DAN DA DAN (TV Anime) Season 1 Review

(Warning : Spoilers ahead for the anime!! Read at your own risk!!) While not my first writing venture, this is my first true review on an anime season and is thus bound to have some bumps along the road. Similarly, while not my first time watching an anime season before its conclusion (I did keep up with Chainsaw Man in time for the season finale, after all), this is the one I've been most dedicated to since I started watching at Episode 5. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or perhaps I was pressured far too much by friends, but it's likely due to both of those reasons that I had such a frustrating time enjoying this season. DAN DA DAN's anime adaptation is ambitious and looks to be very exciting on the outside, but taking a closer look yields a disappointing and unsubstantial experience overall. # First Encounter (Impressions) From its opening alone, DanDaDan looked like an absolute spectacle to watch. A flashy opening, a banger of a song to accompany it, and beautifully animated shots that show just how much care and effort the animation studio, Science SARU, put into this series! Already blown away by said opening, I was convinced this first episode could be the start of something big! It was a cute and witty story of two students, one heartbroken and the other bullied, brought together(?) by their mutual passion for spiritual and extraterrestrial phenomena. In the very same episode however, the story hurls themes of SA and excessive testicle jokes, as well as really hard-to-follow animated shots and dialogue. I was just about to drop it after the repulsive SA scene, but I was convinced by the community that it would get better after this. And for a while, it did! But the ball jokes never let up and quickly got tired despite my tolerance. To think it would only get worse... # Plot Frustrations and Pacing Agitations (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!) Just as the ball jokes dragged on, so did most episodes' plots, and the pacing was so frustrating to keep up with that I'm honestly thankful I started near the halfway point. Each episode just seemed to have something frustrating holding it back; Fights dragged on for far too long only to end at the worst points possible. The narrative and characters outside these fights felt shallow more often than not. The pacing was nauseating; Sometimes it was overstimulating, other times it was sluggish, very rarely (i.e. Episode 7) was it just right, and the worst offender was saved for last when the season ended on such a terrible cliffhanger involving Yet Another SA Scene... a cliffhanger that doesn't even exist in the manga!

My greatest frustration of all is that, despite the anime's focus on main character interactions, their personalities and relationships feel very underdeveloped and difficult to understand. Okarun and Momo may have a cute and fun dynamic together, but their individual personalities feel so shallow in comparison that, when Jiji was finally introduced to the story at the very end of Episode 10 (only two episodes to introduce and solidify himself? really?), his barely-introduced personality and dynamic still felt more compatible with Momo in a relationship than Okarun's compatibility with her ever was. I cannot resonate with them in a way the anime probably intended, and it feels completely out of my control.

Redemption and Preparation (It's Not All Bad!)

The past few paragraphs were quite harsh, so I'd like to make up for them by highlighting the strong points of the anime! After all, there's still plenty of reasons people enjoy it, right? First and foremost, the animation is perhaps the greatest selling point of the anime for me and others. It's beautiful, impactful, creative, and truly shows the true passion of the animators that worked on the season from start to finish, even despite the weaker and blurrier scenes later on. The characters, despite their narrative weaknesses, have plenty of charm and feel pretty likeable once more is revealed about them (most notably with Aira and Jiji in the episodes following their introductions), though I still feel the strongest and best-written characters are ironically some of the aliens and side characters. The creative and storytelling genius of Episode 7 has been talked about several times over already, but it's impossible to overstate just how incredibly directed, written, and animated of a story it is as its own contained special. I also believe the soundtrack is heavily underrated (or at least, not discussed enough), as it's truly one-of-a-kind in anime and fits perfectly with seemingly every scenario for which it's composed. Finally, when the anime reaches an emotional point, it's executed marvelously almost every time. Besides the poorly-aged shounen tropes, like the SA and stripping and whatnot, the wit and comedy of the anime is perfect for a quick laugh when it goes that route, yet it also still strikes a beautiful emotional chord in the scenes where it remembers to do so (like, again, Episode 7).

Conclusion: Needs More Time to Simmer

Given all I've written above, it's safe to say i have very mixed feelings about this adaptation. It's not all bad, there's plenty to like about it, and it's perhaps the most popular anime of the season for reasons. On the other hand, its this superficial appeal to popularity that backfires on the anime and opens it to far too many flaws that never improved and only disappointed until the end. It is for these reasons, along with the triggering subject matters, that I personally cannot recommend the anime to anyone in its current state. The flaws are simply interfere far too much to ignore, and the conclusion to this first season only ends up adding more fuel to the already burning state of the plot. It's an incomplete and repulsive mess to me, desperately in need of a second season (which, mind you, is slated for release a full half year later), but unless it manages to completely redeem itself with this second season (which, again, was only announced AFTER the airing of this final twelfth episode), I don't see any reason or appeal to pursue this series any further.