DAN DA DAN Season 2

Episode 20

The only thing better than getting to dig into a new episode of DAN DA DAN is catching up on two episodes back-to-back after a brief time away from the weekly anime grind. When you work as a critic for a living, you will inevitably reach the point where it really does become work, even if the media you're covering is great. With DAN DA DAN, though, I never feel even an ounce of dread at having to clock in and hang out with the MomOkarun Crew. Every single minute of this show has been a blast over the course of the last twenty-one episodes, and you won't ever hear me complaining about being given the chance to sing the show's praises some more each week.

To prove my point, Episode 20 is “You Can Do It, Okarun!”, which sees our boy teaming up with Aira to take on the horde of Composer Portrait Ghosts that Turbo Granny summoned a couple of weeks back, and it is just nonstop Science SARU action goodness from beginning to end. Usually, it is a very good sign whenever a sequence adopts a mostly monochrome palette that allows a few choice colors to pop, as it means that the mad geniuses working on this adaptation are cracking their knuckles and getting ready to cut loose. Even though this fight is as low-stakes as you can really get in a battle-anime, with the whole thing being an elaborate training session for Okarun ahead of the real rematch with Evil Eye, DAN DA DAN treats this insane fever dream with as much care and artistry as any of the climactic threats our heroes have faced in the past. The image of all those dead composers vomiting out a legion of mobs for Okarun and Aira to clash with is one of the silliest and most memorable slices of pure DAN DA DAN weirdness that we've seen since…well, we actually get something pretty crazy nearly every week, but you get the point.

Also, it's nice to give Okarun and Aira the chance to team up on their own against a Baddie of the Week. Aira had to sit out the literally seismic event that was the Mongolian Death Worm Arc, and she deserves a shot to remind the audience that her Acrobatic Silky powers are nothing to sneeze at. It's smart, the way that DAN DA DAN is building on her dynamic with Okarun without falling into cliche love-triangle traps. I don't think an army of the most talented and wicked artists alive could produce a scene that sizzled enough to convince us that Momo and Okarun weren't the most rock-solid endgame couple in all of anime, so the show doesn't even bother, which is for the best. Aira is the kind of loveable idiot who I want to see figure herself out and grow as friends with everyone in the gang, and I'm sure she'll get there eventually. You know, once Momo and Okarun finally work up the courage to take things to the level beyond clumsy, clandestine hand wrangling.

Another smart move is how the show doesn't drag out Okarun's second go-round with Evil Eye. It's plenty badass, for sure, but there's no way we're going to outdo the incredible feat of choreography and coordination that capped the Death Worm storyline, so DAN DA DAN throws us a few minutes of incredibly well animated brawling before exploding the Ayase house into pieces and solving the whole debacle with the power of Okarun's friendship.

If there's one sequence in these two episode that perfectly captures the heart of this show, it's Okarun's fiery speech at the beginning of the fight: “I thought we'd come up with a solution by now, but the Evil Eye is too dangerous. He's too savage. We can't just leave him alone. And still, you all accept him! Like he's a part of our family. I never heard anything so weird. I never heard anything…so totally badass.” Of course Okarun is going to find a way to make Jiji's promise to protect the Evil Eye come true. That's just the kind of brass-ballin', ride-or-die homie that Ken Takakura is.

Besides, Okarun's play to trick Evil Eye into directing all of his murderous rage and adolescent boredom at him finally allows the show to fulfill the promise it made to us when Jiji sang the Ranma ½ theme song way back at the beginning of the season. Yes, witht Evil Eye being pacified enough to hold off on killing literally any person that comes within 50-miles of his line of sight, the show can now pivot back to sitcom mode and let us bask in the glory that is “Evil Eye Steals Jiji's Body to Go to School and Do Other Normal Stuff, Except Like an Insane Freak.” It is glorious. Just look at the shot I used as the header up there. What more could I possibly say?

All of that, and there's still so much more that I could highlight, like the hilariously dumb Mantis Ex Machina plot device that allows Momo and Seiko to Minecraft their exploded house back together, or the handful of scenes that demonstrate Jiji's parents to be just as impossibly weird as their son is. DAN DA DAN is the gift that keeps on giving; we all know this buy now. And, just in case anyone was foolish enough to think that we would be slowing down now that the Evil Eye conundrum has been handled, the post-credits scene of “I Want to Rebuild the House” introduces us to a brand new off-putting dork who sings classic-anime theme songs at our heroes in some confusing attempt at functional human communication.

To everyone out there reading this: I hope you've made your peace with any romantic partners who thought they'd locked in their shot, and be sure to clear out your calendars for the foreseeable future. This dingus is coming straight for your hearts.

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DAN DA DAN Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.