Dan Da Dan

ダンダダン (Dandadan)

8.5(10)

OtakuDen

8.4(611,878)

MAL Score

Ranked #231

Popularity #195

Action
Comedy
Supernatural

Episodes: 12
Duration: 23 min per ep
Aired: Oct 4, 2024 to Dec 20, 2024
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Still smarting from a breakup, popular high schooler Momo Ayase steps in to help a timid classmate, Ken Takakura, when he’s being bullied. Takakura takes her intervention as a sign of friendship—especially since he’s fixated on aliens and UFOs—only for Momo to reveal she’s firmly on the occult side of things and doesn’t believe aliens are real. Their first connection quickly turns into a competitive standoff, with each determined to prove the other wrong.

That rivalry shifts as the two are pulled into a string of strange confrontations involving urban legends and other paranormal threats. Through a run of chaotic encounters and supernatural fights, Momo and Takakura develop unusual abilities and an unexpectedly close partnership, learning to cover each other’s blind spots while questioning whether their bond is becoming something deeper than simple self-preservation.

Otaku Consensus

Science SARU’s Dan Da Dan lands as one of 2024’s loudest shounen breakouts because Fuuga Yamashiro’s direction treats the material like a controlled detonation: rapid comic timing, elastic action, horror imagery, and romance beats all hit without sanding down the manga’s weirdness. The early three-episode run became the clearest proof of concept, selling the adaptation’s genre-hopping identity before the season settled into its 12-episode sprint. Its real drawback is also its brand: the genital-focused gags, abrasive absurdity, and hyperactive pacing make it thrilling for many viewers and an immediate deal-breaker for others.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Dan Da Dan if you want battle shounen momentum without tournament padding, urban-fantasy horror without solemnity, and romantic chemistry that survives the show’s deliberate stupidity. It scratches the same itch as Mob Psycho 100’s elastic supernatural action and Chainsaw Man’s taste for crude, chaotic monster encounters, but Science SARU pushes it into a brighter, more pop-art register. The appeal is not just “ghosts plus aliens”; it is how quickly the anime can pivot from a gross-out gag to a kinetic chase, then to a sincere two-person rhythm between Momo and Ken. If you like shows that weaponize embarrassment, body horror, henshin spectacle, and school-life banter in the same episode, this is built for you.

Key Characters

M
Momo Ayase(VA: Shion Wakayama)
Momo stands out as a gyaru-coded female lead whose blunt confidence gives the series its sharpest comic timing and keeps the supernatural chaos from becoming a boys-only power fantasy.
K
Ken Takakura(VA: Natsuki Hanae)
Ken is memorable because his timid, UFO-obsessed awkwardness becomes a full-on performance engine for the show’s mix of humiliation comedy, henshin energy, and earnest emotional payoff.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Science SARU’s animation approach is central to the show’s identity: the adaptation favors stretchy movement, exaggerated facial acting, and color-heavy impact frames over a cleaner, model-sheet-safe battle style.
2
The season compresses its first TV run into 12 episodes airing from October 4 to December 20, 2024, which gives the adaptation a fast, almost sketch-comedy rhythm rather than a slow-burn shounen rollout.
3
AniList’s tag spread is unusually balanced for a battle series: Urban Fantasy at 97%, Youkai and Ghost both at 96%, and Aliens at 94%, reflecting how aggressively the show refuses to pick one paranormal lane.
4
The production credits separate out Title Logo Design for Youhei Okashita, a small but telling sign of how much the anime treats branding, typography, and pop visual identity as part of its impact.
5
Hiroshi Seko handles series composition, giving the season a structure that leans into escalation and tonal whiplash instead of smoothing the source material into a conventional supernatural-action formula.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Dan Da Dan finished its first season as a major cross-platform hit: MAL lists it at 8.4 from 611,878 votes, while AniList scores it at 83/100 with 18,570 favourites.
Fun fact 2: The anime is based on Yukinobu Tatsu’s original work, with Fuuga Yamashiro directing and Moko-chan credited as assistant director for Science SARU’s adaptation.
Fun fact 3: Naoyuki Onda is credited with character design, while Junichi Higashi serves as art director, placing the show’s exaggerated human designs and supernatural backdrops under separate key visual leads.
Fun fact 4: Color is a formally credited strength of the production: Satoshi Hashimoto and Makiho Kondou are both listed for color design, with Kazuto Izumita as director of photography.
Fun fact 5: Its reception split is unusually clear: many reviews praise it as one of 2024’s most vibrant, genre-blending anime, while the most common rejection point is not production quality but the crude sexual and genital humor introduced early.