DAN DA DAN

DanDaDan is a must-watch, as one of the best anime to come out in the past few years. Featuring gorgeous animation, loveable characters whose banter creates the ground for great comedy, a heart-pulling romance, and a unique perspective on women's lives.

Animation
To start with, the animation in DanDaDan is top tier throughout with Director Fuuga Yamashiro returning to Science Saru for another production. His previous work on The Night is Short Walk of Night is n Girl, Time Machine Blues, and Heike Monogatari individually represent some of the best productions I’ve seen in the industry. In DanDaDan in particular I really like the use of color, creative scenes, and fun movement which together create a one-of-a-kind visual experience.

The colorsets used throughout the show are masterful and you can immediately feel how perfectly things mesh together if you open up an art program and try to apply them to other things. For facial features, they use a nice red-shifted shadow which feels amazing to work with and I’ve learned a lot from studies of the style. The frequent swaps in color palettes from the base immediately struck me from the first episode's blue for aliens and red for the spiritual motif and this is continued through the gorgeous -- A later favorite of mine is the green nessie scenes-- fights later in the series. On top of being extremely visually fun to look at, these effects help to sell the otherworldly and confusing nature of the situations Okarun and Momo find themselves in.

Another piece of visual flair, the interspersed change in art style cutaways is another highlight of the show. Whether it’s a man tearing his face off to reveal a visually bright demonic form underneath, cuts to grayscale to show fear, or the visual cutaways to show Momo’s mentality around her psychic powers, they are great. A personal favorite of mine is the cutaway to the vignette in the acrobatic silky arc which effectively invests the audience in her character without using any words. There’s some great bloom lighting, creative rotating shots, usage of first person, and hyperrealism that sell the scene.

The show's movement animation both in combat and outside is great eye candy. The quick movements and playing with the human form reminded me a lot of Yamashiro’s previous work on The Night is Short Walk on Girl especially once Jiji appears in the later episodes. As in night in short it helps to sell the sillier ambiance of the slow scenes and helps to sell this banter-filled back-and-forth that I can’t help but love.

Combat animation is similarly spectacular with quick movements and a creative background pulling the audience into a tangible world. Often dropped small effects like the swaying of hair are accented with some great feeling sound design to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Characters
Every character in DanDaDan is bursting with life with even small side roles managing to make lasting impressions. The shrimp alien and Momo’s entourage stuck out a lot to me immediately in this way. The main cast fares no worse with distinctive character designs and great displays of personality through small details. There is a consistent theme of starting characters in easy-to-understand tropes before immediately shattering them with the complexity of their humanity.

Momo Ayase is a great example of this with her being a part of the “Gyaru” archetype at first blush only for it to be revealed to be a bit of a front. The choice to draw her in a variety of different outfits goes a long way in showcasing her tomboyish personality. Her chaotic nature is a joy to watch on screen. This flippant nature contrasts nicely with the serious Ken Takakura (Okarun) with a distinctive hunched back and glasses. An obvious parody of the “Otaku” archetype, this ostensibly oil and water dynamic quickly emulsifies into some great comedy. His transformed state serves well to highlight this with his switching of honorifics denoting a completely different outlook. All of this leads to some great moments in combat as well as they try to think their way through the latest disaster.

A great example of a standout side character is the Chiquita Chiquita shrimp character whose initial characterization consists of sidelines in the fight only for there to be a cute reveal about what is going on in his life. I like how this is done with the audience being made to feel bad for him before we even know fully why through his treatment at the hands of the aliens leading to a feeling of relief instead of sadness when his issues are revealed as the cast can help him. The running anatomic model falls into a similar place with his initial role as an antagonist more annoying than my beloved shrimp man being inverted through an understanding of his life. With the treatment of the female Yokai which I’ll discuss later, I think this serves to build up a very nice humanist view of the world where people do things for reasons instead of just because they can.

Jiji is a very interesting character to me as his entry into the show immediately shifts the perspective into the literal male gaze. Things are seen largely through Okarun’s Eyes with the exception being a very good if uncomfortable bathhouse scene that builds on the aforementioned depiction of the female experience. So far in the two episodes he’s appeared in, he appears to be a pretty significant misogynist playboy, carrying out the classic trope of pestering women for their contact information after they say no and generally viewing Momo as incapable until forced to somewhat admit otherwise. I don’t want to assume too much since his introduction isn’t complete and DanDaDan loves to break expectations but I just wanted to note that I do not like him as a person even if I think he’s doing a great job of being annoying.

Romance elements
The romance here is great, reminding me of a lot of shows like Ranma where the bantering back and forth indicates a fear of admitting weakness to the other or spoiling what they have. A dynamic which also serves the show’s comedic aspects very well.

The “read 100 shoujo manga to learn emotions” is well on display here in their silly bantering.
There are a ton of little scenes that help to build this up with one standout being the scene where they anguish over goodbye vs see you tomorrow. At first watch the tension of the possibility of them not seeing each other ever again hit me square in the chest and building up a little moment like that is a great expression of their personalities. The realization that they both are pushed out of their shells by fear is adorable and the show continues to find great setups like this throughout its run.

Related to this fear, It’s interesting to see how Momo’s fear of ruining things combined with a worry that she’s misunderstanding her feelings matches Okarun’s similar emotions in completely different ways based on their personalities. Avoidance and pushing someone away is a consistent theme throughout the show but it’s handled far better than many others I’ve seen. It’s very easy for plot points like this to feel like pulling teeth where characters go through selective amnesia for their relationship. However, here uncomfortability abilities are skillfully integrated to change their dynamics instead of removing them. If they are mad at each other they may sulk or be more likely to fight but because of their attraction, they do not completely cut each other off.

Treatment of women
DanDaDan finds itself very concerned with the way women are treated by society from the first few seconds when Momo is forced to contend with the exploitation of her soon-to-be Ex-boyfriend. This theme of sexual violence and possession over women is continued throughout the series with the aliens acting as the possessive male contrasting with the female rage of the spirits.

[Warning this section will have a bit more plot discussion than the rest]
The aliens from their first appearance are allusions to rape culture as they attempt to produce arousal without consent for their ends. They covet Momo’s femininity without her humanity and they soon set their sights on Okarun who has internalized the feminine through his connection to Turbo Baba. The nature of these creatures' powers with their pressing and holding down leaving you to watch also seems to be a reflection of the horror that many women experience and fear in a way others can hopefully understand.

The backstories for Yokai presented so far seem to circle the abuses women face in a male-dominated society. Here again, there is a specific focus on rape culture with TurboGranny specifically punishing those who have harmed women leading to her interaction with the group through the tunnel she shares. Acrobatic silky serves as the most deeply personal example with her suffering as a single mother, forced to give her body over to men only to be rewarded with despair. I think especially here there’s an interesting aspect of the double-edged nature of beauty being exposed even as it supplies her a livelihood. It's the same thing that the same desire from men is what leads to the horrors she experiences at the end of her life. Her relationship with motherhood is similar, it’s something that brings her great joy but is also the despair that chains her to this world. It’s, to say the least tragic, but I think it’s good that the issues women experience are represented on screen.

As a final thought for this section, I think that the theory presented in the show that the yokai serve to protect the earth from the invasion of the aliens would also seem to fit into this conception of the protective if out of control feminine or even a mother goddess. It’s a fun concept and I’m interested to see where it goes in season 2 as this contrast between the tragic and the cruel continues.

Conclusion
In conclusion, DanDaDan is the kind of unique piece that keeps me watching anime. With art so gorgeous I’ve already spent hours doing studies on the style and a romance so cute it almost makes me want to not put things off until I’m resettled for my PhD. It easily skates into a 10/10 and makes me want to reduce the ratings of other things so it stands out more. I’m extremely happy they’ve already been greenlit for a season 2 in July where I can continue to follow Okarun and Momo’s lives.