Dandadan Review: The first season of DanDaDan ended with a rather rare cliffhanger for an anime: the series, in fact, stopped halfway through the narrative arc of the Cursed House, without completing it. A choice clearly due to the distribution logic of Netflix, which on the other hand has already announced a second season of DanDaDan arriving in 2025, during the summer, all over the world.
The good news is that we won't have to wait too long, in short. The bad news is that such an abrupt conclusion has left many fans with a bitter taste in their mouths. With the long winter break, the artists of Science Saru (a studio recently acquired by Toho, by the way) will have the opportunity to work more calmly on the next episodes, while viewers will be able to catch their breath and, after a tight weekly serialization, take stock of Season 1 of DanDaDan.
Dandadan: Aliens, ghosts and a love story between teenagers
The premise of DanDaDan is an ode to B-movies and horror in general, mixing together two cornerstones of the genre. On one hand, there are the occult and the supernatural, ghost stories and spirits that Momo Ayase can see and fight with her mystical powers.
On the other, however, there are UFOs, aliens and everything extraterrestrial, for which Ken Takakura, the male protagonist of DanDaDan, has a deep fascination. In short, the plot of the first season of DanDaDan juggles between a fight with a crazed ghost and another, making a modern and sharp reinterpretation of Japanese folklore, with strong winks to urban legends and Eastern spiritualism.
The alien and sci-fi component remains relegated to the margins of the production, at least for now, with a screen space that is clearly less than what one might have expected from the very first episodes (which we talked about in our first look at DanDaDan). Holding together these two apparently different narrative threads are the bizarre love story between Ken and Momo and a supporting cast that, unlike the two co-protagonists and the general tone of the plot, is anything but stereotypical:
Aira Shiratori, Seiko Ayase (Momo's very young grandmother), and, although to a lesser extent, the feline version of Turbo Granny and the mysterious and charismatic Jiji each manage to carve out a space in the hearts of fans, thanks to an in-depth and three-dimensional characterization and, in the Italian version, a quality dubbing.
Another unexpected link is Ken Takakura's genitals, which were lost precisely because of the Turbograndmother and which end up at the center of a bizarre research quest that links together the episodes that make up the entire narrative, which for the first season extends for three and a half narrative arcs, each lasting 3-4 episodes.
The first part of the plot revolves around Ken's "thing", stolen by the Turbograndmother: when the precious thing is finally recovered, the protagonist realizes that two very important parts (there is no need to go into detail: you understand what we are referring to) have disappeared and ended up in the wrong hands.
This bizarre narrative pretext actually serves as a glue between essentially unrelated supernatural stories, through which Ken and Momo become aware of their powers and, above all, deepen their relationship. The sentimental component, although more limited than in other anime of this season, is all in all already seen, since the love between Ken and Momo is largely unaware (and reciprocated, but never declared) typically adolescent, the kind that is experienced between the desks of high school and that are made of said, unsaid, misunderstandings and misunderstandings that have as protagonists part of the supporting cast, starting with Shiratori and Jiji.
Dandadan: A breathtaking style
Although the love story between the two protagonists is only sketched and is anything but preponderant, DanDaDan treats it with very carnal tones and with a raw, almost rough physicality, uncommon for a Japanese animated series but which makes perfect sense in a production that makes excess its stylistic feature.
It can also be seen in the dialogues, extremely scurrilous (but at the same time equally realistic), in the frequent use of sexual metaphors and in the plot itself: the search for Ken's "thing" is only the most obvious of the double meanings, the winking games and the allusions that can be found in DanDaDan.
From the narration and the dialogues, the tension towards excess overflows into the artistic style, which is a riot of colors, very rapid movements, directorial virtuosity and animations that border on exhibitionism, as if with the series Science Saru had first of all wanted to flex his technical muscles. The result is a sort of futuristic painting in motion, whose characters draw full inspiration from both surrealism and the extremes of postmodern art.
When Okarun (Momo's nickname for Takakura) transforms into her spirit version, using Turbograndmother's powers, speed takes on a central role, while photography and animation do nothing but enhance the most complex and destructive movements, the most plastic poses and breathtaking acrobatics, paradoxically ending up crippling the aesthetics of Momo's character, who unlike Shiratori and Ken does not enjoy powers that grant her super-speed, flexibility and elasticity.
The use of saturated, vivid and almost acidic colors helps to make the visual impact sparkling, leading to moments of pure visual enjoyment - which, however, it must be said, become increasingly rare as the first season approaches its conclusion while maintaining quality levels well above average.
In fact, the chromatic variety, combined with the heterogeneity of the representation of spirits and extraterrestrials makes DanDaDan's fortune from an aesthetic point of view, since Science Saru has succeeded in the thankless task of staging an original story despite starting from a basic idea that might seem little more than a jumble of clichés of the horror genre in all its meanings.
But no: DanDaDan has a clearly recognizable style, never the same but incredibly cohesive, whose fundamental characteristics remain the frenetic rhythm, the insane speed, the physicality of the bodies and a design absolutely outside the schemes of protagonists, supporting characters and enemies, especially when we move away from the human-humanoid archetype and let ourselves go to the most distorted, hybrid or simply anatomically meaningless forms.
The weirdness is certainly a fundamental element of the series, but it is also what makes it so special and what makes us anxiously await the second season: what narrative and stylistic devices will the Science Saru guys put into play in the next episodes?
DanDaDan is an anime that makes its eclecticism a source of pride. The variety of situations is enviable and is supported by an artistic direction (and original material) that focuses entirely on aesthetic virtuosity, imaginative excess and ideas that can strike the viewer for their weirdness and originality.
Such a heterogeneous style is balanced by a rather classic macro-plot, which is however interspersed with fresh stories and fights, which often represent a modern - and also rather cynical - revision of Japanese folklore and urban legends. The physicality of the fights, loves and wounds goes hand in hand with a constantly over-the-top language, with characters with extreme character traits and with a simply overflowing staging, and for this reason capable of being remembered for a long time.
Add Comments