DAN DA DAN

Episode 12

The craziest thing about the cruel cliffhanger that DAN DA DAN leaves us on this week is that I already know what happens next, and I'm still dying over the prospect of having to wait until next summer for this show to return to us. I've read this arc of the manga twice, already; hell, I could just get on the Shonen Jump app right now and dive right back into the story to see how Momo escapes her dreadful hot springs predicament while Okarun and Jiji are busy figuring out what manner of high-strangeness bullshit is going on behind the drywall of Jiji's house. Yet still, here I am, fiending like a junkie who just saw his primo stash get flushed down the toilet, ready to commit all sorts of crimes just to be able to inject that sweet Science SARU goodness back into my veins.

Now, for the uninitiated, I can imagine that this final episode of DAN DA DAN's barn-burning first season might feel just a little bit frustrating, if only because the show rolls to credits just as things start to get good…or, rather, really quite terrible, at least if you're any one of our main characters. I don't envy the crew adapting the source material here one bit, to be honest, because the only way to get further than this point in a standard twelve-episode season would be to make some major cuts. The alternative route, however, means that we're stuck stranded with our heroes smack in the middle of a storyline already in motion, and that's not necessarily a great place to close a TV season.

Already, I can hear the cries of the naysayers: “Why not cut out the silly subplot about the horny medical mannequins, huh?” I'll tell you why, you surly Grinches: Because it is funny as hell that Okarun and Momo have to play matchmaker to a pair of randy guts golems, and their love is the spark that has set aflame Okarun's determination to win Momo's heart. It's what leads to the hilarious sequence of increasingly desperate and sad attempts on Okarun's part to look cool and smooth compared to Jiji! If you're not here to revel in the bloodcurdling cringe of awkward teenage romance, I don't even know why you're watching DAN DA DAN in the first place.

Oh, right, we do have those supernatural monster investigations. That's also great this week, though, like I said, we only barely get a taste of what is behind Jiji's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Demon Haunting, but it's a tantalizing taste all the same. The show continues to excel at pivoting to genuinely creepy and atmospheric horror on a dime, only to immediately redirect itself back to Okarun and Jiji bro-bonding over the paranormal, soccer, and their mutual crushes on Momo. The scariness makes the adorableness work as an effective suspense-building, and the adorableness helps to lull us into a false sense of security to make the horror tingle our spines even more fiercely. That vicious feedback loop of prime emotional manipulation is the DAN DA DAN Guarantee, baby.

If we didn't just get confirmation that we'll pick back up with Jiji's introductory arc before the end of next year, I might have felt a little more upset that DAN DA DAN wasn't able to progress this storyline just a bit further to make for a more natural conclusion. Knowing that this is only halfway through the run makes it much easier to tolerate how blatantly the show is trying to mine for suspense as Momo gets harangued by those creepozoids at the hot springs. That girl is tougher than tempered steel, and she's got magic psychic powers, to boot. Hopefully, one of those powers is the ability to hold her breath for, I don't know…about six or seven months.

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DAN DA DAN is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.