Review of Dan Da Dan
It's so beautiful to see my beloved weird manga come to animation as an acclaimed gem. We all know its fame. The bombastic, strange, the first episode filter story, unusual, but at the same time, romantic, fun, brutal, disturbing, saddening, epic, awe-inspiring. One moment, a fun fight scene against an incredibly designed ghost, minutes later, one of the most soul-crushing, and artistic depiction of a mother's love, and tragedy akin to One Piece's backstories with NO DIALOGUE. It's all those things, it's all of what the people say, and its creation is as interesting as is the series itself. An author, wishing to tell atragic story, is given shoujo manga by the bulk, and as a changed man, and after doing work for Fujimoto himself, he comes up with this banger of a shonen. Conventional? Only in structure. Innovative? Not particularly. It does what it wants well, and it does it with power, character designs, dialogue, slice-of-life scenes that ground each scene. Teenagers being awkward without it being annoying. It's a lovey-dovey show that can make its craziness all the more meaningful because you care so much about the characters.
The lack of normalcy makes the fight scenes an actual danger, and the normal life segments so much more desirable. We enjoy both due to the incredible animation, and whenever there isn't a banger scene that challenges people's lives, we get misunderstandings solved with communication.
Every character introduced is shown to have so many layers, and the walking clichés aren't just that. The bully isn't just that, they have a reason to put people down, they evolve once shown the value in other people. They can be great people, they can be hateful too. We're introduced to a flamboyant guy who could EASILY be the cliché of hidden bad intent, but NO, he's the bro-est bro out there, and he sticks with the attitude for what we've seen.
The show miraculously works in everything it tries to do. You trust the writer, the confidence, with each scene. There aren't many stories that can trust on the audience this much, not because it's complicated, but because with a slight mistake, everything goes off the rails and becomes incoherent. Not here.
Writing, characters, animation, scenes, dialogue, situations, comedy. It all just works. However, the ending of this season is such a terrible cliffhanger. It isn't even like a “the stakes are set, now we have to see what happens next”, no it's like they cancelled the season altogether.
9/10. We need more. Dandadan needs more.