The hectic fever dream of the anime adaptation of Dan Da Dan is anime at its unhinged best.
The premise of the manga and subsequently this anime version has a schoolgirl, Momo Ayase, challenge the nerdy Ken Takekura, not that one, but I’ll get to that later, that there are no such things as UFOs and aliens.
Ken slaps back that there’s nothing true about ghosts or the supernatural, which Momo, due to her fortune-telling grandma, firmly believes in.
The added twist is that neither party, despite believing the opposite of the other, has actually had any firsthand experience with what they claim to believe in.
As a result, Ken goes to a famous haunted tunnel at night, and Momo goes to a building that supposedly has lots of alien abductions.
Naturally, while bickering on the phone with each other, both encounter not only ghosts that curse people but also aliens trying to rebuild their race by abducting Earth women.
This is where Dan Da Dan does not care about offending anyone, as its approach to these matters is entirely irreverent and very funny.
Also, the fact that Ken gets cursed by a crazy old ghost actually helps Momo in her alien abduction predicament, with Momo’s newfound spiritual abilities helping to curb Ken’s curse.
Which brings me onto the whole dynamic between these two. At the start of the first episode, Momo gets dumped and complains that men aren’t manly enough. She also has a soft spot for the actor Ken Takekura, and feels that he is her ideal man.
So this whole almost symbiotic relationship between the two is made all the more hilarious when the nerdy kid also has the same name as her heartthrob actor. The result of the latter is that she ends up calling him “Okarun” because he’s a nerdy otaku and doesn’t really want to admit that he may be her ideal partner.
The icing on the cake for all of this is that Science Saru has really delivered in terms of the animation. I still have a great deal of affection for the studio after Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, but the action sequences in Dan Da Dan are something else entirely.
So, having the first season come to Blu-ray is definitely welcome. Not least because the visuals are delivered in a thoroughly pristine way, but the audio hits hard too. You also get some nice extras on the disc, from interviews and the like.
The Collector’s Edition also comes with a nice 32-page booklet, some art cards, and a sticker. It also all comes in a solid box with nice artwork.
Overall, Dan Da Dan is a fun send-up of UFO and supernatural pop-culture, and also cements that with likeable leads. Some of it is pretty racy in places, but it never feels gratuitous, just very silly. In any case, Science Saru has done a great job here, and this Blu-ray set is certainly a tribute to that.
Dan Da Dan Season 1 Collector’s Edition Blu-ray is available from the GKIDS online store for $49.99
Disclosure: GKIDS sent me this Blu-ray set for the purposes of this review.
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