DAN DA DAN Season 2

Episode 21

Finally, after nearly two years and two dozen episodes, I can finally shed this ruse and live my truth. It has been so hard to review DAN DA DAN and pretend that Momo and Okarun have been the main characters of this story. Don't get me wrong, they are perfect beyond reproach, but do either Momo or Okarun possess a spinner rack for their collection of dozens of meticulously crafted eye-glasses that have been chosen to match their pitch-perfect drip? Do they arm themselves daily with a stockpile of vibrant plastic folding combs so they can manage their perfectly coiffed Otaku Doughboy Fringe™? Do they trundle down the street each morning bellowing Gundam theme songs at the top of their lungs until they risk being heard by all of the normies at school that Just. Wouldn't. Get it?

No, of course not. Nobody else in DAN DA DAN possesses the pure swagger, the raw animal magnetism, the nostril-burning musk of Kinta Sakata. He's got the moves. He's got the gumption. He can look you straight in the eye and say words like “wiener” and “bra” without breaking enough of a sweat for you to see it through the layers of his student uniform. Momo's got great floaty ghost-hand-things. Okarun can run fast and hold hands like a son of a gun. But Kinta? He's clearly the true hero of DAN DA DAN. If you needed further proof, this episode is where we learn that he's been here the whole time. Who's to say? If Kinta weren't there, just off screen, when Momo and Okarun were being goofy dorks and almost breaking their teeth with that clumsy first kiss, those wacky kids might never have stayed together long enough to survive the threats that they've encountered these last two seasons.

In all seriousness, though, I really do love the gag of Kinta just looming awkwardly just outside of the shots from Episode 5. I'm always impressed when a show or movie can creatively repurpose old footage with an entirely new context (this probably explains why Back to the Future Part II has always been my favorite of the trilogy). I'm equally impressed when a show can manage to make a character hilarious without even having to give him a line of intelligible dialogue, and Kinta passes that test, too, right up to where we get back to the post-credits scene from last week, where our hero asks his faithful ally and subordinate who he's never even spoken to for advice on how to be so cool and hot with the chicks.

Okarun clearly has no idea what the hell Kinta is on about, which is another great gag this week. I couldn't tell you if Class Rep Girl has ever shown up in the show before now, but she also works as a character who has seemingly just been here the entire time, thirsting after Okrarun's sweet, sweet nerd meat from afar. Momo clearly recognizes that her man has unfathomable amounts of game - nearly as much as Kinta wields, himself - which only makes their ongoing romance all the cuter. Okarun is incapable of even riding on a train with a girl who isn't Momo without breaking out in hives, yet he is projecting the aura of a consummate playboy badass without even trying. Thank God that Kinta was there to, you know…silently stalk Okarun and stew over his own loneliness for months.

I don't think that “The Secret Art of Being Attractive” is going to go down as an all-timer of a DAN DA DAN episode, but as we all know by now, a slightly-below-incredible episode of this show that is mostly focused on introducing new characters and setting up future plot points is still going to be a hell of a time. How the hell is anyone going to complain when we get a brand new monster threat that is literally just a rubber-suit-looking kaiju homage to the villains of tokusatsu classics like Ultraman? Yeah, that's what I thought.

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