Review of Dan Da Dan
Alright, so I wanted to wait for the first season of Dandadan to conclude before writing a review, as to not cloud the quality of my judgement. Dandadan is a decent anime, does it do everything right possible? No, from what I've seen it can definitely get better from here on, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy what I got. I think Dandadan as of now is a bit overrated, but I can still acknowledge the things it does right. Dandadan is what happens when you take your average 3 AM conspirator and UFO sightings geek and throw them in a blender with a bucketof teenage hormones. That's the gist of it, but somehow that's still underselling how unhinged this fever dream of an anime really is. I like bizarre anime with a batshit crazy premise that somehow works. This isn't your standard teenagers discovering superpowers story, underneath this insanity lies something deeper. Supernatural stories usually color inside the lines. I thought I've seen everything the supernatural high school drama the medium could cook up. 15 year old meets a ghost, gets powers, and fights evil with said powers, it's a tale as old as time. But Dandadan looked at the entire supernatural genre and said, "What if we took everything and cranked it up to 11?" And in my humble opinion, I think Dandadan did just that.
Dandadan is special for a lot of reasons, but the reason I feel most compelling is the story centering around a female protagonist, which doesn't seem to catch your attention at first glance, but this is a shonen: A story for boys. I think that by itself is already a big step forward in writing a narrative that breaks the norms of the anime medium.
(Characters 9/10): This is likely my favorite part of the anime. The story introduces two very different people that are initially brought together by a shared interest in the supernatural. This being the case leads to a romantic connection that I don't experience often in shonen anime. Few do it right, but I like how instead of lumping BOY A with GIRL A because they're main characters, they actually built a genuine bond that's actually central to the development of the story as well, not just something to have on the sidelines to only be relevant in periodic instances. And of course, the way they interact with the other characters and the relationships that were once founded out of hostility can change and develop into something completely different. Then there's also the villians. Oddly enough, I don't see anybody talk about the villians. In Dandadan even the opposition has reason for what they do and have their own values to fight for, they're not evil incarnate just for the sake of it, and that lets me take the show more serious cause I like it when there's no clear evil in the show. It's easy to route for the MC, but I prefer seeing a battle of interests I can both understand and empathize with instead of main character vanquishing evil and having a bunch of lofty ambitions I can't identify with as much. Chainsaw Man is a good example of this, both animes are realistic in how they write their characters and the heroes aren't automatically looking out for the well beings of others and vice versa for the villians who also have their own side of the story.
(Animation 10/10): Dandadan has a lot of creativity. It presents itself with a unique coloring style, and uses sudden shifts from light to neon colors from scene to scene. The color palette and animation are definitely the backbone of the killer fight scenes and even to people who dislike the show, at the very least we can all admit the work the animation team put in was well worth the effort.
(Story 6/10): Now this is tricky, and my opinion will probably change later on, but I honestly don't get a rise out of the story I was hoping for. I really like the abnormal premise, but Dandadan doesn't really have much of a plot, or at least it's not exactly plot driven like other shonen in years past. A typical episode would be our characters being at school or at home and then a random alien/yokai appears. This type of conflict is resolved in about an episode or two until they come across another alien/yokai, typically the characters themselves being the catalyst. With that being said, it doesn't take away from the quality of the series as a whole since the arcs within the individual eps themselves are well written and I can't really complain in that aspect. I hope the manga will explore the story a bit since I think Dandadan has potential.
(Overall 7/10): So yeah, watch Dandadan. I will definitely be reading the manga since it's supposed to be getting better from here, and if you decide to drop it after this season, you would have stopped digging right before you hit diamond. So, I definitely recommend coming back once season 2 is animated.