy metal, idol culture, kaiju, tokusatsu etc.

Below, to avoid spoilers, I will point out some general elements without pointing out specific moments from the manga:

1. Despite the diversity of themes and references played, it is a conventional battle shounen with a lot of action and continuous slice of life and romcom elements, don't expect a fantastic plot, just a good and fun shonen, nor an attempt to deconstruct the genre, subverting tropes or major ruptures and innovations (like HxH and JJK in depth, characters and power system; Gintama or Saiki Kusuo in metahumor; or even Chainsaw Man and Sakamoto Days with their Hollywood style cinematics and dialogues/Tarantinoesque), as I said, it is a return to old shonen with many new references and aesthetic themes;

1. It's a shonen that features vanilla romance (romcom), appropriate to the characters' ages;

1. The characters have distinct traits, but rare depth, as almost all shonen presents. The drama is built more around flashbacks or origins of human and yokai characters than the present moment of the plot;

1. The ecchi can be annoying at times, I hate it, but I tolerated it in my manga experience, as it was progressively reduced;

1. The art is something subjective at the end of the day, from my experience reading the manga, I found the art pleasant and aesthetically appropriate for the manga's thematic proposal. I won't risk analyzing technically in this aspect, as I don't have the eye for it (or a or the basis for a theoretical analysis), so it's an element that left me satisfied from a subjective aesthetic point of view.

Commentary 1: I believe that more than the first episodes of the anime now being released, the hype is justified by the manga and those who have read a good part of what has already been published and know what lies ahead. The first season should not cover all the elements mentioned here, which is why I think the hype is excessive as the first episodes will be more about building the anime universe and introducing the main and most recurring characters. Many people are already disappointed with just 6 episodes and this is the fault of all the established hype that promises too much and generates projections and impatience.

Commentary 2: On myanimelist I read some review mentioning the work being nonsense, well, it's an intentionally absurdist (aesthetically and thematically, not in plot) work, what did you expect?!