Dan Da Dan is hot and dirty and honestly very intriguing

The first episode of the Dandadan anime adapts a scene that almost completely turned me off from the manga.

In it, a teenage girl is abducted by alien perverts who strip her down to her underwear, tie her up with her limbs spread, and promise to have sex with her with their “banana organs,” which are gruesome mechanized phalluses packed with appendages and wider organs. then one of her legs. It’s perhaps even more gruesome when it’s turned into motion in the anime.

Sure, the girl – Momo Ayase, our cool girl protagonist who believes ghosts exist, but not aliens – destroys the aliens with her paranormal powers before they can touch her, but I refused. Nearly naked teenage girls in non-consensual sex situations were not my idea of ​​a good time. I carried on, out of trust in the people who passed the manga on to me, and a few issues later – in a scene edited in this week’s Episode 3 of the anime – Dandadan clicked for me.

As a boy – Ken Takakura, our co-protagonist of a nerd who believes aliens exist, but not ghosts – desperately and hilariously running around looking for a place to pee, I thought: Oh, I get it, the point is that the experience of being a horny teenager is like approaching a terrifying and potentially threatening stranger.

(Ed. remark: This piece contains some spoilers for the first three episodes of Dan Da Dan.)

Dan Da DanNow streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix, is the highly anticipated anime adaptation of the hit manga of the same name (stylized there as Dandadan), produced by Science Saru (Scott Pilgrim leaves, Devil man cry baby) about the work of mangaka Yukinobu Tatsu.

The premise of both series is that the enmity between Momo and Ken turns into friendship between an odd couple, as they deal with all kinds of bizarre aliens and ghostly threats. The action begins after a chance encounter, when Momo challenges Ken to go to a haunted hotspot, and he challenges her to go to an alien hotspot. He becomes possessed by a horny ghost named ‘Turbo Granny’. Her kidnapping unlocks her psychic powers, and those powers prove to be the only thing that can stop Turbo Granny from taking over Ken’s body and killing everyone he knows.

Dandadan‘s horror elements came through on my first, second, and third viewings, enhanced by Tatsu’s incredible drawing skills and composition. But when I gave the manga time to peel back some layers, Dandadan revealed that it is a high-key comedy, and a low-key a romantic comedy.

Despite Ken’s complete social ineptitude, he’s an honorable man who doesn’t try to get anything out of Momo – unlike her first boyfriend, who, despite looking like her favorite actor, is an asshole who just dumped her. She and Ken are both weird kids who struggle to make real connections with their peers – Ken has no friends at all, Momo’s friends tease her for having a crush the Japanese equivalent of a Tom Selleck typeshe is very insecure about showing any sign that she is weird. Maybe if all that ghost and alien stuff didn’t get in the way, they could solve some of their problems.

Unraveling the consequences of Ken’s Turbo Granny possession takes up most of the manga’s first arc, and at every turn, Dandadan asks the two teens to take each other’s bodies into consideration in the funniest and most cringeworthy ways. Aliens and ghosts keep appearing and demanding to take possession of one of their ‘banana organs’. The Turbo Granny’s curse has made Ken’s penis disappear, much to his horror and Momo’s immediate interest – but the idea of ​​her looking down his pants is even more horrifying than not having anything in there.

To keep the curse at bay, Momo must have sight of Ken at all times, which isn’t too difficult until, in a scene in this week’s episode, he realizes he has to pee. really bad. A wild chase scene ensues as he refuses to let himself fall in front of a girl, and she refuses to let him turn into a demon. in her house.

Then it all came together for me: In Dan Da Danthe idea of ​​having sex – or having genitals, or simply having your body viewed by peers who might be attracted to you – is as horrifying and ridiculous as evil spirits and intruding aliens really are. It’s about the unnerving age between “Ew, cooties” and an adult’s (ideally) comfortable relationship with sex and bodies.

The problem isn’t that Momo can’t see anything in Ken’s pants at the moment, it’s that Boys are not allowed to let girls look into their underwear! Boys are not allowed to look at girls when they undress. Girls are not allowed to look at boys in the bathroom. Do not regard or be considered by people of a different gender!!!!!

Yukinobu Tatsu did that never revealed What Dandadan‘s title, three rhythmic syllables of mystery, means. But in the absence of confirmation or context, I like to think of it as a neat little onomatopoeia for a pounding heart (lifted directly as a percussive element in the anime’s first theme song from Creepy Nuts). The kind of racing pulse that comes from seeing your crush, fear for your own life, and teenage awkwardness each in their own time.

Would you rather die from spirit possession or have a cute girl see your gross body while you poop? For these two teens, these are equal interests, and the allure of these risks – the risks of sex, of dating, of seeking validation from peers, of trying to find someone who shares your strange interests – cannot be denied. Sometimes the supernatural has lessons for the mundane: Whether the person trying to evict you is a creepy alien you hate or the crappy boyfriend you like, you owe them nothing. Roundhouse, kick them in the head or destroy them with your new mind powers and get out of there.

When giving Dandadan a second chance after the first, shocking kidnapping scene, I’ve discovered a manga, and now an anime, that really chews on the horror of the everyday teenage body in fun ways. And is way less rape in total than the first episode led me to believe.

Now, look. I’m still not a big fan of Momo’s grandma being so pretty and looking so young. But there’s a lot more going on under the hood here than I thought. Maybe, eventually, Dandadan I will compete for grandma Seiko’s gigantic anime breasts. Maybe not. But at least it hooked me for the rest of the arc, where they fight a giant crab on top of a train.