‘Dan Da Dan’ is already one of the best genre-blending animes

In the first episode, “That's How Love Starts, Ya Know!” Momo experiences an alien abduction and Okarun has a terrible encounter with an evil spirit named Turbo Granny, of all things, in a haunted tunnel. Then the evil spirit possesses him, and turns poor Ken into a Ken doll (she steals his penis, and later, other spirits steal his testicles). This is only the baseline of how willfully strange Dan Da Dan gets, even only three episodes into the series. 

That’s not to say that the show never takes anything seriously. Dan Da Dan thrives on the tentative, odd-couple romance brewing between Okarun and Momo, which is based on a foundation of genuine friendship. The series grounds all of its bananas antics through their relationship, its goofy and awkward false start gradually turning into very sincere affection, without feeling overplayed or undercooked. 

The chemistry between the two protagonists is helped along, at first, by the usual opposites-attract bickering being cranked up to 11. These two yell at each other in an amusingly unhinged fashion, something bolstered by great and volatile voice performances from Shion Wakayama and Natsuki Hanae as Momo and Okarun, respectively. Okarun only gets his nickname—which is shortened from Momo referring to him as “Occult-Kun”—in the first place because he shares a name with Momo’s celebrity crush, the famous yakuza film actor Ken Takakura, and she simply can’t call him the same name.

Dan Da Dan feels like it is always expanding—with new characters (most of the cast show up in later episodes) and new genres crashing through like a runaway train. But there is never the sense that it is collapsing under its own weight, nor of it ever losing sight of itself as it continues to grow. Each insane new arc has a tragedy at its center—children lashing out because the government has failed them in the wake of familial loss, because they’ve been bullied, because they’re lonely.

Between the studio’s and manga’s reputations, the show’s presentation had a lot of expectations to live up to, and have handily met them so far, exploding out of the gates with a super catchy opening credits sequence. Like the show itself, the sequence is vivid, fast paced and creative—a mix of sketchy drawings with images that almost resemble diagrams from ancient texts, before switching to more polished animation of characters dancing with life-like movements. It’s a quick representation of the basic emotional push and pull of Dan Da Dan: ancient superstitions colliding with modern isolation, as personal demons give rise to literal ones. Dan Da Dan is willing to go into rather dark thematic territory, often with great patience and sensitivity, and a hope to sincerely unpack the psychological effects of such traumatic events on its characters; these moments quite literally give birth to demons. 

That’s a little further down the line though. In the present for the adaptation, things are just getting warmed up, but there’s already a lot to enjoy even before it dives into the emotional baggage. The comic is lifted from page to screen with pleasingly simple character designs from Naoyuki Onda, completed with minimal shadows and intentionally flattened and expressive coloring. This complements how the characters flex between realistic movements, and something more broadly cartoonish. Beyond the visual components, the playful and bouncy electronic score from Kensuke Ushio vaguely resembles the pulsing electronica of his work on Devilman Crybaby. 

This changeability plays into the show’s approach to action-horror-comedy. The first encounter with spirits bounces between funny and creepy, often hitting both notes simultaneously. While they’re babbling weird nonsense, the spirits still feel appropriately scary, and the changes that Okarun experiences sometimes dip into body horror. For example, at one point he looks down at his arm and sees a monster’s hand twisting into frame. And in the second episode, Saru’s artists live up to their reputation as experimenters when the two protagonists are trapped on the plot of Momo’s home by a rock wall. The claustrophobic battle that ensues provokes a charcoal color palette that smothers most of the episode. Even before that point, the episode plays with the entire frame—at times using split screen and paneling to cover up and focus on different parts of the scene. 

Still, the bizarre, off-the-wall collage of Dan Da Dan makes it a must-see, with Junichi Higashi’s art direction embellishing this series adaptation with distinct personality. The show’s sheer strangeness keeps the story out of standard glamorous-girl-meets-geek story territory. In addition, Yamashiro’s direction gives the show a compellingly relentless pace—conversations move briskly and breathlessly, which make the quieter moments of empathy stand out all the more. Although the first few episodes are setting up what’s to come, they never feel laborious because they have so much energy—even the quiet scenes feel experimental. It remains to be seen if it’ll keep up the pace, but so far Dan Da Dan is as anarchic as it is funny, twisting familiar hallmarks into something that feels fresh and fun through visual creativity and sheer ballsiness.