EP. REVIEW: DAN DA DAN [5/7] - Forum (2024)

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Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2024 7:57 am

yeehaw wrote:

I had this awful feeling that the cat was going to be a perverted old man and I'm so glad I was wrong and it was Turbo babaa instead. I love her so much.

We got a perverted, undead grandma instead, but it totally works.

I've loved Airi's introduction, but I'm a little hesitant about her going forward---seems a little narrow, as a character? But, SS and DDD have more than earned my trust at this point, so happily along to see where it goes.

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Greed1914

Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2024 12:53 pm

MFrontier wrote:

All that Shojo romance Tatsu read really helped him craft one of the most believable and compelling teen romances. Like, Momo and Okarun are not only cute together but they feel so believable as two teens falling for each other and trying to navigate that along with their conflicting personalities/insecurities. It's why they're so compelling together.

Yeah, I actually believe it when Okarun says he was so excited to have his first friend that it didn't occur to him that she is also a pretty girl. I also believe it when Momo's defending her friend and protesting that it isn't what it seems makes the other girls tease her even more about it. Them wrestling with whether that is even something they would want is very real.

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meiam

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2024 5:32 pm

I really wish Aira and Momo swapped place story wise.

Currently we have Momo, who's pretty much a character without much of an character arc to go on, the closest thing she had was realizing her grandma was right about the occult, which isn't really an arc since she couldn't grow up before being confronted by the occult at least once and that's already done. So she's very static as a character, if you'd meet this Momo at 40 year old, she would feel like a competent adult who got her shit together. So, her only "growth" will come from falling in love with Okarun because... hum... well... he exist I guess? His name is the same as her favorite actor? What does she see in him? That's never going to be answered. Why was she dying to talk alien with him last episode? /Shrug. She's just a manic pixy girl, chained to another loser MC, who's not allowed to find her own love.

Aira on the other hand clearly has an arc she could explore, its not hard to see her as someone who can befriend/romance people easily, but never establish deep connection with anyone because of her shallow self. This would make her into a good counter to Okarun, who can't make the first step toward establishing connection (maybe in that version we buff up Okarun a bit to be someone who could make deeper connection beyond "omg they talked to me!").

Plus Aira having Okarun ball(s) as her power source would also make for a good pairing. Right now, Momo is all powerful because of something she innately posses while Okarun is just borrowing someone else power (and for the first arc, couldn't even use it without Momo), further establishing him as a complete loser (plus even with that power he sucked at everything he tried to do). Aira x Okarun both using someone else power would work better, and Aira fondling Okarun ball on the regular could make for a decent visual metaphor for them getting closer( going from "Eww no" to non chalance).

You might think this would leave poor Momo in the dust, but no, that's the beaty of this. We can just have semi stand alone Momo episode where she's just her awesome self and allowed to exist unchained from Okarun. Win-win.

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Shay Guy

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2024 9:00 pm

meiam wrote:

So, her only "growth" will come from falling in love with Okarun because... hum... well... he exist I guess? His name is the same as her favorite actor? What does she see in him? That's never going to be answered.

I've seen it argued that under all his dweebishness, Okarun's surprisingly close to Momo's ideal of masculinity. Plus there's their shared background as "weirdos" -- Momo's loud and aggressive enough to have stopped being a target and found friends, but she's connected to the Weird as strongly as Okarun is. (Unlike Aira, who just wandered into it with a head full of daisies.) And possibly the biggest thing is the one the script's been mentioning since episode 2: she just likes talking to him. Who else can she chat about giant crabs and Flatwoods monsters with?

As for growth, well, she's still a bit immature. Episode 5 makes that clear, with her reflexive denial of wanting anything to do with Okarun, and of course the fact that she still can't call him by his name.

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Iron Maw

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:17 am

meiam wrote:

I really wish Aira and Momo swapped place story wise. Currently we have Momo, who's pretty much a character without much of an character arc to go on, the closest thing she had was realizing her grandma was right about the occult, which isn't really an arc since she couldn't grow up before being confronted by the occult at least once and that's already done. So she's very static as a character, if you'd meet this Momo at 40 year old, she would feel like a competent adult who got her shit together. So, her only "growth" will come from falling in love with Okarun because... hum... well... he exist I guess? His name is the same as her favorite actor? What does she see in him? That's never going to be answered. Why was she dying to talk alien with him last episode? /Shrug. She's just a manic pixy girl, chained to another loser MC, who's not allowed to find her own love. Aira on the other hand clearly has an arc she could explore, its not hard to see her as someone who can befriend/romance people easily, but never establish deep connection with anyone because of her shallow self. This would make her into a good counter to Okarun, who can't make the first step toward establishing connection (maybe in that version we buff up Okarun a bit to be someone who could make deeper connection beyond "omg they talked to me!").

Dude
1) its only been 6 episodes, nobody has much of character arc. Besides character development in DDD is more about indivdual smaller moments & epiphanies throughout the story building up each individual meber of its cast rather than one event that makes them pull an 180.

2) A-are you trying imply Momo is ... flawless or something? The girl who such wild mood swing due to being so incredulity dishonest with her feelings and to point she often fly off on a handful? The one who won't even allow the lead male protaginst to use his name? The one who obsessed with her "Mr: Right" having the exact traits to her schoolgirl crush she ends up relationships terrible with dudes? Just because she extrovert doesn't mean she don't have her problems. She many mistakes precisely be she is a believably immature teenage girl.

3) I also don't know why your downplaying her issues with grandma just because it was kinda of resolved. Even then that's still more than what Aira has at moment. The only your post is highlighted she has flaws which can spur character growth, which describes everybody in the cast so far. Its one makes their interactions so fun.

Quote:

Plus Aira having Okarun ball(s) as her power source would also make for a good pairing. Right now, Momo is all powerful because of something she innately posses while Okarun is just borrowing someone else power (and for the first arc, couldn't even use it without Momo), further establishing him as a complete loser (plus even with that power he sucked at everything he tried to do). Aira x Okarun both using someone else power would work better, and Aira fondling Okarun ball on the regular could make for a decent visual metaphor for them getting closer( going from "Eww no" to non chalance). You might think this would leave poor Momo in the dust, but no, that's the beaty of this. We can just have semi stand alone Momo episode where she's just her awesome self and allowed to exist unchained from Okarun. Win-win.

DDD isn't really about battles despite there being a decent number of them so Aira having his balls doesn't matter much in grand scheme of things. Okarun needing Momo use his power early on has nothing to do with him being a loser either, its because he's literally cursed. Okarun's transformation just him and Momo trying make most out of a bad situation by reverse engineering something they didn't think was possible. Besides why Okarun and Momo's chemistry is so strong has less to do with their circumstances more to do with their personalities. While they are complete opposites on the surface digging shows they share many intrinsic traits. Their argument in ep 1 and their subsequent journey to their paranormal hotspots is one of many example of this.

Last edited by Iron Maw on Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:47 am; edited 2 times in total

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NeverConvex

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:39 am

I actually kind of like the idea of an alternate-reality Dan Da Dan with Airi and Momo largely swapping roles. I think meiam has a point that, right now, Airi has more obvious, uh, work to do on herself and how she relates to the world, and that that could be tied to interacting with Okarun pretty naturally.

I love the current story, too, though? I guess in a ceteris paribus sense I might think somehow even more highly of it if we hit an arc where Momo seriously struggles/grows in some large way, but I also think Momo's current attitude is a huge part of what draws me to the vibe of the show. With Airi in her place, these early arcs would presumably feel much angstier and less care-free than they do right now, since Airi holds nothing but contempt for Okarun; could ride on her being a melodramatic space-case to some extent, but I don't think you'd be able to remove the sense that she thinks very little of him from how they interact, at least not for a quite a long time. Not to say that that would be a bad show, but it would be a very different one, just at the level of atmosphere and general tone.

Mm, also, Airi just seems much less, er, bright, than Momo? At least from what we've seen of her so far, I have trouble imagining her pulling off the same kinds of clever maneuvers with ESP to barely pull them out of each battle, which makes me think the fights would have to be written pretty differently as well.

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yeehaw

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 10:49 am

Why are you guys just accepting the argument that Okarun is just some isekai protag sans isekai and not a real character?
And a character arc doesn't have to be "character has obvious flaw that they overcome over the course of the show"
Momo isn't a manic pixie dream girl, a MPDG is the kind of girl Aira pretended to be when she got tray'd.
Also we've just been introduced but I don't think Aira will go through an arc were she becomes like, a normal person. She's probably going to become nicer but she'll probably still think she's the cutest in the world and a dumbass. As she should.
I love her just the way she is, dumb as hell.

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TJ_Kat

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 2:59 pm

Shay Guy wrote:

I've seen it argued that under all his dweebishness, Okarun's surprisingly close to Momo's ideal of masculinity.

Even not knowing anything about the real Takakura Ken, that's pretty much how I understood things at the end of episode 1. While Okarun might not LOOK like her ideal guy, he ticks all the boxes on the personality side of things. The fact that Okarun's name IS Takakura Ken is a gag and has nothing to do with Momo's initial interest in him since that started BEFORE he told her his name. Momo knows what she wants in a guy but has been looking for it in the wrong places.

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meiam

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 7:19 pm

yeehaw wrote:

Why are you guys just accepting the argument that Okarun is just some isekai protag sans isekai and not a real character? And a character arc doesn't have to be "character has obvious flaw that they overcome over the course of the show" Momo isn't a manic pixie dream girl, a MPDG is the kind of girl Aira pretended to be when she got tray'd. Also we've just been introduced but I don't think Aira will go through an arc were she becomes like, a normal person. She's probably going to become nicer but she'll probably still think she's the cutest in the world and a dumbass. As she should. I love her just the way she is, dumb as hell.

From Tv tropes (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManicPixieDreamGirl):

"Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life...

Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's beautiful (albeit more "cute" than "hot"), energetic, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly. "

That's just Momo, she's textbook definition of manic pixy girl.

Shay Guy wrote:

I've seen it argued that under all his dweebishness, Okarun's surprisingly close to Momo's ideal of masculinity. Plus there's their shared background as "weirdos" -- Momo's loud and aggressive enough to have stopped being a target and found friends, but she's connected to the Weird as strongly as Okarun is. (Unlike Aira, who just wandered into it with a head full of daisies.) And possibly the biggest thing is the one the script's been mentioning since episode 2: she just likes talking to him. Who else can she chat about giant crabs and Flatwoods monsters with? As for growth, well, she's still a bit immature. Episode 5 makes that clear, with her reflexive denial of wanting anything to do with Okarun, and of course the fact that she still can't call him by his name.

What set Okaru apart from an average human being? He has crippling lack of social skill, he doesn't dare approach others first and like Alien (or does he? He just started reading up on it hoping to have an out from his lack of social skill). Aside from that he's just an average guy without much special. Who could possibly see this has an "ideal of masculinity"? Their share involvement in occult means they have something to converse, but that doesn't change Okarun personality. How sad would it be if her love for him boiled down to "well he's literally the only male person that I can talk to about occult, so yeah I guess I love him"? Like Okarun won her heart by default.

Sure she still has some rough character trait and room to grow, but she's on altogether different level than Okarun who has trouble having a normal conversation. Their character growth will always be completely uneven (ie manic pixy girl).

Iron Maw wrote:

Dude 1) its only been 6 episodes, nobody has much of character arc. Besides character development in DDD is more about indivdual smaller moments & epiphanies throughout the story building up each individual meber of its cast rather than one event that makes them pull an 180. 2) A-are you trying imply Momo is ... flawless or something? The girl who such wild mood swing due to being so incredulity dishonest with her feelings and to point she often fly off on a handful? The one who won't even allow the lead male protaginst to use his name? The one who obsessed with her "Mr: Right" having the exact traits to her schoolgirl crush she ends up relationships terrible with dudes? Just because she extrovert doesn't mean she don't have her problems. She many mistakes precisely be she is a believably immature teenage girl. 3) I also don't know why your downplaying her issues with grandma just because it was kinda of resolved. Even then that's still more than what Aira has at moment. The only your post is highlighted she has flaws which can spur character growth, which describes everybody in the cast so far. Its one makes their interactions so fun. DDD isn't really about battles despite there being a decent number of them so Aira having his balls doesn't matter much in grand scheme of things. Okarun needing Momo use his power early on has nothing to do with him being a loser either, its because he's literally cursed. Okarun's transformation just him and Momo trying make most out of a bad situation by reverse engineering something they didn't think was possible. Besides why Okarun and Momo's chemistry is so strong has less to do with their circumstances more to do with their personalities. While they are complete opposites on the surface digging shows they share many intrinsic traits. Their argument in ep 1 and their subsequent journey to their paranormal hotspots is one of many example of this.

1) Its already been 6 episodes. But I agree that nobody has much arc, because half our main leads has no room for one (except the one where she realize that Okarun crippling social anxiety apparently makes him a "ideal of masculinity").

2) Again, growth imbalance is the issue. None of the problem you raise are even in the same vicinity as Okarun problems. Any growing arc will be almost entirely monopolised by Okarun, with Momo juts being along for the ride, except for anything that make her love Okarun more. Imagine a story where one character, say, has to learn to get over the dead of his loved one, while another is trying to get over her fear of cockroach, putting those side by side and even equating them would just deflate the first one.

3) What problem does she have with her grandma now? It was entirely based on the misunderstanding that occult actually exist, which has been undoubtedly fixed. You could maybe go in the direction that she could be pissed at her grandma for not having proven to her the occult existed when she told her to do the finger thing, but if that's going to come up, it should have done with it was relevant.

Their interaction episode 1 was entirely because Momo took pity on him (which she was right, he was pitiful). I guess you could say that's chemistry? But since then its entirely circumstance based, like the previous poster mentioned "Who else can she chat about giant crabs and Flatwoods monsters with?", neither thing she express much interest in before she find out they existed for real.

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Thesarum

Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2024 8:20 pm

Such strong hate for our adorable leads!

Yeah, Okarun lacks social confidence. A trait he shares with roughly 80% of all anime protagonists.

Okarun doesn't need to be paragon of whatever you're defining as masculinity, he just needs to be the sort of masculine that Ken Takakura was (well, the roles he played). And, while I'm not sure I've seen any of his films, what I understand that to be is: quiet, uncomfortable with expressing his emotions, awkward socially, but more than prepared to stand up and defend his girl/family/friends when needed. Okarun absolutely is all those things. He might never stand up for himself (except with Momo who he's more than happy to get into stupid screaming matches and silly wrestling fights with) but since he met Momo he has never failed to stand up for her regardless of the opponent.

Momo is a young and attractive gyaru with to this point, terrible taste in men. I imagine she's more than used to people making all sorts of assumptions about her from the way she looks. Treating her as stupid, "easy" or just fragile. It might not be an especially high bar, but Okarun doesn't do this. He treats her as an equal partner, he listens to her, fights for her, and relies on her to fight for him. And she can be her full authentic self with him, something I suspect she's not even with her gyaru friends. Those are some pretty attractive qualities right there.

As for Momo

Quote:

Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's beautiful (albeit more "cute" than "hot"), energetic, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly.

I would argue that momo is largely not "high on life" or particularly full of "wacky quirks" beyond her Ken Takakura fixation (accepting this is a comedy, and therefore everyone is the butt of many jokes all the time), and she's doesn't exhibit "childlike playfulness". She's far too abrasive and aggressive to be a manic pixie. And she's not inexplicably obsessed, the obsession is very explicable.

Quote:

neither thing she express much interest in before she find out they existed for real.

We can't really say this with confidence - we'd barely met her before she declared to Okarun that spirits/ghosts were real but aliens were not and they got into a competition to prove each other wrong.

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Gem-Bug

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2024 7:24 pm

Gem-Bug wrote:

This was honestly the manga arc that cemented for me just what an excellent series this was. Real excited for next week, too.

Yep. Honestly, episode of the year for me, most likely. What more is there to even say?

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NeverConvex

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2024 7:43 pm

That was way more intense than I was expecting---still kind of processing my reaction to it, but it was certainly moving.

I didn't follow one bit: spoiler[how did Aira get away from the yakuza? When they walked off carrying her as a kid, I kind of assumed the tragedy was about to get even darker. But, they just kind of threw her at her dad, I guess?]

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Gem-Bug

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2024 8:17 pm

NeverConvex wrote:

That was way more intense than I was expecting---still kind of processing my reaction to it, but it was certainly moving. I didn't follow one bit: spoiler[how did Aira get away from the yakuza? When they walked off carrying her as a kid, I kind of assumed the tragedy was about to get even darker. But, they just kind of threw her at her dad, I guess?]

Oh. Well, spoiler[Aira's not really her daughter, she just saw a woman's ghost as a child while out with her Father and the Silky formed an attachment. Her actual daughter was presumably trafficked/murdered. A couple things the adaption left out/changed was that A.)the Silky-as-a-human jumped off a rooftop to her death(the anime more-or-less implies it with the motion and thud), and B.) when Aira wishes them a kinder world, you see the Silky spirit and her daughter fade off into light. So it's all a bit more obvious in the manga.]

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TJ_Kat

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2024 8:47 pm

meiam wrote:

From Tv tropes (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManicPixieDreamGirl): "Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life... Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's beautiful (albeit more "cute" than "hot"), energetic, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly. " That's just Momo, she's textbook definition of manic pixy girl.

What that amounts to is that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl's entire character is in service to the male protagonist she's "saving", and that's NOT Momo at all. To be honest, I think Okarun is more of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (or the male equivalent) to her than she is to him.

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NeverConvex

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:05 pm

Gem-Bug wrote:

NeverConvex wrote: That was way more intense than I was expecting---still kind of processing my reaction to it, but it was certainly moving. I didn't follow one bit: spoiler[how did Aira get away from the yakuza? When they walked off carrying her as a kid, I kind of assumed the tragedy was about to get even darker. But, they just kind of threw her at her dad, I guess?] Oh. Well, spoiler[Aira's not really her daughter, she just saw a woman's ghost as a child while out with her Father and the Silky formed an attachment. Her actual daughter was presumably trafficked/murdered. A couple things the adaption left out/changed was that A.)the Silky-as-a-human jumped off a rooftop to her death(the anime more-or-less implies it with the motion and thud), and B.) when Aira wishes them a kinder world, you see the Silky spirit and her daughter fade off into light. So it's all a bit more obvious in the manga.]

Ah, that makes more sense. I spoiler[originally didn't think Aira was actually her daughter, but between Aira's mom being out of the picture and Aira's reaction post-memory-reveal, somehow got the impression that Aira was in fact her kid; I didn't realize it was primarily an act of kindness for Aira (or, maybe some kind of mutual catharsis, with Silky serving as an emotional stand-in for Aira to say goodbye to, given she never really got the chance to do that with her own mom?). I like that quite a bit better than where I thought the episode had ended.]

spoiler[Hm, also, I guess the shot of Aira's mom in the casket didn't look at all like the black-haired lady who became Silky---which probably should have occurred to me, since I was actively wondering, "Wait, so, where does Aira get the pink hair from?" at the end of the episode. ]

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