Review of Dan Da Dan

First and foremost, whatever you may think of Dandadan, I think it's hard to deny that it has a tremendous sense of style. Right from the opening theme to the ending theme, from the music to the choreography, from the banter to the action sequences, the show's bursting at the seams with style. If someone asked me to describe what the show is like, I'd probably have trouble doing it justice. The closest description I can come up with is that it's a bizarre combination of romcom, ufology, and the occult, turbocharged with frenetic pace and infused with a strong dose of irreverent, potty humour. Cometo think of it, the show's eclectic mixture of components feels similar to Chainsaw Man's. Unlike Chainsaw Man, Dandadan is consistent in quality - it neither hits the highs nor drops to the lows of that series.

Dandadan most obvious strength lies in its production values. So much thought has been poured into the art and animation that there's barely a dull frame: the colours dazzle, the angles are abundantly interesting, and the visual presentation is always creative. I do have a gripe with the action scenes though: while extremely flashy, they often fail to excite: a shortage of consistent logic means that the battle narratives often had a make-it-up-as-you-go-along kind of feel. In addition, the over-the-top style of the show gets ramped up to 11 during the action, and I sometimes found it a bit overwhelming.

Where Dandadan does better is in the character interplay. The main leads Momo and Ken have convincing chemistry between them, and their interaction provides the main driving force behind the show. Dandadan does a nice job of exploring the emotional vulnerabilities of the characters in the way reminiscent of a good coming-of-age story, with Ken's growth during the series feeling particularly palpable. Thematically it also ties into the topic of emasculation, which happens to be Dandadan's favourite target when it comes to humour. Another of the things that struck me was the dialogue's refreshing willingness to directly give voice to the insecurities of the characters. On the flip side, Dandadan has a habit of suddenly transitioning from banter mode into these heart-to-heart moments, and these transitions can feel contrived and ill timed.

Humour wise, I find Dandadan to have a constant stream of amusing moments, but the punchlines don't often hit laugh-out-loud levels of funniness. That said, I get the impression that the show contains quite a few scenes parodying something that I haven't seen, and I know for a fact that there are jokes which will likely go over the heads of people without the relevant knowledge in Japanese (the most obvious one involving the Japanese word for 'testicles'). The show also uses a lot of tired tropes, but its irreverent style means that it manages to mostly get away with it.

Finally, Dandadan's last episode is a little strange. Normally shows such as this like to ramp up to a grand finale and, regardless of whether it's trying to wrap up the story or set up the next series, it at least punctuates the end of the season with a sense of finality. Here though, the series does the equivalent of ending mid sentence, and I had to double check its finished airing status to assure myself that there isn't another episode. But anyway, having finished the first season I am a little puzzled about level of hype surrounding Dandadan. It does offer the occasional powerful moment, but not enough to elevate it beyond a fun romp, albeit an extremely polished one.

Personal rating: +1.0 (good)