The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - DAN DA DAN Season 2

Momo, Okarun, and Jiji head to Jiji's house in rural Byakuja Village to investigate the supposed curse hanging over the house. The trio is soon confronted by the eerie Kito Family, the landlords for most of the village. Momo is attacked at the local hot spring while the Kitos question Okarun and Jiji. An all-out fight reveals a hidden, cursed room within Jiji's home and the underground domain of the area's ancient god. And if all that isn't enough, Jiji soon loses control of himself to the Evil Eye, a vengeful entity ready to take Okarun, Momo, and all of Byakuja Village down with it.

DAN DA DAN is based on the manga series by Yukinobu Tatsu. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix on Thursdays.

Content warning: DAN DA DAN episodes 1-2 contain depictions of attempted sexual assault and suicide.

What a banger of an episode, with wall-to-wall intense action, though it probably should come with a trigger warning considering the frequency with which it depicts either suicide or attempted suicide. This content is unsurprising, considering that both main supernatural threats facing our goofy group of hapless teens function by driving otherwise mentally healthy people to the depths of life-ending despair. This is why Jiji's parents aren't at home anymore – they're hospitalized after he barely saved them from self-inflicted death by hanging. Sadly, the other victims from the former houses on the same site weren't so lucky. At least some of the historical deaths we witness were inadvertently caused by Jiji's new best pal, a vengeful spirit that Turbo Granny dubs “Evil Eye”.

For much of the episode, Momo and Okarun remain under the malign influence of the hungry wormy thing, as it drives them to mortal harm to chomp on their fresh corpses shortly after. The only thing preventing Okarun from stabbing himself is Jiji's almost superhuman acrobatic skill, while only Tutbo Granny's hard porcelain exterior prevents Momo's self-evisceration. It's not even likely that Granny deliberately saves her either!

Jiji's frenzied attempt to save his friends is a tense, nail-biting scene, as he catapults himself (and them) through walls and floors to escape not only visceral worm-related horror, but also existential terror. It's the stuff of sweaty nightmares, and it's all animated with such verve and immediacy. He only finds a chance to breathe once the extremely creepy-looking Evil Eye shows up to nullify the worm's psychic suicide-waves. Through Jiji's eyes, we then see Evil Eye's tragic past as a village sacrifice, a starving, dehydrated child imprisoned in a small cell, staring forlornly through his barred window at the children playing happily together outside, carefree. All he wants is to share in the simple pleasure, but all he gets is fire, death, and pain. We see him as a ghost, visiting local children who can see him, while their parents cannot, and subsequently, they all commit suicide, leaving crying, bereaved children behind. It's incredibly upsetting, and we can empathise when Evil Eye desperately attempts to save one of the orphaned children from becoming one of the Kito family's sacrifices, but his insubstantial hands pass through the ropes binding him.

We understand, then, when the altogether too innocent and trusting Jiji allows the Evil Eye to enter his body, Ryoman Sukuna/Jujutsu Kaisen-style. Evil Eye's use of Jiji's muscular, athletic (and only underpants-wearing) form gives rise to some mad Cursed Soccer Deathmatch between him and wormy-dude, entertainingly punching him full of holes, and sending the slimy one slithering off back into his hole. Success? Um… maybe not when Evil Eye announces his intention to murder the entire human race. I believe we call this escalation, and with this incredible episode, DAN DA DAN continues to escalate itself into the upper echelons of superior anime spectacle. If you're not already watching, you're missing out on a classic likely to be discussed for years to come.

It's back, and as deliriously demented as ever! DAN DA DAN, one of last year's very best anime, makes a triumphant return to… exactly where it left off last time, randomly smack dab in the middle of the manga chapter it adapted. I'm not going to lie, the previous season's choice of stopping point was weird. No matter, it means we start off with DAN DA DAN's signature recurrent attempted sexual abuse motif, but thankfully this time the main female protagonist Momo escapes with only slightly shredded nerves, while the inexplicably menacing towel-wearing gray-green-skinned creepos perving on her get crushed beneath a collapsing bath house. I'm not entirely clear on exactly what saves Momo here, whether it's her psychokinetic powers or the intervention of Turbo Granny in her lucky cat form, which had previously been just kind of chilling in the corner of the bath while Momo was almost molested.

Sadly, the creepos hilariously running away from the police isn't the last time we see them – there's an entire family of them, answering to their terrifying matriarch who happens to have Okarun and Jiji under her sinister watch, and local law enforcement under her thumb. Poor Jiji's in thrall to this unsettling family, as they're letting him stay in the house they lease, rent-free, following his parents' disappearance. You know, the house with the hole in the wall, revealing a secret murder-chamber complete with occult talisman wall-coverings. The perfect décor to attract new tenants. The Kita family, as they introduce themselves, are like all of your most uncomfortable, distant family houseguests who never bothered to learn about normal human niceties and spend most of dinner belittling your choice of career, or spouse, or diet, or political beliefs. You know the kind.

Momo returning home to find her two guy-pals beaten and stripped, and in response unleashing a torrent of violence upon the green creepos, is pretty much what DAN DA DAN is all about. It's unhinged, and hilarious – especially the Kita lady's bonkers ninjutsu or whatever it is she uses to writhe and dodge past Momo's psychic-powered attacks. That everything devolves into the entire cast falling through a cursed quicksand pit into a buried-house-filled-hellspace, complete with resident hungry Demonic Earthworm God, is icing on the crazy-cake. Of course, the Kitas are devoured by the “God” they worship, despite their supposedly protective posture contortions. I can't imagine our main trio escaping this situation completely unscathed.

Relentlessly funny, with a keen eye for absurdity and razor-sharp comic timing, Science SARU's energetic take on the already excellent manga elevates the source material into something very special. I love this mad show, and despite some of its more questionable elements, I'm thrilled it returned so soon.

What, did you suddenly expect DAN DA DAN to stop being a benchmark anime of the year all of a sudden, just two episodes into its second season? If anything, DAN DA DAN's latest episode is even better than the last, now that the story is cutting loose with the newest arc and dumping even more psychic-worm-monster madness on our desperate heroes. I was utterly sold the minute I got to hear Turbo Granny utter, “This dingus just stabbed me!” in the gravelly tones of Ritra Repulsa (aka Barbara Goodson). This is probably a good a time as any to remind you all that DAN DA DAN has one of the best English dubs around, right now. I'd say it would make for a great way to introduce your more subtitle-averse friends and family to anime, but I suppose you'd want to make sure they're prepared for how, uh, weird this show gets.

Anyways, this episode continues developing the best part of the new Evil Eye/Giant Worm storyline, which is Jiji stepping up to the plate to become a true member of Team Save Okarun's Balls. He's mostly served as competent comedic relief up until now, but he's the only one who can keep Momo and Okarun from being taken over by the Giant Worm's suicide beams. This is thanks to the counteractive powers of the Evil Eye curse's own evil magic telepathy rays, which means that the curse, which has basically ruined Jiji's entire life, is the only thing keeping everyone from dying horribly. You have to love a good example of thematic irony.

The episode also gives us a glimpse into the backstory of the Evil Eye, which is accomplished with another moody flashback that utilizes some unique color palettes and artistic choices. It's nowhere near as much of a landmark sequence as the Acrobatic Silky episode from last season, but that's fine. It gets the job done by creating an interesting new problem for the gang to try to solve while they are also attempting to stop the demonic worm thing.

You could maybe argue that the emotional impact of the Evil Eye backstory would have been heightened if it also got an entire episode devoted to it, but I think that sort of pacing would diminish the stakes of this storyline, which is much more focused on the kids trying to get control of the most terrifying and imposing threat they've yet faced. We're not limited to one possessed classmate or a single school building that's infested with monsters; the havoc the Great Serpent could wreak is on an entirely different level. You can bet that my ass is going to be in my seat the second the next episode launches so that I can greedily devour all of the DAN DA DAN goodness that Science SARU has in store for us.

Thank you, Anime Gods, for seeing fit to grace us with yet another season of one of the best action-comedy-romance-horror-science-fiction-kaiju-coming-of-age anime ever made. Not only is DAN DA DAN back, but it is somehow back with an even better set of opening and closing credits than the first go-round. I can guarantee you that I will be playing Aina The End's banger of an OP on repeat until the heat death of the universe arrives.

For anyone who was put off by the first season finale's choice to insert a cliffhanger right in the middle of the scene where Momo is attacked by a gang of creepy perverts at the hot-springs, don't fret. It doesn't take more than a minute for Momo to evade the skeevy bastards and send them running for the hills. Granted, we discover in this episode that said skeevy bastards belong to the Kito family, who turn out to be the crustiest, slimiest, perviest, and most downright scuzzballiest psychos that our heroes have yet encountered; so, unfortunately for every one of our heroes, we're far from through dealing with creepy perverts. The…I guess “good-ish” news? It isn't so much the Kito's penchant for theft, assault, and sexual predation that is going to be the focus of this storyline, but rather the family's habit of regularly murdering innocent folks as sacrifices to their local Giant Demon Worm God.

In other words, it's just another Thursday for Momo and Okarun, though poor Jiji is already starting to fray a bit at the seems on account of all the miserable supernatural torture he's been through. Between the hospitalized family, the haunting presence that has been eroding his sanity, the gang of Dang-Ass Creeps that is holding the entire town hostage, and now the Eldritch Worm-Thing that is threatening to kill everyone…well, let's just say that our loveable pink-haired buffoon is going to need a lot of therapy to get his head set right.

It's a great turn of events for us, though, because it means DAN DA DAN is set to continue delivering the goods and escalating the action just as it did last year. I've been saying for months now that the first season of DAN DA DAN is one of the most impressive runs of nonstop incredible episodes that I have ever seen. After watching this premiere, all signs seem to indicate that Science SARU has absolutely no intention of resting on its laurels now.

If the season premiere of DAN DA DAN's second season was all about hitting audiences with the combination of weird setups and cool action scenes that have made this series so effective, this one is all about the third secret ingredient to its formula: a dose of personal tragedy. We've heard from Jiji about how his parents were hospitalized thanks to an evil spirit haunting their house, but we only really get the full context when it turns out that the giant deathworm the kids are currently dealing with also happens to send out psychic waves that can compel people to kill themselves. It's a pretty terrifying concept.

While this show rarely ever dips into outright horror, it is very unsettling watching Okarun and Momo get slowly driven mad by this—and the direction here helps to make that horror feel as intense as possible. While this serves as an excuse to put a bit more focus on Jiji as the last man standing—and getting a look at how he nearly watched his parents die is plenty disturbing—the tragedy on display this week doesn't have too much to do with him directly. Instead it belongs to a different spirit that's been haunting him called the Evil Eye—and it's got quite the backstory.

The Evil Eye was originally a child who had the misfortune of being one of the Kito family's volcano sacrifices and spent most of his childhood being separated from other kids before being burned alive and left for dead. Even after death, all he ever wanted was to play with other kids. But like the death worm, his powers can drive people to suicide and any kids who saw him would only end up losing their parents in process. Unsurprisingly this has left him with a bit of a grudge against the Kitos—and if you didn't find these guys to be despicable in last week's episode, it's hard not to in this one as the show doesn't shy away from the horror of all the kids they've sent to their deaths in order to maintain their delusion of being local heroes.

All this strikes a chord with Jiji who sympathizes with him—and I've got to give some major props to the dub performances of Anne Yacto and Aleks Le as the Evil Eye and Jiji respectively as both did a fantastic job of getting across how much this kid was ultimately wronged. It also seems like Jiji might have empathized with him a little too much as the Evil Eye decides to take his body for a joyride but I'm certainly enjoying all the great action we're getting out of this rampage. The fact that Evil Eye Jiji is both imposing and tragic, even while he's monologuing about vengeance in his undies, is a testament to how good this show is at what it does. It's hard not to applaud DAN DA DAN's ability to go from silly to devastating and then back again without missing a beat—and with a whole season's worth of material on the horizon, I'm excited to see just how well it can keep managing its strange-but-effective balancing act.

After a half-year break, DAN DA DAN is back and as off-kilter as ever. Science SARU's adaptation has been nearly flawless so far, and with its stellar animation, great use of color, and incredible soundtrack, it has done a good job of adding some extra spice to Yukinobu Tatsu's already excellent source material. I say near flawless because if there's one thing I didn't care for with the first season, it was its cliffhanger—and more specifically, the decision to hit the pause button while Momo was under the potential threat of being sexually assaulted. While this scene was present in the manga as well, it happened in the middle of a chapter, and Momo more or less escaped the situation within the span of a couple of pages. That makes the decision for the anime to stop the first season there feel like little more than cheap shock value, and it's a pretty lame thing to do to one of the show's protagonists. The fact that the situation is resolved within the first couple of minutes of the premiere just kind of further cements how unnecessary it was, and it sucks that this had to knock some of the wind out of what's otherwise been an incredible adaptation.

With that bit of soapboxing out of the way, I'm otherwise happy to say that I had a blast with the premiere. The action sequences look as immaculate as ever, and while I don't like the new OP nearly as much as the first one, the new ED is more than enough of a bop to make up for it (and all the dancing does a good job of displaying what makes each these kooky teens so endearing). It also helps that this episode is working with some strong material. The Evil Eye arc was one of my favorite stretches of the original manga, and the anime seems to be doing a great job with it so far. Most of this premiere is centered around introducing us to the arc's main antagonists, the Kito Family, who can be best described as small-town landlords. They've got Jiji's hometown wrapped around their little finger and are more than happy to throw their weight around—whether it's treating Jiji poorly for living in one of their rental homes or getting cops to look the other way when they threaten to be violent. They might not seem as intimidating as any of the aliens or yokai that populated the first season, but the fact that they feel so amazingly true to life as small-town jerks makes them a lot easier to hate.

This is doubly true thanks to them being at the center of a local legend. When a volcano once threatened to destroy the town, they appeased it by offering up sacrifices to a snake god—and they've been milking their status as saviors ever since. While that could have worked as a good enough explanation for their hold on this town, that would be too normal for DAN DA DAN—so it instead turns out their “snake god” is really a giant cryptid death worm and these guys have been propping themselves up as town heroes without knowing what they're really dealing with. Momo and Okarun fighting some evil landlords to avoid being giant worm food is a scenario as silly as it is awesome, but that's basically how this series rolls and I wouldn't have it any other way. DAN DA DAN is at its best when it's being both as cool and as weird as it possibly can—and with how much great material they have to work with this season, I'm confident that the fine folks at Science SARU will deliver on that in spades.

I think my favorite thing about DAN DA DAN is how it handles its previously human monsters. Be it Acrobatic Silky or Evil Eye, they have these tragic backstories that you can't help but empathize with. With Evil Eye's story, we see the horrific life of a kid raised to be a human sacrifice by the Kito family. Given just enough food to stay alive, he lives locked in a box with a single window and dreams about playing with the kids he glimpses outside. Then, he's burned alive by the erupting volcano and lingers for days before death. Oh, and just when you thought death would grant some respite, he becomes a ghost that can only be seen by kids—and watches as their parents kill themselves time and again. It's tragedy piled upon tragedy.

You'd have to be inhuman not to feel sympathy for Evil Eye's story. However, the fact remains that these yokai are malevolent creatures. Regardless of how they became yokai or what their original intentions were, they are now harming people—killing them in many cases—and cannot be trusted. All they need is one opening and they'll pounce on it.

Of course, Jiji doesn't yet understand this. He doesn't have the personal experience that Okarun and Momo have with the supernatural. He just sees the heartbreaking tale and fills in the gaps in the most favorable way: Evil Eye is a lonely kid who needs a friend—a spirit who has been protecting him from the deathworm since they moved into the house. It never even occurs to Jiji that he only saw what Evil Eye wanted him to see.

On a side note, all this serves to remind us that Turbo Granny may be playing the exact same kind of game with our heroes but in the long term. She helps them, pretends to be much less than she is, and simply waits for the opportune moment to get what she wants. Or maybe, her new form has actually effected her personality and changed her malevolent nature. There's no way to tell—and that just adds a sense of tension to her every scene (even when it's comic relief).

Other than that, this episode is lots of solid action and artistically told visual storytelling. It's got great character moments, wonderful backgrounds, and more than a few laughs strewn about. In other words, it's another fantastic episode of DAN DA DAN that once again shows why this anime has become popular with critics and general fans alike.

The first season of DAN DA DAN ended on a cliffhanger, to say the least. And if nothing else, this episode resolves all of them. Do I wish things weren't as rape-y as they are in this episode when it comes to poor Momo? Sure. But at least the episode goes out of its way to have her give her attackers a swift knee to the face (or nuts as the case may be).

But more than anything else, this episode felt like a headlong sprint forward. Other than the little bit of exposition at the tsuchinoko shrine, everything is either a tension-building conversation or straight-up violence. To be clear, this is far from a complaint. The fact that we, the viewer, have no real clue about what is going on for most of the episode mirrors exactly what the characters are feeling. They're in danger, we want them to be safe, and if somehow it all makes sense in the end, that'll be a bonus.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that this episode, like much of last season, is a visual masterpiece. The action is fast and fluid while the surreal aspects are downright creepy. The character designs remain amazing and the environments feel real even when they're anything but. There's also a ton of little humor bits, both visual and aural, scattered throughout the episode—and for their part, the voice actors hit each one of them squarely on the head.

Honestly, when it comes down to it, if you liked the first season of DAN DA DAN, you'll like season 2. It's just more of the same—and I mean that as the highest possible kind of praise.

Out of the frying pan and all that, as often happens to the cool kids of DAN DA DAN. The series needs some way to jump Jiji to the forefront of the action after Momo and Okarun's powers have been carrying things so far, and thus the supernaturally skilled duo oblige by offering to off themselves. It's a darkly effective way to re-center things on Jiji, as this kaleidoscope of suffering naturally has him flashing back to catching his parents in a similar harrowing ordeal. In that mindset, this episode is all about offering some more serious interiority on Jiji beyond his goofy exterior. It was already clear that he was well-meaning, but stupid, and now it's clarified that he is… absolutely still that. Only now he's well-meaning but stupid with definitive, far-reaching consequences.

It's not all Jiji's fault though, as this episode demonstrates that DAN DA DAN is thoroughly down with trolling its own viewers. Some of the material is bizarre business as usual—Momo and Okarun's repeated attempts to kill themselves can come across grimly comedic as this anime is wont to be. And the formal appearance of Evil Eye, the supernatural entity competing with the Mongolian Death Worm, comes with showing off the gross lanky purple monster man in all its glory—which is equally spooky and sputter-worthy. In other words, exactly what's expected of the series at this point—which also extends to what's given for Evil Eye's backstory.

Now initially, I can confess that this is where DAN DA DAN started to lose me. Evil Eye's backstory is technically affecting enough, being a tale of unfair tragedy that spiraled out of control—harming others in unintentional ways. But it is cut in at an awkward mid-action moment, and there's just something that feels a bit played-out in its style and shape. Viewers already got their tears jerked out by Acrobatic Silky's backstory last season, so it feels only a little tired to have this heartstring-tugging sequence for another misunderstood monster dropped in at an opportune time.

Except it turns out that that's the exact intention, as Evil Eye is specifically showing this to Jiji so he can voluntarily possess him and use his shredded psychic soccer bod to get loose and go on a human-killing spree! If only they'd listened to Turbo Granny. It's a glorious reversal of how DAN DA DAN has played on expectations thus far. It's fitting for a series that's delighted in swerves and calculated left-turns pretty much since day one. The textual purpose is characterizing Jiji and how he's got a bleeding heart that can be swayed, but the metatextual use keeps the audience on their toes—not just now, but for future encounters as well.

That's all alongside Evil Eye's power-up possession coming with the genius animation of his soccer-based fighting style. That's a great way to signal how he's incorporating Jiji's abilities and it looks sick as hell. The use of impact frames alone is a masterclass in how to making animated hits count—and that's before you get to design elements like Evil Eye's purple and the Death Worm's gold competing with each other in dominating DAN DA DAN's color-wash stylings. With the previous episode mainly resolving the first-season cliffhanger and setting up what was truly to come, this episode is the one that feels like DAN DA DAN really ramping up to escalate for its second season.

After the first season paused on categorically the worst possible point, the second season of DAN DA DAN at least has the decency to let audiences breathe a sigh of relief almost immediately. Momo's distressing situation is resolved by the setting literally falling apart around her (with dubious thanks to Turbo Granny), allowing the characters and the people watching to focus on the more pressing and entertaining supernatural issues. They really couldn't have accelerated the previous episode by a few minutes instead of leaving us hanging on that for half a year?!

Of course, the deeply unpleasant vibes of the town persist in their own ways, and naturally intersect with said supernatural shenanigans being investigated by Momo, Okarun, and Jiji. That's part of the appeal of DAN DA DAN, after all: the inherent awkward weirdness of everyday life blending with true freaky shit that's just out of view. Sometimes annoying neighbors are just obnoxious local power-trippers, sometimes a hyped-up tsuchinoko deity is just a crusty old snake, and other times those are harbingers of something much more ancient and horrifying. The tension as Jiji and Okarun are harangued by the Kito family mounts at just the right clip, letting the stress build before one slip-up, a cut back to Momo, and all hell breaks loose.

Then the DAN DA DAN we all know and love kicks in. Science SARU hasn't missed a beat after the buildup with all that evocative character acting animation, now delivering a knock-down drag-out living room brawl with Momo at the center. She gets to enact violent revenge on the old men who assaulted her in the bath, which is great. But then the series' trademark absurdity swings in with the martial-artist matriarch of the Kito family matching Momo blow-for-blow (seriously, what is it with this anime and ass-kicking old ladies?). The whole sequence is filled with delightful little touches like random room objects peppering assailants or said ass-kicking old lady invoking Jennifer Lopez in Anaconda. It's a kitchen-sink approach that fits in with a season of established absurdity from DAN DA DAN, and that's before the detailed backstories about human sacrifices are invoked and the giant worm shows up.

As much as the gnawing tension of the rural setting was working, it feels right for the season to truly open up like the ground beneath Momo's feet. There's a whole extra sunken city for the characters to scramble through now, the screen is bathed in one of the DAN DA DAN anime's signature color-coded washes (an oppressive golden yellow, in this case) and yeah, there's a big Mongolian Death Worm to contend with. The Kito Family all get eaten by it before the credits roll, so things have gone absurdist bugnuts and they're only one episode into the season. The pacing between the seasons was a bit awkward getting here, but I can't deny that by the end of this episode it feels like a proper escalation.

Oh, and while Creepy Nuts will be missed on the OP, they've got Call of the Night to attend to this season, so it's understandable. Aina The End is doing a fine job on the slick new opener, anyway.