Just saw the latest episode tonight.
Spoiler
I haven’t cried like that from a television show in a while. And it made me kind of mad, because a lot of the emotions she was feeling, I’ve felt too about my own daughter. Granted, the end result she experienced hasn’t happened, but like all parents, I’ve feared that something like it could every day since she was born. It was completely unexpected to get hit by that tonight, so it sort of made me mad in addition to making me cry like a baby. Just had to get that out.
I love this show.
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Yeah it’s not the thing to watch if you don’t want problematic themes but the show is smart.
The first episode is definitely shocking and I understand if ppl bailed on the show. However even then it felt very similar to Tarantino where it revels in the problematic to then subvert it. The absurd
cw SA material
Alien impregnation phallus (which had se7en vibes in some ways)
Seems to suggest that the show wants you to feel uncomfortable. The whole scene is unsettling, and I think intentionally so now. Obviously there’s also humor in it, but it’s also like, contrast with the most recent episode and it’s realism around SA and such and I think the show gets it.
Absolutely. It’s not, as other commenters have suggested, just casually making light of SA as a joke. It’s meant to be extremely uncomfortable. If anything, I think the show is directly confronting the problem of SA in anime.
Truly the best anime of this year, in a year with absolute bangers. Science Saru is one of the fucking GOATs. One of the nice things about curating good taste is seeing it come to life, picked up, or further recognized by other members of the community. I am just overjoyed by how good a treatment it has gotten.
All of the animators are doing amazing work, but I want to specifically highlight the director who has a notebook/binder going back for years for storyboarding scenes, and his entire goal for this season has been to have as many “cool shots” shown on screen. We are watching absolute peak. It is amazing. What a fucking win.
The manga also continues and it is amazing as well. If you are staying away from dan da dan because of episode 1 and episode 1 alone, you are doing yourself a disservice with how peak the art&story and show have been.
My god, it’s avant garde, it’s like watching the dawning of a new era in anime art.
I had a friend call me this morning to tell me how he was sobbing over the acro silky backstory. We are both dads. It is genuinely so well done.
it’s so fucking good, I’ve been saying this for a good bit and I’m so glad more people are coming on board with it now due to the anime
The theme song is an absolute banger.
Just finished watching… Yeah.
They’re doing something interesting there under the guise of a silly ecchi anime.CW tho ecchi, SA, Violence.
the show opens with a lil lighthearted SA on teens, so it’s gonna continue to stay dropped for me
While I totally get while you feel that way, that scene is looking to be very calculated. So far, Dandadan is shaping up to be cleverly disguised anti-manosphere propaganda.
spoiler
Its overarching story is ticking all the boxes for an ecchi nice guy story and a budding romance with a manic pixy girl, but there’s a couple of interesting things happening. For one, every woman character is initially presented as negative stereotype in some way, and then being transformed in the viewer’s mind by the progress of the story. For example, Momo is initially presented as a weak, violent, prude-ish girl who refuses to put out and dates creeps, but then she sees Okarun being picked on and steps up. But then they take her rehabilitation even further and completely flip the scenario in the midst of that SA scene when there’s a momentary flashback to that initial opening scene that links the behavior of the creepy aliens (which are 100% presented as villainous) and the boyfriend’s attitude. Her power literally comes as a payoff to the viewer sympathizing with her previous abuse. And that’s becoming a theme, the grandmother is initially introduced as a charlatan who we find out is incredibly powerful, there’s another girl who has been introduced as a stuck up caricature of an incel’s idea of a woman, who it looks like is being reborn in episode 7.
Then there’s the battles; In victorious moments, the viewer is being presented with examples of crimes against women with increasing detail and emotional commitment. And the payoff for the viewer experiencing these emotions? The nice guy is earning back bits of his manhood each time!
It is dastardly, really.
We’re only on episode 7, but if the story continues on this trajectory, I would say it’s making for a great rehabilitation program for incels.
I’m going to gently push back a little on Okarun being a Nice Guy- he’s not Kirito or a generic isekai protagonist where he’s a generic not-asshole that inexplicably makes women fall for him, to act as a vehicle for audiences to self-insert into. He’s a socially isolated kid with low self-esteem who retreated into a niche hobby as a coping mechanism, his sole motivation at the start of the show was to make even one friend and he’s only now grappling with the fact that his first genuine friend is someone of the opposite sex and that he might be attracted to her (<---- Episode 5, for those keeping score at home).
Also he has to deal with the absurdist situation that a ghost ate his balls.
Neat little thing about his character: the meta joke that Okarun’s real name is the same as Momo’s celebrity crush, Takakura Ken (think of the real life celebrity as Japanese John Wayne) is that his catch phrase “I’m an awkward fellow, after all” came from a commercial for family insurance, where the father figure played by the actor keeps failing to express his true emotions but it’s obvious to the audience that he cares about his family (because he bought insurance). That’s more his character’s deal (rather straightforwardly being bad at expressing himself), rather than some Chainsaw Man style bait-and-switch Shonen character deconstruction.
Edit: But also also the general levity of the show seems to be at odds with some of the topics it handles (like SA) and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to proselytize to anyone who watched ep 1 and decided it’s not for them because people are definitely going to have strong reactions that are entirely justified, I just feel like doing so can come off as insensitive
m going to gently push back a little on Okarun being a Nice Guy-
Yeah, that’s totally fair, I was just reusing a phrase others were using but he’s a reasonably innocent character that’s probably easy for a lot of folks to project on.
Edit: But also also the general levity of the show seems to be at odds with some of the topics it handles (like SA) and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to proselytize to anyone who watched ep 1 and decided it’s not for them because people are definitely going to have strong reactions that are entirely justified, I just feel like doing so can come off as insensitive
Oh yeah, if it’s not for you, it’s not for you, @[email protected] or anyone else. I’m just finding what it’s doing to be fascinating. Using storytelling like this is my jam.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The first episode is absolutely disgusting (in a bad way) and I still hesitate to recommend this show because of it.
Which sucks! Cause I guess this show is actually good? I like the characters and the romance and the monsters, but holy shit that first episode was so bad for something that is actually becoming pretty enjoyable.
But yeah, me and the bf were bawling by the end of this one.
spoiler
So beautifully produced too. Loved the music for the flashbback and how the love between Aira and her mom was expressed with minimal dialogue. Just a mom and her daughter enjoying their time together. Then the gut wrenching desperation you get from the first-person perspective after she was attacked and Aira was taken from her. I ended up crying too.
Didn’t someone mention on here the first 2 episodes being very problematic?
Yes, the first episode is problematic. But the show overall has feminist themes that make it a worthwhile watch- the new episode op is talking about a case in point.
I really need to get around to that effortpost about how to approach problematic media
A helpful essay for you comrade:
Emily St James on Wanda vision : https://www.vox.com/culture/22325656/wandavision-finale-justice-disappointment-story-karma
When/if you make the post I’d love an @, I have thoughts too but don’t generally like being the OP
Just some casual SA’ing of a high school student played for laughs. You know, in case having the other main character be a Nice Guy wasn’t enough.
not gonna excuse the SA, it’s egregious and even if it is supposed to be a thematic thing w/rt Turbo Granny-possessed Okarun jumping through the phone to save Momo given Turbo Granny essentially being a wrathful spirit carrying out the rage of women who’d been SA’d and murdered, it’s still very fucking tasteless and isn’t handled well, nor is it CW’d at all properly. Relatively, Chainsaw Man handles the portrayal of sexual abuse infinitely better, and even then it’s still a bit iffy by nature of it, but I digress. My recommendation of Dandadan is very much in spite of the first ep/chapter.
However, Okarun isn’t really the nice guy archetype, if we’re thinking the same thing w/rt what that consists? he’s just kinda dorky and stilted, so it can read like that initially. It’s not really the direction they take him at all. His whole characterization is more about self-isolation, if anything.
I’ve been meaning to write an analysis about how one of Dandadan’s major running threads is the consistent and very intentional subversion of first impressions w/rt characters. I should probably get to it sometime.
From what I know, it’s like the cleanest manga ever after those two episodes.
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