Fighting a giant kaiju? Sure, why not? Just another day in the Dandadan universe.

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So how do you even beat a giant dinosaur?

Unfortunately, the kids are, well, kid-sized, so they’re having a rough time. Sure, Aira has experience from fighting those opera singers, but all they did was mostly that: sing. This kaiju is a little more aggressive than that. It’s also a little more impervious to damage. Aira ends up kinda screwing over the team with her arrogance and recklessness. Sure, she has the courage to charge into battle and declare herself the leader — that’s great and all — but for most of this week’s episode, the kids don’t really have a solid plan. Okarun mentions something about getting to the “light source,” but that’s easier said than done. Eventually, our self-proclaimed pretty soldier puts herself in grave danger, so he has to use up his last remaining “full throttle” to get her out of the sticky situation.

The kaiju ultimately proves to be too big for any of the kids to handle. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for Okarun to cook up a solution. He’s been doing that a lot this season. First, he encouraged Momo to escape the sandworm pit, which allowed her to come up with a plan to flush the worm out. It also allowed him to “handle” Evil Eye. The execution was a little off, but hey, the heart was there. Then, Okarun ultimately proved that he was the only person who could tame Evil Eye for good. And now, he crucially notices that the nanoskin and the power of imagination might just be the trick to beating the kaiju. This is major character development for Okarun, who relied heavily on Momo in the first season.

Since their introduction to the story, I always saw the nanoskin as Chekhov’s gun. I figured those magical space blocks would come into play at some point; I just didn’t think it would happen this soon. It turns out the kids simply need to turn Momo’s entire house into a weapon strong enough to fight a freaking kaiju. Gosh, it’s so simple! Well, kinda. Okarun doesn’t actually know what to imagine, but it’s okay because we now have another delusional kid on the team. You can only join the squad if you have a special power, and Kinta sorely needs to step up. He sorely needs to make up for all of his annoying pervy antics. Well, all he’s been doing is making Gundam references left and right, so it makes sense that we’d summon forth a mecha.

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The girls are at it again

Even though they couldn’t beat the kaiju, it is kind of cool to see Momo and Aira take the lion’s share of the action in this week’s episode. For the most part, Okarun is simply giving Momo a piggyback ride. A small reason why I tend to drop shounens is because female characters often get sidelined. I don’t often cover shows where there’s a huge gender imbalance, because I frankly just don’t enjoy watching those series. Sure, there are fantastic exceptions like A Place Further than the Universe, but those are rare. Hell, I forget the name, but I remember a volleyball anime that straight up acted as if guys didn’t exist at all. It was so weird. In any case, Momo and Aira are doing a lot of the heavylifting here, and this serves to really accentuate their similaries. For instance, it’s funny how they both have the ability to extend “arms” out — Momo with her telekinesis and Aira with her hair — and grab stuff.

The two girls so much alike — they’re both gyarus, both popularish, both like the same guy — and yet they’re frenemies to the core. They’ve got one hell of a fish to fry, but Aira can’t help but keep taunting Momo throughout the battle. Girl, get it together. You’re fighting a freaking kaiju. But it’s fitting in a way, because these two kind of have to bicker. At least the previous aliens would talk and talk back often. Businessman Serpo is still one of the best gags in the show. On the other hand, I have no clue if our giant kaiju can communicate or not. For now, it’s more rampaging beast than extraterrestrial being with enough intelligence for spacefaring. And as a beast, it naturally doesn’t say a damn thing. There’s no back and forth whatsoever between it and the kids. Like a nervous content creator, these girls pretty much have to argue with each other in order to fill the dead air. On a related note, Okarun barely has anything to say for nearly a third the episode. What is he even thinking while these two quarrel?

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Sympathy for Mr. Kaiju

But why are we even fighting? What do we gain other than Okarun’s other ball? Apparently, you can just run away, because we see Jiji carry Kinta to safety. Then shortly afterwards, Momo also returns to her home with Okarun and Aira in tow. So is it possible to hide somewhere and wait the kaiju out? Maybe the kaiju does go on to attack innocent people, but we don’t actually know that. In fact, the kaiju was just chilling in the apartment complex until Momo and Okarun started bothering it. Again, they were trying to retrieve the boy’s remaining testicle, but who wouldn’t defend themselves when two gremlins start harassing them? I’m not saying that kaijus have the right to invoke a castle doctrine, but as far as we know, the kaiju hasn’t done anything wrong. At the very least, we haven’t heard news of it hurting anybody. So aren’t we the baddies here? Yes, we need to get the ball back, but maybe it doesn’t have to happen right here and now.

The whole thing is a bit confusing anyway. Towards the end of the episode, we see the kaiju slowly rampaging towards the kids when they try and take a breather at the Ayase household. As the kaiju advances towards them, the monster drags the enclosed space with it. So what happens to all the previous destruction? Does it magically go away and leave behind a perfectly intact normal world? Well, Dandadan seems to operate mostly on vibes, so don’t sweat the details. Hell, we’re about to see a character power up through vibes.

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Short-term memory

It is embarrassing to see so many people not realize that they were watching a flashback at the start of last week’s episode. People seriously got pissed at Okarun, e.g. “OMG I can’t believe he’s doing this again!” Yeah, again. Gee, I wonder why that is!

On the other hand, a few people actually realized they were watching the same exact scenes again, but they then assumed incorrectly that the entire episode took place in the past. Honestly, I’m astounded. Something something, bad media literacy. But seriously, this is why shows and a lot of stories in general feel like they have to dumb things down all the time. Unless you spell it out for the audience, a lot of them simply don’t have a clue. Don’t think about what you’re watching or reading! Just consume!

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The defense brigade

A lot of people embraced Kinta right from the get-go, because in their eyes, he’s just an awkward nerd trying to make friends. But two things for me: 1) he walked right up to Okarun and insulted the guy, and 2) he obviously wants more than just friendship from girls like Momo. It’s one thing to have an end goal (i.e. I want to meet the woman of my dreams one day), but the way he goes about it, sorry, but he is still shady to me. At the moment, he seems to care more about what he can get from girls rather than just being genuine friends with them. And of course, he’s also like the class prez in one aspect: he didn’t give a shit about Okarun until the latter started getting attention from girls. Are you a bad person if you don’t try to stop bullying that you can plainly see in front of you? Yeah, kinda.

I saw a lot of people running to the class prez’s defense as well. They claim she might not have known about Okarun being bullied. Sure, that’s possible, but I also find it incredibly unlikely. Maybe she was oblivious to Okarun’s situation, but that doesn’t paint her in a much better light either.

I can’t help but suspect that the defense brigade is comprised of people who have read ahead in the manga, so they know how these characters will develop and thus become friends with the gang. And that’s fine, but you also gotta let the rest of us react to the story organically. At this point in time — and with the information we currently have — I don’t find either Kinta or the class prez to be very likable. The same thing happened with Aira and Jiji. Just let it play out.

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• I actually forget that this will be Jiji’s first “mission” with the team. Welp, time to show us what you can do, rookie.
• Damn, the kaiju can also go invisible at its current size. Pretty OP if you ask me.
• Jiji pleads with Kinta not to sweat on him. Sweat does come out at room temperature, but it quickly cools in the air. That’s literally its purpose. As a result, we get to see that Kinta is still annoying; in fact, he’s being a dick here. Not wanting your sweat on me does not mean I’m looking down on you. Take your insecurities and shove it. Most people do not want other people’s bodily fluids on them. But hey, we need a reason for Evil Eye to get involved in the fun. It’s also his first “mission,” after all.
• How come Kinta can see Okarun and Jiji’s transformations? Does he have latent spiritual powers too? I guess that’s something to discuss later.
• Okarun still only two charges of “full throttle.” Is this not something he can improve a upon? He’s upped his rhythm in battle, and both his strength and speed have presumably gone up as well. It sure looked like it against Evil Eye. But his body still can’t withstand pushing itself to the limit more than twice? That feels strange, doesn’t it? In fact, has he even tried to go hard a third time or are we just assuming he can’t? Well, don’t test it out now, but he really needs to figure this out once things settle down.

• Welp, Aira’s being Aira again. Momo has gotten all of the special one on one time with Okarun, so I guess our bishoujo warrior feels like she needs a win for once. On a related note, Momo has to come close here in order to whisper with Okarun, but did she need to grab his arm here? Or is this in response to Aira’s antics? She usually does her flirting when nobody’s watching, but she’s been slipping lately — like how she threw those playful punches at Okarun right in front of Aira a couple episodes ago.
• The music suddenly takes a sad tone as the kaiju nears the Ayase home. What’s up with that? Maybe we’ll getting another sad backstory soon?
• So much for Jiji and Evil Eye’s first mission. So far, they haven’t gotten the chance to do anything useful other than Jiji carrying Kinta to safety.
• That’s not really a cool-looking mecha, is it? Apparently, there was some cross contamination, and Momo was thinking of Buddha.
• I wonder how the kids will tackle the invisibility issue. According to Kinta, you need to view it from three different angles to see through the camouflage. Unfortunately, they’re all in one place right now, i.e. the mecha.
• Can Evil Eye even contribute in the upcoming fight? Guess we’ll find out next week, but he looks bored out of his damn mind. This seems to be the one kid who doesn’t like robots or dinosaurs.
• Watching everyone slide into the correct position in order to pilot the newfound mecha, it’s a good thing for the girls that Kinta likes Gundam and not something like Darling in the Franxx.
• I guess we’ll wrap this season up by beating down the giant kaiju. Again, I kinda feel bad for it. It was just doing its own thing until the kids showed up. But hey, this is better than that nasty cliffhanger from the first season. I’ll take kaijus over rapey old men any day of the week.
• I wonder how long it’ll take before we see a third season. I hear that Science Saru doesn’t actually have a huge team, and I’m sure they have other projects in the works. I have really enjoyed Dandadan. Sure, it has a few things I don’t like. For instance, why does the writer keep putting these kids in situations where they have to strip? Why are the girls often in danger of being sexual assaulted? Then there’s the love polygon.

• Even if Momo and Okarun are mostly focused on each other, I wish Aira and Jiji could simply exist on their own without stirring up drama. The misunderstandings with both of them (for example, when Aira tried to kiss Okarun and this made Momo mad) were some of my least favorite moments in the first season. But overall, it has been a fantastic series, and I hope I don’t have to wait years to see another season.