Dan Da Dan - Season 1

 Dan Da Dan (ダンダダン) is a 12 episode shonen action series based on the manga of the same name by Tatsu Yukinobu.  The series originally aired during the Fall of 2024.

    Ayase Momo is a stereotypical high school gyaru.  She has close friends and dreams of finding a man that exhibits all of the qualities of Japanese cinema's every-man Takakura Ken.  When her good-for-nothing boyfriend breaks up with her because she won't have sex with him her faith in humanity plummets.  She yearns to expend her frustration and roams the halls of school looking for a target.  She comes across another room where a social outcast boy is being actively harassed by classmates.  She causally intervenes before they can escalate the bullying but reuse to engage her, further frustrating her.  As she returns to prowling the halls the outcast chases after her...but not to express his gratitude.  The boy is an alien otaku and has taken Momo's desire to fight someone as interest in him.  Disgusted by his gross misunderstanding of the situation they begin to mentally battle each other over their beliefs.  Mom, who was raised by her medium grandmother, fully believes in spirits and possession but refuses to believe that aliens exist.  The boy, feels the opposite way and their mutual stubbornness leads them to challenging each other to test their beliefs.

    The evening Mom finds herself wandering a condemned hospital, a spot the boy claims is a hot bed for alien abductions.  He on the other hand finds himself entering an unused tunnel on the outskirts of town, supposedly home to a powerful spirit.  The two remain chat with each other while exploring their own mystery spot, working to understand each other a little better.  The boy encounters a strange old woman who scares him out of his senses and he begins to flee the tunnel.  Momo warns him that he's encountered the spirit known as 'turbo granny' and is she catches him he will be cursed.  The line goes dead and before she can call him back 3 strange men appear before her.  The next thing she knows shes stripped down to her underwear and is strapped to a chair.  The strange men tell her they are aliens who have come to take her reproductive organs in order to reintroduce biodiversity into their species.  Before they can begin the procedure a strange creature expels its self from her cell phone and begins attacking the aliens.  It is the boy, who lost the race and has become cursed/possessed by turbo granny.  Stressed by the situation and the danger the boy and she are suddenly in, latent psychic powers manifest within her and the two of them defeat the aliens, crashing back to the ground in their UFO.  They both admit they believe what the other person believes but are forced to remain together until they can remove turbo grannies curse, as the only thing keeping her at bay is Momo's powers.  Momo is stuck with the weird otaku now...who's name is Takakura Ken.

    If you're one of the few people who have not watched Dan Da Dan, don't worry, the synopsis only covers the rough plot of episode one, the catalyst for the entire series.  At first I was excited for the series, having never read the manga.  Particularly due to it being done by Science Saru.  Then the first preview dropped and I had doubts.  Ken...or as Momo calls him Okarun, refusing to allow him to share a name with her idol, looked like a knock off Bleach character when in his possessed form.  The tone of the series felt like some garbage zero to hero power fantasy that I really had no interest in.  Either way I decided to watch the first episode and the animation exceeded my expectations.  Science Saru knocked it out of the park with the life the breathed into the production.  It felt like they looked at Trigger and their style and said hold my beer bitch.  But I still wasn't fully sold on the actual story with the first episode and felt I should at least give it a second episode to try and sell me.  The second episode did that and each consecutive episode continued to show that it was worth my time.

    On the surface, DanDaDan is a shonen action series where the nerdy outcast kid gains super natural powers and begins battling dangerous foes all while the ladies swoon over him.  Literally the same power fantasy pervasive throughout the genre.  It doesn't stop being that but there is so much more to it.  The series usurps all expectations with each plot line.  The real core of the story is the growing relationship and respect between Momo and Okarun.  Momo is someone who cares about other people but can't be bothered by others.  She feels responsible for Okarun being cursed and does what she can to remove it.  Okarun on the other hand doesn't want to have to rely on her to solve his issues.  He's grateful for all shes done for him, not considering her at fault for his situation, but also desires to let her be free of him.  His ideas don't work well and they are forced to spend a lot of time together, growing closer as they do.  Both kids are really just lost in the world around them, struggling with their lives and have found a weird kinship in their incredibly strange and dangerous situation.  As a final thought, there is some level. of discomfort in the amount of fan service there is in the show but it doesn't always feel out of place or unwarranted, it just seems uncomfortable at times.

The series was simulcast on Netflix and Crunchyroll and season 2 will be releasing in the Summer of 2025.