An episode like this is a ridiculous amount of fun, there’s no denying that. Kind of Hell to write about, though. I mean, wall to wall insanity for 22 minutes pretty much covers it. How many ways are there to frame that? I mean, it was great for what it was – but this adaptation has been that most of the time anyway. Sure there were a few still frames tossed in to save Yen, but on the whole this was really well put-together for a full-episode action sequence. Not for the first time I got a big vintage Gainax vibe from Dandadan.
One thing I’m discovering as more people are exposed to the series now is how many references I missed in the manga. Like “Nessie” (Okarun goes full otaku over that one) being a Shin Godzilla homage (shame on me for not spotting that unprompted). And who knew Mr. Mantis Shrimp (Seki Tomokazu) was based on a character from Ultra Q (a 1966 black-and-white tokusatsu spin on the Ultraman franchise)? He’s actually a Mantisian – a gigging alien hired by the Serpoians who’s just trying to make an honest buck punching out some kids.
So basically, Ken spends the whole episode running around naked, a good portion of it with Aira squeeing over him. You have the Mantis punching everything as he raps nonsensical (and non-licensable) ABBA lyrics. You have Nessie swimming around shooting its laser cannon and cutting things in half. And you have the Serpoians going on about banana organs and flexing over how powerful their psychokinetic powers are ever as those powers regularly prove inadequate for the job at hand. All accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like it could have come from Run Lola Run.
It’s a heady mix. It totally works, and somehow elevates anime Dandadan to even higher levels of ridiculousness than manga Dandadan. This is the series in full throttle mode, no question about it. There are comic moments on the character side – Ken’s embarrassment, Aria’s infatuation, Momo’s jealousy – but mostly it’s just full sprint. There are times you forget why any of this is even happening and just get caught up in the wave. It’s a good fight too – when the Serpoians go into their “Awesome Zone” by merging their powers the game really steps up. Then they power up Mantis-san, who starts singing an inspiring salaryman battle anthem (which is apparently inspired by the commercials for an Japanese energy drink). And through all this Acrobatic Silky is popping in and out as Momo’s control of things switches on and off.
In effect, things come down to a gattai battle as the new power trio do a kind of Hunter X Hunter dodgeball thing naked and all the aliens combine, resulting in a sex-obsessed Godzilla crustacean singing boxer. Of course for Okarun the notion of a cryptid and an alien gattai-ing is more invigorating even than squishing up naked next to Momo and Aira in lingerie. We’re not going for subtlety here, but Silky backstory notwithstanding Dandadan generally sticks to its strengths. And that almost always works to its advantage.
It must be noted again what a great job Science SARU is doing with this adaptation. I’ve been anything but a fan of a lot of their work, and their reputation as a budding black company is certainly off-putting. But they’re still a new studio in the big picture, and sometimes it takes a while for a production house to find their identity and their groove. As I’ve said ad nauseam Dandadan is a pretty tough manga to adapt – what makes it work on the page can’t directly be ported to the screen. In effect Saru have dome something like a very good translation job here – they found a way to say through anime what Tatsu Yukinobu is saying on paper. Heck, I’m even liking the work Hanae Natsuki is doing here – and that’s a relative rarity for me.
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