# Dandadan Review: The Most Unhinged Anime of Its Year (Complimentary) Most anime pick a lane. Dandadan floors the accelerator and drives through all of them at once. Science Saru's adaptation of the hit manga throws aliens, ghosts, curses, and a fumbling first crush into a blender and hits frappe, and somehow the smoothie tastes incredible. It is crude, loud, and proudly juvenile one minute, then quietly aching the next — a supernatural action-comedy that keeps sucker-punching you with real feeling between the crude gags and the exploding yokai. Here is my headline take: this is the most purely entertaining show of its year, an adrenaline shot of an anime that earns its chaos because there is a beating heart wired to the detonator. Buckle up. ## Story & Premise The setup is a dare that goes catastrophically right. Momo Ayase, a sharp-tongued gyaru from a bloodline of spirit mediums, believes in ghosts but laughs off aliens. Her scrawny, occult-obsessed classmate — whom she promptly nicknames Okarun after saving him from bullies — believes in aliens but rolls his eyes at ghosts. To prove each other wrong, they split up: she stakes out an alien hotspot at a derelict hospital, he ventures into a tunnel with a nasty haunted reputation. Both are catastrophically correct. Momo is snatched by little grey visitors; Okarun runs afoul of Turbo Granny, a vengeful yokai who curses him and steals something a teenage boy would very much like back. Momo's latent psychic power erupts to save them, and the two are welded together for the wild ride ahead. From there it becomes a breathless monster-of-the-week gauntlet — new spook, new alien, new escalation almost every stretch — stitched to a slow-burn romance neither of them will admit to. It should be a mess. Instead the momentum never lets up. ## Characters The romance is the reactor core, and it works because Momo and Okarun are specific, not archetypes. Momo is loud, brave, and fiercely loyal — a gyaru who will throw hands with an eldritch horror to protect a boy she insists she does not like. Okarun is twitchy, sweet, and quietly courageous, the kind of nerd who finally has something worth being brave for. Their dynamic dodges the usual will-they-won't-they staleness: these two obviously adore each other, and the tension comes from teenage embarrassment rather than manufactured misunderstanding. It is genuinely charming. Around them, the show keeps introducing scene-stealers — Aira Shiratori, a self-styled psychic who crashes in as a rival and slowly gets folded into the group, and Seiko, Momo's outrageous medium grandmother who steals every frame she occupies. Even the monsters graduate into cast members; the once-terrifying Turbo Granny becomes an unexpectedly delightful sidekick. It is an ensemble that grows warmer as the roster swells, and Momo is the sun the whole thing orbits. ## Animation & Sound This is where Science Saru turns the dial to eleven. The studio's house style — fluid, rubbery, unafraid to warp anatomy for a gag or a scare — is a perfect match for material this deranged, and the adaptation exploits it constantly. Faces distend into grotesque masks, backgrounds smear into psychedelic color fields, and the camera lunges through fights with a manic, handheld urgency. Naoyuki Onda's character designs keep the human cast expressive and grounded so the surrounding chaos hits harder, while the monster and alien designs lean unsettling and strange. Action staging is a genuine highlight: kinetic, weighty, and legible even at full sprint, with the occasional shift into stylized flourishes that feel like the animators showing off — and earning it. The opening sequence is an instant-classic hit of pure momentum, the kind you refuse to skip. Sound design under Eriko Kimura sells every squelch, thud, and psychic shockwave, and the score knows exactly when to drop out and let a quiet, aching beat breathe. It is a technical showcase with a sense of humor. ## Themes & What Sets It Apart Strip away the aliens and exorcisms and Dandadan is a startlingly sincere story about being sixteen: the terror of liking someone, the armor we wear to hide it, the search for people who feel like home. That is the trick the whole show is built on. The supernatural mayhem is a vehicle for very human feeling, and the series keeps pivoting from slapstick to genuine tenderness — sometimes inside a single scene — without the gearshift grinding. It is also braver than its goofball reputation suggests. Underneath the gags, it reaches for real darkness: grief, abandonment, and the ugliness people inflict on the vulnerable, handled with more care than a crude comedy has any right to muster. What sets it apart is that range. Plenty of anime do action, or comedy, or romance, or horror; Dandadan does all of them at once and refuses to let any single mode dominate. It is a genre blender that somehow produces a coherent, personal flavor — the rare show whose maximalism is a feature, not a symptom of not knowing what it wants to be. ## Strengths & Shortcomings What soars: the momentum, the animation, the humor, and that sneaky emotional core. When Dandadan is firing, few shows are more fun. But the honesty this earns cuts both ways. The crude comedy is relentless, and the very first hook hangs on a lewd gag that will be a hard nope for plenty of viewers; if lowbrow, below-the-belt humor makes you wince, the opening stretch is a minefield. The tonal whiplash is also a genuine risk: the show swerves from broad slapstick to disturbing subject matter — including sexual violence played uncomfortably close to comedy — and not every viewer will feel that landing was earned. The sheer, unrelenting intensity can be exhausting too; this is a series with almost no downshift, and marathoning it can leave you wrung out. And structurally, it is pure setup — a single cour that ends as a launchpad, not a destination, so anyone hoping for a self-contained arc should temper expectations. None of this sinks it, but they are real reasons a curious newcomer might bounce off hard. ## The Verdict Dandadan earns its 8.6 by being the most alive anime on the board. It is a technical marvel with a filthy sense of humor and, improbably, a tender heart — a show that made me laugh, wince, and get quietly choked up, often within the same stretch. It loses a little for the relentless crudeness that will genuinely repel some viewers, for tonal swings that occasionally overreach, and for an ending that is really just a door held open. But those are the costs of a show swinging this hard, and I would rather watch something reach too far than play it safe. This is not a polite, easy recommendation for everyone. It is a loud, weird, wildly confident ride for the crowd that fell for the manic tenderness of Chainsaw Man or Mob Psycho 100. If that is you, it is essential. Get on board. ## FAQ ### Is Dandadan worth watching? Yes — emphatically, with one caveat. It is one of the most purely entertaining and visually stunning anime of its era, and the romance underneath the chaos gives it staying power. The only reason to hesitate is the crude, sometimes dark humor; if that is a dealbreaker, it is a hard pass, but for everyone else it is essential viewing. ### Is it good for anime beginners? It can be, with an asterisk. The story starts from scratch and needs no homework, and the energy is instantly gripping. But the whiplash tone and the raunchy, occasionally disturbing content make it a bold first pick rather than a gentle on-ramp — if you are brand new and easily put off, start somewhere softer and come back for this. ### Where can I watch Dandadan legally? You can stream it legally on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Netflix. The exact availability depends on your region and plan, so check your local Crunchyroll or Netflix listing to confirm it is there for you. ### Does Dandadan start slow or grab you right away? There is no slow burn here — it grabs you by the collar in its opening minutes and barely lets go. If anything, the challenge is the opposite: the pace is so relentless that the real question is whether you want a breather it rarely offers. ### How does the anime compare to the manga? It is adapted from the hit manga and follows its opening arc closely, so readers will recognize the beats. Science Saru's version is a faithful, gorgeously animated take that arguably heightens the source's energy — if you love the anime, the manga is the obvious next step and runs well ahead of it. ### Is there more to watch after this? Yes — the story continues in a second season, so this run is very much a beginning rather than the whole tale. If it hooks you, there is more of the adventure waiting, and the manga is there to read ahead. ## Related - [Where to watch Dandadan](https://hozuna.com/anime/dandadan)