Dandadan (2024): Fan Service, Puberty Horrors, and Unlikely Heroes
- theghoulsnextdoor
- 41 minutes ago
- 17 min read
As quirky and charming as Dandadan is on the surface, full of bright color, relatable young protagonists navigating first love and their growing bodies, wacky alien creatures and exciting fight sequences, Dandadan has a brilliant knack for knocking its viewers off their feet with unjarring and upsetting backstories. Dandadan is not always an easy watch. While there is constant, excessive stripping down of the story’s young protagonists, if you’re able to stomach the initial uneasiness to grapple with the entire picture, you’ll find that creator Tatsu shares our concerns and fears. Ghouls discuss whether this show can be labeled as fan service or social commentary, cover the horrors of puberty, the power of friendship, and the unlikely hero, Momo.
Media from this week's episode:
DandaDan (2024):
When Momo and Okarun's beliefs clash, they're thrown into a world of ghosts, aliens and awakened powers.
Manga Artist: Yukinobu Tatsu & Produced by: Science Saru
Dandadan: Fan Service or Social Commentary?
by gabe castro
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
Season 1 & 2 Synopsis
Dandadan is a quirky, fun anime that explores heavy societal issues using supernatural horrors that plague a group of high school students. The show follows Momo, a high school girl from a family of spirit mediums, and her classmate Okarun, an occult geek. The two of them connect after Momo rescues Okarun from being bullied. However, an argument between them sparks a challenge. While Momo "believes in ghosts but denies the existence of aliens", Okarun "believes in aliens but denies the existence of ghosts". The two dare each other to prove the existence of their niche interest and subsequently leave harrowing events with trauma and supernatural gifts.
Okarun’s dare finds him in an abandoned tunnel rumored to be haunted by the yokai, Turbo Granny. After being assaulted, running for his life and having to fight to survive, Okarun ends up possessed of her powers and missing his private parts. Momo encounters a perverted alien race obsessed with reproducing (a trend of alien folklore), while attempting to fight back, she unlocks her own spiritual powers and saves both herself and new, turbo-granny’d Okarun.
The first season follows the pair as their friendship and affection for one another grow. They struggle to navigate their new powers, the existence of both ghosts and aliens that are now intent on taking them down, finding Okarun’s stolen golden balls, saving aliens from oppressive space capitalism, uncovering the depressing truths behind the spectres that haunt them, and survive the ups and downs of high school. Another classmate of theirs ends up possessed by a ghost, the Acrobatic Silky, joining the band of youthful misfits defending their town from ghosts and aliens. Momo’s best friend, Jiji, joins in the end after confessing that he’s being haunted by a sinister force. This is the plot explored in season two. To help Jiji, Momo and Okarun travel to his home to investigate and keep him company. The first season leaves us on a traumatic cliffhanger with Momo cornered in a natural spring by a group of otherworldly men-creatures.
In season two, we pick up where we left off as Momo is struck with a bit of luck (thanks to Turbo Granny, now haunting a cat figurine) and the springs erupt before she can be further assaulted. We learn of the extensive history of this small town that Jiji lives in. In fear of the volcano that overshadows it, the townsfolk have been sacrificing people to this idea of a god to protect themselves from eruption. The creepy men-creatures are a part of a historic family which has been managing the sacrifices. Jiji’s house sits atop the remains of all the homes before his which all led to the death and sacrifice of everyone who’s lived there. They discover the truth of the volcano god, which is a giant worm-creature. Jiji befriends an evil entity, the Evil Eye, and finds himself also possessed. The season is a fight to save Jiji from Evil Eye who is intent on murdering everyone. They switch control of the body by interacting with cold or hot water. We get two new additions to the quirky group - an even nerdier boy who is obsessed with Gundam, and in the last moments, we meet a strange girl who had been piloting alien technology.
Fan Service or Social Commentary?
Dandadan has been a hard watch. I have a love-hate relationship with it and I understand both sides of the arguments around whether Dandadan’s constant use of child near-nudity is fan service or commentary. Back when we talked about Sion Sono’s film, Tag, we discussed how while the film claims to be confronting the oversexualizing of young girls in Japanese culture and media, the film caused further harm with its use of the very same film tactics. It’s a fine line when commentary equips the same tools to address these issues. Dandadan is not always an easy watch and I highly recommend checking content warnings. While there is constant, excessive stripping down of the story’s young protagonists, if you’re able to stomach the initial uneasiness to grapple with the entire picture, you’ll find that creator Tatsu shares our concerns and fears.
Anime and Manga are ripe with fan service, material in anime/manga added to satisfy fans. This is often related to nudity or inappropriate shots of female characters. It’s something that is an immediate turn-off for me when I’m watching anime but it’s a part of the culture around anime and manga. Even some of my favorite anime feature problematic shots and decisions that sour my feelings towards the overall story. These scenes do nothing for the plot and while they’re inappropriate, they’re not treated as such, which reinforces these problematic views of female bodies. The material is a gag or an inside joke between viewer and creator, existing only to titillate. I think of Fire Force, an anime I personally haven’t watched and most likely won’t. The show is about fire fighters with powers and features a female character who, while donning her fire fighter’s uniform (you know, to protect your skin from fire) she only wears the bottom half and leaves her top torso open with only a stringy bikini (sounds super safe, babe). That itself is annoying but this character is also deemed “clumsy” and continually finds herself stumbling into intimate and humiliating situations she blames on her “Lucky Lecher Lure.” This can lead to her being fully naked. Clearly, the joke is on her and what are our plucky heroes supposed to do when the clumsy, hot, catgirl falls into his lap in a compromising position?
However, while Dandadan often strips down our heroes to their underwear, sometimes soaking wet and clamboring over each other, (or in the case of Okarun, naked for two entire episodes) these moments represent more than an inside joke, it's a critique of that very culture and its commentary on our growing bodies. In each instance, of which there are entirely too many, of near sexual assault on Momo, we are made aware of this being a villainous act. In an article on Medium by Charlotte Joan Cheng titled, How Dandadan Confronts the Elephants in The Room, they explain this in depth, defending the story’s use of these explicit and uncomfortable moments. “While the villains in the series, the Serpos, do come after Momo in the pilot for their procreation purposes, the anime does not romanticize the situation nor does it tackle it in a comedic manner. Dandadan Episode 1 is very clear that this is an uncomfortable and dangerous moment for this character. It's meant to trigger the audience negatively, not titillate.”
There's a lot to be said about the context surrounding these moments and the different explorations of sexual attraction. Momo and Okarun’s affections for each other grow slowly over the series, blossoming in soft moments with a subtle hand touch, a hand held while turned away, or a lingering hug. Their growing affection is juvenile, a pure and clumsy thing. The only lustful and inappropriate behavior comes from visible and undeniable villains such as the alien Serpos or the men-creatures in the sauna. Those scenes of assault that leave the characters panicked, manhandled and near-abused are meant to make you feel uncomfortable, to be angry, afraid and disgusted - not aroused, or something to be laughed at. It’s not the punchy embarrassment of poor Tamaki’s lecher lure leaving her naked or in the arms of her co-workers. This is the core of why Dandadan, as triggering and upsetting as it is, is not fan service. Is it still upsetting and uncomfortable? Absolutely. But that’s the point entirely. Our growing bodies, puberty and emotions, are upsetting but so too is the world around us that is intent on objectifying the bodies of young people.
Further, unlike most of the fan service we see where the main object of sexualization is the female characters, Dandadan puts the male protagonist Okarun in just as many situations as Momo. They actually both lose their clothes an equal amount of times. Other anime have also thrived on the idea of girl heroes losing their clothes in their heroic transitions, looking at you Kill La Kill, but in Dandadan it’s actually male hero, Jiji, who ends up nearly naked for his power transformation. And while that’s not a fun thing to say in defense of a show that focuses on CHILDREN, it does purposefully even the scoreboard.
Momo, an Unlikely Heroine
Momo is the one coming to Okarun's rescue time and again. She’s brash and loud, but someone full of heart and care. While she is one to bicker with her friends and family, she’s the first to protect them, often putting her own body in harm's way. She is also the only character with a true innate power. All her friends are possessed by spirits or manipulating alien tech, yet her power comes from her spirit medium heritage. There’s also a relatable and charming softness to her when it comes to her blossoming affection for Okarun reminding the viewer that at the end of the day, she is just a teen girl.
Dandadan is a shonen, a type of manga/anime aimed at an audience of adolescent boys. To have Momo be just as much the protagonist, if not more so than Okarun is important here. Most shonen feature boys as our heroes with the female characters on the side, often used as crushes or whose powers are likely less than that of our heroes even after their own training arcs (Sorry Sakura girl, you tried). But in Dandadan, Momo is the igniting force for most of the fights and challenges. It's her challenge to Okarun that gets them leveled up to start with, it's her assault of Aira out of jealousy that involves her with them, and Jiji is her childhood friend. The aliens are constantly after her, in the very first episode they dismiss Okarun even in turbo-state because they want Momo’s banana specifically. It is Momo’s home they always return to. Dandadan is not a shojo, the anime/manga aimed at young girls, but it has Momo at its helm and it has a true, honest representation of burgeoning young love. So perhaps it's something new altogether.
Dandadan’s Yokai
As quirky and charming as Dandadan is on the surface, full of bright color, relatable young protagonists navigating first love and their growing bodies, wacky alien creatures and exciting fight sequences, Dandadan has a brilliant knack for knocking its viewers off their feet with unjarring and upsetting backstories. Between jokes about Okarun’s lost balls, and miscommunication between teens, we learn about some truly traumatic histories that resulted in the unrested yokai that coexist within our heroes.
Turbo Granny, one of our first villains in the story, is based around a Japanese yokai that warns against reckless driving. When entering a long tunnel while driving, you may hear an unexpected knock at your window as an elderly grandmotherly woman runs alongside your speeding vehicle. While this urban legend focuses on reckless driving, Dandadan’s Turbo Granny holds another layer to her lore, something heartbreaking. TG held within her the spirits of young girls who had met an untimely and brutal demise. These girls, forgotten just as TG had been when abandoned in the subway tunnels, are cared for within TG. TG confronts her victims with enticing and graphic invitations to sexual acts, becoming the agressor for an otherwise vulnerable situation. Situations that led to the deaths of these girls. She is a spirit of vengeance, focused on destroying the predators before they could cause further harm.
Acrobatic Silky who connects, emotionally and physically, with Aira is a slenderman-esque modern yokai, an unusually tall woman in a red hat and dress, who has hollowed-out eyes and extensive scarring on her left arm. This yokai is named the Acrobatic Sarasara or Akusara, as “sara sara” is the sound of silky hair in the wind. Tatsu fleshes out this yokai with a heartbreaking backstory. Her red dress of lore, now that of her lost child's. Acrobatic Silky had once been a working woman, trying to escape debt while raising her young daughter. Only she never made it out of debt and instead after being beaten and having her daughter stolen from her by shady collectors, committed suicide. Her only motivation was to find her daughter again, which she believes she’s found in Aira.
Finally, Jiji’s new body-tenant, Evil Eye is another lost and traumatized soul. After being held captive and sacrificed to the giant worm by the Kito Family, Evil Eye watched as generation after generation of children just like him were sacrificed. Driven by vengeance and pain, the boy became Evil Eye, an evil spirit who would curse others into committing suicide. (thanks to reddit user, scrotuscus, for reminding me of the story by Ursula Le Guin, Those Who Walk Away from Omelas.)
Evil Eye represents Le Guin’s Omelas boy, the victim in her short story in which she asks readers to envision a joyful, caring town. To make this town believable, Le Guin creates the Omelas boy, a nameless child who for the sake of the town takes on all the pain, suffering and hatred. He shoulders this townful-worth of hurt so that others may thrive. Evil Eye, much like the Omelas boy, was one soul tormented and sacrificed for the better good - to appease the volcano God so that it wouldn’t erupt.
However, Le Guin did not pen a revamped version of the trolley problem. Her story asks the reader whether they could imagine such a happy place and when our brains resist such a truth, she creates this boy to place our doubts upon. Because we cannot believe in joy without suffering somewhere. The Kito Family could not envision such a world and so they sacrificed, generation after generation, innocent people for this idea of the better good. Only, they never had to do that. The “god” they worshipped is nothing but a worm, the volcano an independent, unfeeling entity that would erupt or not of its own accord. Their happiness need not be contingent on the suffering of others at all. Yet, Evil Eye, like the Omelas boy, was forced to shoulder and absorb immense pain without explanation, transforming him into a demon with a twisted hero complex. If only we could imagine a world of joy without suffering.
Dandadan: the Horrors of Puberty & the Power of Friendship
by Kae Luck
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
The horrors of puberty, teen isolation and self/peer acceptance
Dandadan, in its own jarring way, highlights the way puberty is a violent experience. The show doesn’t shy away from showing this violence, both to its credit and detriment. From the over sexualization of Momo and Aira, to the literal theft of Okarun’s sexual organs, and Jiji’s inability to control Evil Eye making him unsafe and unstable, Dandadan calls out the way society views and attacks teenagers in real life as they are going through one of the roughest transformations our bodies can go through. All while trying to find acceptance both internally and externally amongst their peers. Each experience our characters go through are obviously things they shouldn’t have to go through, traumatizing and innocent stealing, but they represent the real horrors teens experience in the real world. As we covered in our generations series, it’s hard to be a teenager. And while in the midst of hormones, changing bodies, and big feelings, teens have to deal with the eyes of the world on them. Both peer, and adult.
When we look at the current situation happening in the United States, with the Epstein files, and Megan Kelly using her platform to debate whether or not 15 year olds are children… loud sigh The fact that Dandadan makes us feel uncomfortable about the oversexualization of our teen protagonists is refreshing in comparison. Is it still too much? In my opinion, yeah. But it does call out the very real reality that teens experience as they grow up. Most people have a memory in their mind when they realized people treated and looked at them differently while they were most definitely still children in their early teens. The very uncomfortable feeling of someone's eyes on you that you don’t want, or a grown ass adult talking to you when they shouldn’t be. The lens we are viewing through Dandadan is supposed to call out that reality, and make us feel uncomfortable. Considering 1 in 9 girls experience sexual abuse or assault before the age of 18 and 66% of these instances happen between 12-17 is a clear indicator of why this is such a huge issue. When you wonder why this number is so high, look at who is our president, and the large base of people still supporting him and defending him. Getting rid of billionaires will help solve even more problems than we can think of.
Additionally, thinking of the ways this took place for each of our characters is interesting. Momo, because she can throw hands and is loud, defies traditional views of femininity. She is the opposite of the persona Aira performs in every way. She is loud, smart, and tough. Bullies know not to mess with her because she can kick their ass, and she’s direct and forceful with how she feels. This unfortunately makes her vulnerable to rage and violence from the patriarchy. Her innocence is never assumed, and instead rumors are spread about her and quickly believed. She is isolated outside of her small friend group, and longs for someone to really understand her. She also unfortunately is the one we see attacked the most by aliens and awful men, and while she fights her way through these situations head on and escapes this danger, the violence and threats to her autonomy are traumatizing. It seems that the show is trying to tell us that society punishes those who defy gender norms and societal expectations.
Momo’s foil, Aira, performs femininity in the way society expects in the first half of season one. Aira’s popularity is directly tied to the way she performs femininity. She must always maintain the innocent ditsy girly girl facade, and plays upon the fact that this will get her the attention of people around her. She knows it will also position others around her to defend her, because they perceive her as weak and defenseless, showcasing how society views femininity. Additionally, she knows that in performing all the time, no one will ever truly get to know or like her for who she actually is. This deep insecurity fuels her manipulation of others and image. Her character is interesting because at first I really didn’t like the fact she was manipulative, but I now see why she acted that way. The performance was a call out to the fact that women aren’t expected to be crude or rough around the edges, and that society wants them to be defenseless little lambs, with their innocence in need of protection. Her friends get up in arms because she was found without clothes in the hallway with Momo and Okarun, and it’s immediately assumed that she could never have done that and Momo had corrupted Aira’s innocence. If innocence must be protected, then inversely, perceived depravity and girls like Momo must be destroyed.
When looking at the other characters, Okarun and Jiji are also foils of each other. In the beginning of the show, Okarun is heavily bullied and soft spoken, and not acting how society would classify masculine. He’s a loveable nerd, but isn’t accepted by his peers and for that reason dislikes himself. Even in his friendship with Momo, he doesn’t at any point try to sexualize her or treat her like an object. He really just wants a friend. He fights against the aliens trying to steal her autonomy. Just by existing true to himself he defies the traditional masculine persona that many men try to embody. And then, his literal sexual organs are taken from him, putting his puberty experience on display in a vulnerable way. The only way he can get them back is by training and getting stronger, and with Momo’s help. Through friendship and building connections with others he is able accept himself even if society won’t, and finally is able to get back his parts. His friendship with Jiji gives Okarun a lot of growth as well, showing Okarun deeply cares about each of his friends and wants to fight for their autonomy, and starts to show the kind of person he is.
Jiji was really interesting to me because similarly to Aira, he performed Masculinity well. He was bold, strong, and goofy, distracting from his sensitive and soft side. Underneath the jokes he is really sweet, deeply emotional and empathetic. In the introduction of Evil Eye, we see that Jiji just wants to help someone whose innocence and autonomy was stolen and give them a chance to live and have fun. Something everyone deserves. However, Evil Eye comes with a cost, and that is part of Jiji’s autonomy. With Evil Eye he is not safe to be around the people he loves. The transformation is unpredictable and explosive. If we look at Evil Eye as the manifestation of intense emotions, like rage, we can see how that reflects the most toxic part of masculinity. The way men are expected to be violent. In this way only Jiji can understand Evil Eye, because Evil Eye is actually very innocent, and his violence is wrong but also misunderstood. He just wants to play, like a kid, but is too powerful to manage and control that energy. Jiji and his friends help both him and evil eye control that power, and allow Evil Eye to remain innocent. If we taught young boys how to process and channel their emotions into healthier activities, the world would be a kinder, more empathetic place.
What I hope is the takeaway from this is we should be nicer to the teens in the world. They are floundering and trying to figure out who they are, who they want to be, and how they relate to their peers. All while hormonal af, not having their prefrontal cortexes fully developed and in need of so much growth. They need time to grow and learn and should be given grace where possible and within reason. As long as they are not causing harm to others, let them be themselves, even if that person is a little weird, or doesn’t present and perform gender in the way society expects. Allow them the room to fall, and get back up, and leave them alone. If you’re a whole adult, you should be nowhere near anyone under 18 romantically, and anyone who thinks differently is outing themselves and is a problem. Stop being gross.
The Power of Friendship and Community
Another thing I wanted to touch on is how great it is to see the relationships develop in Dandadan. The show really shows the power of finding a friend and the power of community. The bond that Okarun and Momo developed was really sweet and relatable. Both are misunderstood by the people around them, and learn to accept themselves in their growing friendship. The special interest sharing is so fun and silly. We also see them experience periods of insecurity in their friendship and also crushes, which is a very teen romance drama. The friend group continues to grow as it expands, and they all learn to grow and accept themselves together.
Dandadan shows the power of friendship. When you have pieces of yourself that you feel insecure about, or an interest that you could yap about for hours, it’s really healing to find a person who looks at you without any of the fluff and likes that person. Who wants to hear all about your love of aliens and spirits. And who will hold your hand when things get hard. The version of puberty we see in Dandadan is exaggerated, but also pretty honest. And despite all of that stress and hardship, these teens find community in the found family unit they’ve developed.
Additionally, it has a lesson in there about what it sometimes takes to form community, in that Momo and Okarun at the start of Dandadan are so certain of their world views, Momo certain that aliens don’t exist and Okarun certain that spirits don’t exist, and then seeing those world views collapse so dramatically leaves them both vulnerable. Their understanding of the world that they were each so certain of shattered, and in that vulnerability of being wrong they bond and are brought closer. Instead of doubling down, they both realize how vast the world is, and that they have a lot of room to learn about it. Even better that they get to learn together. It’s something that feels unique to the coming of age tale, but it’s a lesson for adults too. We always have something to learn. As someone with a teenage brother, and remembering my own teen experience, I was so sure I knew better. So it’s refreshing to see the ways our teen protonists bounce back quickly from the shocking revelation that everything they knew about the world was wrong, and that the possibilities of the vast universe are endless. As they keep going, and even more absurd things happen, they pick up new friends, and keep expanding their group.
A lot of this drama and loneliness is not exclusive to teenage years. In fact, in our current times, isolation, depression, and fear are a numbing constant. So seeing these kids find each other and grow their own community in the midst of horrors feels so refreshing. It’s what we need to do now. And the absurdity of the show is a nice escape.