Anime: Dan Da Dan (Dandadan)
Studio: Science SARU
Season: 1
Episodes: 12
Aired: October 2024 – December 2024
Genre: Supernatural, Romance, Action, Comedy
Based on: Manga by Yukinobu Tataki (Shueisha, Jump+)
Introduction
Every once in a great while, an anime arrives that feels genuinely new — something that has its own energy, its own visual language, its own specific brand of chaos that you have never quite experienced before. Dan Da Dan, adapted by Science SARU from Yukinobu Tataki's wildly popular manga, is exactly that kind of anime. It exploded onto the scene in the Fall 2024 season and immediately became one of the most talked-about shows of the year. And for good reason. Dan Da Dan is not simply good. It is alive in a way that animated entertainment rarely manages to be.
The premise sounds like the setup to a joke: a boy who believes in aliens but not ghosts, and a girl who believes in ghosts but not aliens, accidentally prove each other right on the same night and get launched into the most bizarre supernatural adventure imaginable. What the premise does not prepare you for is the emotional depth, the visual spectacle, the genuinely funny comedy, and the unexpectedly tender romance that the show wraps around this premise. Dan Da Dan Season 1 is one of the best anime seasons in recent memory, and this is your complete guide to everything that makes it so extraordinary.
Story Summary — Detailed, Nothing Missing
Episode 1 — Two Believers, Two Wrong Beliefs
We open on Momo Ayase, a high school girl with a sharp tongue and an unshakeable belief in the supernatural — specifically, in ghosts and spirits, a belief inherited from her grandmother who is a genuine spirit medium. Momo is not the sort of person who simply goes along with things. She has strong opinions, she expresses them loudly, and she has no patience for people she considers wrong. She is also, despite this abrasiveness, a genuinely good and warm person underneath — someone whose fire comes from caring rather than from indifference.
The boy she meets — Ken Takakura, who will eventually earn the nickname Okarun (a play on the Japanese word for "occult") — is the exact opposite in terms of supernatural belief but very similar in terms of social positioning. He is the school's resident weird kid — passionate about the occult, specifically about aliens and UFOs and unexplained phenomena, but completely dismissive of ghosts and traditional supernatural creatures. He is gentle, nerdy, socially awkward, and has been bullied for his interests.
When Momo defends Okarun from bullies, the two form an unlikely connection. Their debate about what is real — ghosts versus aliens — produces the episode's central dare: each will go to the place most associated with the other's belief and prove it wrong. Okarun goes to an abandoned building rumored to be haunted. Momo goes to a location said to be an alien landing site. Both of them, on the same night, are immediately and horrifyingly proven wrong about their disbelief — Okarun encounters a genuine terrifying ghost, and Momo encounters something that is very definitively not of this Earth.
The first episode establishes Dan Da Dan's visual identity with complete confidence. Science SARU's animation is extraordinarily fluid and stylistically bold — the horror sequences genuinely horrifying, the comedy genuinely funny, and the action already showing the kinetic quality that will define the series' best sequences. The character designs are distinctive and the color work is among the most striking in recent anime. This is a show that knows exactly what it is.
Episode 2 — The Ghost Serpoian and Okarun's Transformation
The consequences of Episode 1's night of supernatural revelations are immediate and strange. Okarun's encounter with the ghost — specifically, the spirit entity that will be called Serpoian — results in something deeply alarming: his supernatural powers are stolen, specifically his most personal form of power, represented by the theft of a physical object deeply personal to him. The horror and comedy of this situation are played simultaneously, which is Dan Da Dan's signature mode — it never asks you to simply be scared or simply laugh. It makes you do both at once.
But something else also happens to Okarun: the alien encounter of the previous episode has left a mark. He discovers that he now has the ability to access a transformed state — a power-up form directly connected to the alien encounter — called the Turbo Granny state, which gives him access to supernatural physical capabilities but is connected to the ghost that stole from him. The name will make more sense as the episode develops.
The Turbo Granny entity itself is one of Season 1's most immediately iconic characters — a Japanese grandmother ghost with the inexplicable ability to move at terrifying speed, who becomes a recurring presence in the series as both a threat and, eventually, something more complicated. Her introduction is one of the season's funniest and most genuinely unsettling moments simultaneously.
Momo's grandmother provides crucial exposition about the supernatural world — the various entities that exist, the rules governing them, and the specific situation that Okarun and Momo have stumbled into. She is a delightful character, the specific warm-but-sharp energy of a woman who has seen everything and finds most of it interesting rather than alarming.
Episode 3 — The Alien Threat and the First Real Fight
The alien dimension of the story asserts itself in Episode 3 with the appearance of Alien Serpoian — a genuine extraterrestrial entity connected to the encounter that started everything. The alien's agenda, and its relationship to Momo and Okarun's situation, begins to become clearer: this is not a random encounter but something with history attached to it, something that has brought specific supernatural attention to both of them for reasons that will take the season to fully unpack.
The first major action sequence of the series arrives in Episode 3, and it immediately demonstrates why Dan Da Dan's animation is considered exceptional. Science SARU's handling of the action — the fluid movement, the creative camera work, the way the supernatural power is visualized — is genuinely thrilling. The fight choreography has an improvisational, organic quality that distinguishes it from the more technically precise action of many other shows. It feels alive.
This episode also begins developing the central emotional dynamic between Momo and Okarun more explicitly. They have been thrown together by circumstance and are now genuinely dependent on each other in a situation neither of them understands. The specific quality of their developing connection — the bickering, the gradually revealed genuine care for each other — is the show's emotional spine, and Episode 3 is where it starts becoming clearly visible.
Episode 4 — Aira Appears and the Love Triangle Begins
The series introduces its third major character in Episode 4: Aira Shiratori, Momo's best friend, who is everything Momo is not in terms of social grace — popular, conventionally beautiful, effortlessly charming — and who has a history with Okarun that immediately complicates the trio's dynamic. Aira had dismissed Okarun in the past, part of the social machinery that made him a target for bullying. Her reconnection with him now, changed by circumstances and by what she sees in him through Momo's eyes, begins one of the season's most emotionally engaging threads.
Aira's introduction also expands the supernatural threat landscape. The entities attracted to the main characters are not random — they are connected to specific aspects of the people they target, which means understanding the ghosts and aliens requires understanding the people they haunt. This revelation adds a layer of psychological depth to what could otherwise be a simple monster-of-the-week structure.
Episode 5 — The Curse of the Acrobatic Silky
One of Season 1's most beloved episodes introduces a new supernatural entity: the Acrobatic Silky, a ghost with a specific and deeply peculiar ability that makes it both terrifying and, once understood, genuinely tragic. The Silky arc — which spans Episodes 5 and 6 — is Dan Da Dan's first extended exploration of its emotional range beyond comedy and action. The ghost's backstory, when it is revealed, is genuinely affecting in the way that the best supernatural horror's human stories always are.
The episode also develops Okarun's transformed state further, showing more of what the alien-derived power he has access to can actually do and what it costs him. The cost dimension of his abilities — the specific way that using the power is connected to vulnerability — is one of the show's most interesting power system elements, because it means that his strength is never simply a resource to deploy but always a negotiation with something dangerous.
Episode 6 — Resolution of the Silky Arc and Emotional Depth
The Acrobatic Silky's backstory is fully revealed in Episode 6, and the show handles the emotional content of a tragic ghost story with complete seriousness rather than treating it as simple motivation for a fight. The resolution of the Silky situation is one of the most unexpectedly moving sequences of the season — the show earning genuine tears rather than simply action-based catharsis.
The relationship between Momo and Okarun continues to develop, and the specific quality of how Dan Da Dan handles the romance — the embarrassment, the genuine warmth underneath the bickering, the way both characters are awkward about their own feelings in completely believable ways — makes the romantic elements feel organic rather than formulaic. This is a romance that develops from genuine personality rather than narrative convenience.
Episode 7 — The Haunted Spa and Vaux the Great
A new supernatural entity enters the picture: Vaux, a large, intimidating presence connected to specific spiritual territory that the main characters inadvertently intrude upon. The haunted spa setting provides one of the season's most visually inventive episodes — the specific architecture of the space and the entity's relationship to it produce action sequences that use the environment with creative specificity.
This episode also gives Aira more substantial character development, exploring her complicated feelings about her social position and her growing genuine friendship with Momo that is separate from their shared supernatural experiences. Aira's arc in Season 1 is quieter than Momo's or Okarun's but no less genuine.
Episode 8 — The Sea Entity and Expanding the Supernatural World
The supernatural world expands again in Episode 8 with a coastal encounter that introduces new categories of entities and new dimensions of the rules governing the world Momo and Okarun are navigating. The sea setting produces Dan Da Dan's most visually beautiful episode to this point — Science SARU's color work in the ocean sequences is genuinely breathtaking, using the specific quality of light on water in ways that feel genuinely inventive rather than conventionally pretty.
The episode also begins setting up threads that will become central to the season's final arc — specific revelations about the history of the supernatural forces involved and their connection to Momo's family line through her grandmother's spiritual abilities. The world-building is deepening from monster-of-the-episode structure toward something with genuine historical and cosmic scope.
Episode 9 — Turbo Granny's True Nature
Episode 9 is the season's most significant lore episode — the one that reveals the true nature and history of the Turbo Granny entity, transforming it from a recurring comedic-horror presence into something considerably more complex and considerably more emotionally significant. The revelation of Turbo Granny's backstory is one of the season's best-written sequences, doing what Dan Da Dan does at its best: finding the genuine human (or human-adjacent) story underneath the supernatural horror and making you care about it deeply.
Okarun's relationship with the Turbo Granny state — the alien-derived power that is connected to her theft of his abilities — takes on new meaning with this episode's revelations. The power system and the emotional narrative are integrated in ways that make both more effective than they would be separately.
Episode 10 — Momo's Background and the Family Legacy
Episode 10 is Momo's episode — the most sustained focus on her specific history, her grandmother's legacy, and what it means that she has become the center of supernatural attention at this particular point in her life. Her family's connection to the spirit world is revealed to be far older and far more significant than the casual inheritance of a belief in ghosts.
The episode develops Momo as a character in dimensions that the earlier episodes established but didn't fully explore — the specific quality of her courage, the things she is actually afraid of underneath the bravado, and what it means to her that Okarun has become someone she genuinely trusts. The romantic development in this episode is the most direct the season has been, which is to say it is still beautifully indirect and embarrassed, but the sincerity is fully visible.
Episode 11 — The Convergence Begins
The season's various supernatural threads begin converging in Episode 11, as the specific entities and forces that have been separately introduced reveal their connections to each other and to the larger supernatural conflict building around Momo and Okarun. The scale of what they are actually dealing with — not simply a collection of individual hauntings but something organized and intentional — becomes clear for the first time.
The action sequences in Episode 11 are the season's most technically ambitious to this point. Science SARU deploys everything in its visual arsenal — the fluid character animation, the bold color work, the creative spatial reasoning of the fight choreography — in sequences that feel genuinely climactic rather than simply spectacular.
Episode 12 — The Season Finale and What It Promises
The season finale delivers on everything the preceding eleven episodes built toward — a major confrontation with the supernatural forces that have been gathering, a resolution that addresses the immediate crisis while opening new narrative possibilities, and crucially, the most direct and most emotionally affecting expression of the relationship between Momo and Okarun that the season has produced. The finale is not a complete conclusion — Dan Da Dan is an ongoing story — but it provides genuine catharsis for everything Season 1 set up while making Season 2 urgently anticipated.
The final scene of Season 1 is one of the most widely discussed moments of the Fall 2024 anime season — a quiet, completely earned emotional beat between the two main characters that is neither overdone nor underplayed. It is exactly right. It is the season saying: this is what all of that was for.
Character Explanation
Momo Ayase
Momo is one of the best anime protagonists in recent memory precisely because she is so specifically herself. She is not a passive protagonist who things happen to. She has strong opinions, she acts on them, and when she is wrong she acknowledges it without losing her fundamental confidence. Her belief in the supernatural is not simply a story device — it comes from a genuine family history and a genuine relationship with her grandmother, and her anger at anyone who dismisses it is the anger of someone defending something real and important to her. Her romantic feelings for Okarun develop in the most believably embarrassed way — she has no idea what to do with feelings that strong, and the show loves her for that helplessness.
Ken Takakura (Okarun)
Okarun is the kind of protagonist who wins you over not through coolness or capability but through earnestness. He genuinely loves what he loves — the occult, the unexplained, the vast possibilities of a universe that might be stranger than anyone knows — and he brings that genuine love to everything, including eventually his feelings for Momo. His transformation into someone with genuine supernatural capability is handled with care — he does not simply become powerful, he becomes someone who has to learn to handle power that comes with costs, and the learning process is one of the season's best character progressions.
Aira Shiratori
Aira's role in Season 1 is partly as Momo's best friend and partly as the emotional complicator — the person whose presence forces both Okarun and Momo to reckon with feelings they would rather not acknowledge directly. Her own development — from the conventionally popular girl who once dismissed Okarun to someone genuinely invested in his and Momo's wellbeing — is one of Season 1's most understated but most genuine character arcs.
Turbo Granny
What initially appears to be purely a comedic horror character becomes one of Season 1's most emotionally affecting presences once her full history is revealed. The show's treatment of her — maintaining her genuinely terrifying qualities while giving her a backstory that demands genuine emotional engagement — is one of its best character achievements. She is funny and scary and sad all at once, which is Dan Da Dan's signature emotional register applied to a single character.
Theme and Highlights
Belief and Its Validation: The central premise — two people with opposite supernatural beliefs both being proven right — is also the series' core thematic argument: that being genuinely open to what the world actually contains, rather than dogmatically certain of what it doesn't, is a form of courage and a source of connection. Momo and Okarun's relationship is built on the specific experience of having their beliefs validated by evidence, which means their connection is grounded in a shared commitment to taking the world seriously on its own terms.
The Human Story Inside the Horror: Dan Da Dan consistently finds the human tragedy or human longing or human love at the center of its supernatural entities. The ghosts are not simply scary — they are people or the remnants of people, and their haunting is the expression of something deeply human that was left unresolved. This approach to supernatural horror gives the series genuine emotional depth that pure action-horror cannot achieve.
Romance Without Compromise: The romance between Momo and Okarun does not soften or diminish either character to make the other look better. They are both fully themselves throughout their developing relationship — strong-willed, embarrassed by their feelings, genuine in their care — and the romance develops from who they actually are rather than from who a conventional romance plot would make them. This is rare and it is one of the series' greatest strengths.
Animation as Storytelling: Science SARU's animation is not simply technically impressive — it is making specific storytelling choices. The way action is choreographed, the specific visual register shifts between comedy and horror, the color palette changes that mark emotional transitions — all of these are narrative decisions made in the language of animation. Dan Da Dan is a show that uses its medium exceptionally well.
Conclusion
Dan Da Dan Season 1 is a genuinely exceptional anime — visually inventive, emotionally honest, consistently funny, occasionally genuinely scary, and anchored by two protagonists whose relationship develops with a care and a specificity that most romance anime don't achieve in twice the episode count. Science SARU has produced one of the best-animated series in recent years, and the source material's specific energy — that particular combination of chaotic supernatural action and heartfelt character work — translates to animation with remarkable fidelity. If you have not watched Dan Da Dan Season 1, do so immediately. It is exactly as good as everyone says.
FAQ
Q: Do I need to read the manga before watching the anime?
A: Not at all. The anime is a complete introduction to the story and the characters. Reading the manga beforehand may give you additional context but is absolutely not necessary to enjoy Season 1 fully.
Q: Is Dan Da Dan appropriate for younger viewers?
A: The show has genuine horror elements, some crude humor, and occasional suggestive content. It is generally considered appropriate for older teens and adults. Younger viewers who are sensitive to horror imagery should approach with parental guidance.
Q: Is there a dub available?
A: Yes, an English dub was produced alongside the simulcast. The dub has been generally well-received, though the original Japanese voice performances are also excellent. Both options are available on Crunchyroll.
Q: Is Season 2 confirmed?
A: Yes, Season 2 was confirmed and has aired. The story continues directly from Season 1's ending, so fans of the first season can look forward to the continuation.
Q: What makes Dan Da Dan stand out from other supernatural anime?
A: Its specific combination of tones — genuine horror, genuine comedy, genuine romance, and genuine emotional depth — all coexisting in the same episode without any of them undermining the others. Plus the animation quality, which is genuinely exceptional even by the standards of recent high-quality anime.
Q: Where can I watch Dan Da Dan Season 1?
A: It is available on Crunchyroll in most regions. Check your local streaming service availability for the most current options.
Next: Dan Da Dan Season 2 Review and Complete Episode Guide!
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