Dandadan closes out the season in the only way it knows how: pure, unbridled chaos.

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So how do we even move this thing?

It’s one thing to summon a mecha. Actually knowing how to pilot one is another problem altogether. It doesn’t help either that only one of the five kids is actually into mechas. Oftentimes, anime pulls power increases out of its ass to facilitate an all too common narrative pattern: our heroes are losing to start the battle (can’t move the mecha), they make a comeback when they figure something out (just use your imagination, duh), find themselves losing once again (the kaiju still has invisibility and freaking beams), then finally make the triumphant comeback once and for all (true teamwork). But it’s probably fine in this case, because we’ve already established that this mecha is fueled by the kids’ imagination. As a result, any sudden jump in power levels is literally imaginary. Plus, we have nifty tricks like Aira’s infinitely long hair. Jesus (or Buddha in this case), is there a limit to how much hair she can summon?

Okarun gets ejected way, way early on, and he is surprisingly relegated to bystander status for the rest of the episode. Evil Eye also follows up by punching his way out of the mecha. But in a way, this works out for the best. There’s a saying about having too many cooks in the kitchen. You can’t exactly have five people coordinate their imagination. Plus, there’s, y’know, Evil Eye, our complete and utter wild child. Though to be fair, we do see the brat single-handedly lift up one of the kaiju’s legs all on his own, so maybe they should’ve just had him fight the hulking beast mano y mano. Okarun almost gives in if not for Kinta finally getting it together. Again, just stick to your imagination; it got you here, so it can get you even further. And with Kinta’s newfound belief, the mecha takes on new form even more befitting of his personality. Could he have done this with Okarun and Evil Eye onboard? I’m not sure. At the same time, I wonder what I would want to see more: a tiny Evil Eye taking on the kaiju or a mecha battle? Hmm.

What proceeds is an epic back and forth between kaiju and machine. But Kinta doesn’t just dominate the first half of the episode. Rather, it’s all him. Momo and Aira are still trapped in that mecha with him, but we strangely hear nothing from them for pretty much the first lengthy section of the fight. I just find that kinda odd, y’know? They’ve gotta be screaming their lungs out with how the mecha is being tossed left and right. Nevertheless, we don’t get a single peep from either of them. Only when Kinta gets overwhelmed do the girls suddenly show up again. Maybe this demonstrates how Kinta tunes out the world around him when he’s engaged in his nerdy interests?

In any case, teamwork makes the dream work and all that corny nonsense, so the girls eventually pitch in to make the mecha actually cool. Sorry, the Buddha in shades look wasn’t doing it for me. But more than that, Momo is still the primary protagonist. You can’t resolve this conflict without her. With Aira as the aspiring team leader by her side, the girls combine their powers to power bomb the kaiju into the ground for good. Finally, this fight is over. And I’m lowkey glad that Kinta isn’t solely responsible for the victory. If anything, I’m going to give most of the credits to the girls. They occupied the kaiju for all of last week’s episode, and they finished the job this week. So I don’t wanna hear any of that “Kinta, the true protagonist, has finally arrived” nonsense. The girls are the actual winners in my book. Yeah, yeah, I’m still a hater.

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Kinta, Kinta, Kinta

It true, I still don’t really get the Kinta hype. Sure, he plays a critical role in defeating the kaiju. So what, though? How does that wipe away his perviness towards the girls, his unnecessary insults towards Ken, and the way he deliberately rubbed sweat on Jiji due to his inferiority complex? I’m just not sold on the guy. He still has a lot to make up for.

In the middle of the fight, we glimpse a scene from Kinta’s troubled school life. Like Okarun, he’s a target for bullying simply due to his nerdy interests. Of course, bringing a Gundam kit to school doesn’t warrant mistreatment, but at the same time, it doesn’t seem… wise? That thing has to cost a pretty penny, right? If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want risk having it out and about at school around strangers. Sure enough, the thing got damaged. Like with gaming, I’m not ashamed to play my Switch or Switch 2 in public. I’d gladly do it if I knew I was safe. But you’re basically painting a huge bullseye on your back. Look at me, I have something expensive in my hands! Feel free to mug me at any time! In pure anime fashion, however, the painful memory of, um, a dented box somehow fuel Kinta’s imagination to even greater heights.

Speaking of nerdy interests, Okarun and Kinta will surely become great friends. If people would just give the former a chance, he seems like the type of guy who would become great friends with anybody (though to be fair, until he met Momo, he didn’t exactly give others a chance either). Still, it kinda annoys me how a lot of people frame the eventuality of his relationship with Kinta. Some viewers really think the two nerdy boys have the same interests, but that’s not true at all. An interest in sci-fi tech and Gundam isn’t the same as an interest in aliens and the occult (hence “Occult-kun”). Sure, they’re both nerds with appropriately nerd-sized passions. Yes, they both read magazines, but every subject has an equivalent “nerdy” magazine dedicated to it. I guess I just hate it when people lump interests together. Don’t do that. Respect their differences.

There’s also this weird assumption that Kinta will be the smart one. No, he’s a nerd. He’s got a lot of knowledge in his nerdy interests of choice just like how Okarun knows a fuckton about occult stuff. That’s not necessarily intelligence. I remember back in fourth or fifth grade, people called me smart because I knew what A.D. stood for. But in hindsight, I wasn’t actually smart. I was (and still am) just a nerd who liked to read, so I had a bunch of mostly useless factoids in my head. Society in general has a really basic understanding of what intelligence truly is.

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Dude, both literally and metaphorically, where are your balls?

Now that we’ve finally subdued the kaiju, it’s time to retrieve that testicle! Or that’s what I would say if the kaiju was actually a kaiju. Instead, it’s a cute alien girl in a kaiju costume. Of course it is. As if things weren’t already crazy enough, she then gets up and plants a smooch on Okarun’s lips. I like to think the series has two overarching storylines at the moment: 1) finding Okarun’s remaining missing ball, and 2) the budding relationship between him and Momo. For the first storyline, we’ve pretty much been making no progress whatsoever. They instantly got the first ball back from Aira, but every lead since then has been nothing but a dead end. That being said, all that effort hasn’t entirely been fruitless (pun intended?). Every time the gang fails to find his ball, they make a new friend. Odd, huh? Not only that, the seeds for the next friend has already been sown. There’s no way the uppity class rep isn’t going to eventually crash the party. It’s just a matter of when. It remains to be seen if the new alien girl has Okarun’s remaining ball, but if we’re sticking to a certain narrative pattern, I suspect she doesn’t. I suspect that the golden ball we’ve been seeing is nothing more than yet another red herring (like with Taro).

What’s interesting, however, is the way the first ovearching storyline interacts with the second. Every new girl seems to have a thing for Okarun, so if we’re right about the class rep joining up, then it all but confirms her feelings for him, however large or small. You could even argue the same happens with Momo, i.e. every new boy to join the group is in love with her. For the moment, however, Kinta’s fondness for her is a little more generalized. He doesn’t like her specifically; he just likes cute girls. But back to my original point, in a way, every bit of info about Okarun’s ball leads to a new friend, and every new friend plays some kind of role in developing the relationship between Okarun and Momo. For instance, Aira created a misunderstanding that drove a temporary wedge between the couple. Granted, it barely lasted an episode, but she was mad mad at him in a way that hasn’t happened since. In the end, their relationship got out of it even stronger than ever, because she realized that he actually wanted to impress her. Then when they befriended Taro, Okarun found the courage to continue pursuing Momo despite Jiji’s looming presence. So even though they keep failing to find his literal ball, he’s actually making small metaphorical steps to, well, find his balls. Every new friend bolsters his confidence. Imagine, then, how his relationship with Momo will grow from this kiss. What is he going to learn from it? What next steps will he take in order to make up for breaking Momo’s heart even for just a brief moment?

We also have to consider the endgame. If our boy would simply settle, he could already have Aira or the new alien girl. But he doesn’t want them. He wants Momo. Will getting his second ball back lead to the next major step in their relationship? Not incremental progress like admitting that he wants to look cool, but actual, tangible progress. In other words, is he going to summon up the courage to confess his love to Momo when he literally completes his manhood? That’s kinda funny when you think about it. Of course, a confession doesn’t mean everything is a done deal, because it takes two to tango. Obviously, Momo has feelings for Okarun, but whether or not she accepts that fact is a different thing altogether. Yeah, yeah, she’s going to blow her lid at the start of season three over the kiss. But I think Momo’s jealousy over other girls is still mostly instinctual. Remember how she froze when Jiji asked her whether or not she was in love? She feels it, but she can’t quite act on it yet. If Okarun needs to find his balls, then Momo also has to undergo her own journey of growth. Finding her… ovaries? Nah. It’s definitely not that, but it’s something. Momo’s gotta be pissed at the new girl. I just hope she’s grown enough to not be pissed at Okarun as well.

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Two steps forward, one step back

In a way, however, I’m still disappointed in Okarun. One of my least favorite tropes in anime is whenever male protagonists pretend as if they can’t prevent girls from kissing them. So as you can imagine, I was glad to see Okarun fend off Aira all on his own in the first season. So how does he close out the second season? He lets the alien girl kiss him. C’mon, bro. You’ve made so much progress! You’ve gotten stronger, gained more confidence, and made great strides with Momo! Then you go and let this happen.

The great thing about Dandadan is that characters don’t just exist as they are, i.e. the new character is more than just a cute alien girl in Eva-like plugsuit. She also represents an ideal. In the past, she would’ve been Okarun’s perfect girl. He became alien-obsessed precisely because he was so lonely. At the time, he couldn’t even entertain the thought of making human friends. Aliens were literally his last resort. So a cute alien girl should be everything he’s ever wanted, right? Not only does she have green hair like a Martian, she literally throws herself at him. How much more textbook can you get? Okarun doesn’t need to put in any effort. He doesn’t have to put himself out there and be vulnerable like he does with Momo. In any other timeline, this would have been a done deal. Okarun and alien girl, ship it. Unfortunately for our new friend, however, he went and met Momo in this timeline. So in light of that, it’s such a shame that Okarun couldn’t reaffirm his love for Momo by fending off yet another girl.

Dandadan is partly about being true to yourself, sure, but it’s also about stepping out of our comfort zone. It’s about realizing that there’s more to appreciate in life if we would only have the courage to let go of our preconceptions. Momo befriends a nerd and realizes that her perfect man isn’t necessarily a carbon copy of the stoic, manly Takakura Ken. Aira realizes that being a fake popular girl isn’t all that there is to life. Jiji accepts a freaking murderous mountain spirit into his heart, and it doesn’t get more “out of our comfort zone” than that. So with that being said, in my opinion, rejecting the alien girl’s kiss would’ve been a great milestone for Okarun’s progress. First, the popular girl in school, and now the alien ideal. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I mean, I’m sure he’s still going to reject her. I’m sure when push comes to shove, Okarun would pick Momo ten outta ten times. But the kiss is cheap. That’s all I’m saying.

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Final thoughts

I mean, yeah, as if it isn’t self-evident, I love the show. This is literally the only shounen I have actual interested in because 1) the girls aren’t sidelined, 2) the romance isn’t just an afterthought, and 3) the fights are actually fun to watch. But more than anything, there’s just so much intention packed into every character interaction. Few moments are ever wasted. Sure, there are absolutely things I can nitpick — and have nitpicked — but this show is what anime is all about. I absolutely cannot see any of this working in live action. Sure, they (and you know who I mean by “they”) can try, but Dandadan encapsulates everything that makes anime so uniquely fantastic.

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• The soundtrack has always been a banger, but what I really appreciate is how adaptable it is. What we hear when Okarun fights Evil Eye is very different from what we hear when the kids battle the kaiju. I can’t help but think of the various styles and influences found in Final Fantasy XIV‘s soundtrack. Every trial encounter, a.k.a. big boss fight, has its own unique theme, and they can vary wildly. You’ll swing from heavy metal at one end of the spectrum to silly Japanese pop at the other end. Dandadan evokes that same kind of feeling albeit on a smaller scale.
• Huh, Kinta has been preparing himself for this day by riding roller coasters. That’s one way to maintain your chuuni delusions, I suppose.
• Every time Kinta talks, Aira demands to know who the hell he is. This started in last week’s episode, and the gag continues well into this week’s episode. And I just love it. Aira’s still kinda annoying, but Kinta also kinda deserves this.
• Evil Eye is just trying to have some fun. Everyone else gets to fight, but he gets to do nothing. So damn it, let the kid draw.
• Imagine being Aira’s partner in life, and you just had a fight. You want to walk away and let cooler heads prevail, but then she ties you up with her hair to keep the fight going. That’s a little too freaky for my blood.
• Y’know, I always thought the alien pocket space dimension thing was a bit of a cop-out. Sure, it’s a convenient way to avoid having to explain why nobody is ever affected by any of these larger-than-life fights. But you can’t keep using it every single time an alien shows up. So as a result, it’s nice to see them reverting back to the real world when the kaiju gets knocked out.

• Why did Momo imagine a UFO? Spending too much time with Okarun?
• Ah, home sweet home! Well, kinda…
• Okay, I get that he just got to live out the biggest fantasy of his life, but… gross. Kinta is just gross in general.
• Evil Eye’s frustration is valid. Also, did he revert back to Jiji because the meat bun is hot, or the hot juices inside of it?
• I’m actually surprised that Jiji and Okarun are strong enough to carry the kaiju home. Jiji, sure, but Okarun? Those workouts are paying off, I guess.
• Man, shut the fuck up. I’m so not sold on this guy. But there isn’t a single mean bone in Okarun’s entire body, so he immediately starts praising Kinta. Uh, it sure looked to me like the girlies finished the fight.
• “No, the fate of the world doesn’t hang on that golden ball. I just need it to confess to my girl.”
• Welp, I guess this is Kinta’s official initiation to the team. Personally, I would pass on the guy, but we all know he’s sticking around.
• I wonder who the alien girl is voiced by. We only get to hear a couple grunts from her. Have they picked someone out already? Or is it another actress temporarily filling in for now?
• But like… why? Why would the alien girl like Okarun already? And even if you like someone, why would you kiss them already?
• I do love the callback to the very first episode. And it’s cute how the nanoskin cube turned into a melting heart for obvious reasons.
• This is a much nicer cliffhanger compared to how they ended the first season. We actually resolved a conflict this time around, and while you could argue that both Momo and Okarun are victims of unwanted physical contact, a kiss from an alien girl is leagues apart from, well, creepy and naked old men attacking you in a hot spring.
• So season three has already been confirmed, but that could mean anything, i.e. we might still have to wait till 2027. But I’ll be there whenever it drops. Hell, I might even do that three episodes in the movie theater gimmick that seems to be popular with big shows nowadays.
• I know there are some worries about Science SARU overworking their animators, and with what we know about the anime industry, those worries are more than warranted. But we’ll see. I just hope we don’t get another MAPPA situation on our hands (not that any of us overseas fans can do anything about it).