Review of Dan Da Dan

Welcome to 2024 where there is no such a thing as a bad anime. Thanks to the fact that anime as a medium has become more mainstream, the Overton window on the perspective of what constitutes a good anime has shifted. This is because the popular anime of today create a bias for what is expected of the medium. This baseline influences what others think is good. Dandadan is everything that the current generation seeks. Crazy, colorful, absurd, erotic, and geared towards a low attention span. It’s perfect. If viewers of this era would start with any anime from before 2018, they would think it’s boring and slow. As usuallyanime typically handle their settings like this:

Introduction > some conflict > get to know the characters > rising to a climax > action > resolution.

In today’s case Dan Da Dan looks like this:

Intro > //Dan Da Dan Da..// > tiny bit of Introduction > action > more action > nudity > action > nudity > action > more action > end.

It is necessary to understand that the consequences of this aforementioned anime viewing behavior have affected the production quality of anime in general. This has resulted in the mass production of slop anime, that aim to hit the largest possible audience at once.

Regardless that supernatural themes are often hit or miss. The concept about aliens and ghosts are always intriguing and who hates these paranormal concepts anyway?

This statement is only true if it is done right.

The issues with this series started with the plot that progressed way too quickly, making it difficult for me to emotionally connect with the characters and the circumstances. Although I was excited to see the supernatural genre from a fresh angle, it lacked depth and felt like it was just made for cheap entertainment without offering any genuine or valuable storytelling.

So much information is thrown at you in either by a silly conversations or yakety-yak. Not like anything that happens makes a bit of sense anyway.

Shows like this must be funny as the setting is strange and the plot farcically ridiculous. However the jokes and funny moments completely lacked chemistry and since everything else happened so fast, when they tried to squeeze a little funny moment in it, it felt dragged which usually ended up coming off as cringe rather than being funny.

100 romance manga or not, despite the author had to sit through this amount of romance manga to create a strong romantic relationship and story between the two main character. It backfired since they both got along with each other as if they were close friends from the beginning. Not to mention the way Momo falls immediately for Ken just because of his full name and not because of his personality say a lot about the romance of this anime.

The way people are getting emotional after episode seven is the biggest reflection of how low the bar has been settled for standards in this era of anime viewers. I am a type of person that can tear up by just hearing a beautifully composed song or even by listening conversations between 2 characters, but that scene was way too fabricated therefore after six episodes of absolute blather, so it was more funny than weepy for me.

Animation was decent, overall when there wasn’t a lot of movement the art was nice and colorful. However, I can’t say the same to the animation smoothness as often it wasn’t consistent. Although in action scenes you could say it was intentional to be inconsistent to appear quirkier. There were non-action scenes where the animation really lacked and not done on the same level as the opening credits, which tells.

The design of the ghosts is very similar to the Arrancars from Bleach while the UFO’s are just ugly humans who want to rape, actually ghosts also have sexual assault desires. But even fan service became more fake and over exaggerated in modern. The whole “banana scene” and the hot granny.. why does everything and everyone has to be perverted and over-sexualized? Just why?

On last note, I would like to mention the voice actors. As for me personally it was a complete disaster. The two main character’s voice was an absolutely mismatch, didn’t fit to their characters and personalities. Although Hanae Natsuki is one of my favorite VA, he couldn’t make his voice more like an “Okarun” type of person as Ken was. He could have change voices when he turns into a ghost, but he just wasn’t nailing this role unfortunately. Ayase Momo voiced by Wakayama Shion and although she is quite unpopular and this role probably is her first major role, this character just didn’t suit her voice at all. Her voice was way too natural and deep.

Pros and Cons

🔴 Rushed Narrative
🔴 Weak Comedy
🔴 Boring Dialogues
🔴 Shallow Characters
🔴 Predictable Romance
🔴 Unbalanced Story
🔴 No Meaningful or Educational Value
🟠 Decent Background Art
🟠 Opening
🟢 Accessible on Netflix

In conclusion

It is a pity that this new generation of anime can be so highly regarded despite lacking to provide any valuable messaging.

By that means, Dan Da Dan is an absolutely perfect anime for the modern target audience where viewers want a spectacle but don’t care for plot. Unfortunately, it takes more than it gives to those who still have the access to the entire scoring system.

It might work for social media content as it is fictitious and has so many cringe content that some video creators might be able to force out reactions to. However for any normal anime watcher, watching grass grow would bring out more facial expressions out of them than watching this nonsense.

In Summary: For the past few years Anime is on a downfall and it is disheartening to see one of my favorite media in a chaotic dive to decay.

Personally, I prefer meaningful quality content over generic, goofy over-sexualized ones.

Final score: 2/10 ⭐️ Peak cringeworthy.

I’m grateful to you for taking the time to read my review, your feedback is kindly appreciated.