Dandadan S2
Short Synopsis: Season 2 of Dandadan, where a young man cursed by a demon and his classmate with psychic powers go on a quest to recover his balls.
Lenlo: What is it with this author and trying to rape his female leads? Seriously, this obsession with lewd humor and sexual situations is dragging down an otherwise competent shounen. When Dandadan isn’t trying to sexually assault Momo, it actually does body horror and action really well, with interesting environments, situations and power usage, and it knows how to pace the mystery of whatever monster we’re about to fight. But then, without fail, it always interrupts it with some random testicle joke, or some old guy trying to feel up Momo for no reason at all, dragging all of the good parts of the show down. As is, I’m going to watch it, if only because last season has given me unrealistic expectations as to Dandadans production. And so long as the pretty lights continue to go brr, I’ll continue to stick with it. But if it can’t move past all this weird sex stuff? Then it’s never going to be anything more than a YouTube fight compilation generator, at least not to me.
Potential: 40%
Mario: After a 6-month break, Dandadan picks up exactly where it left, for better or for worse. It has stellar animation, great production all round, the plot that makes little sense and the characters are as plain as paper. The mystery regarding Jiji’s situation gets resolved quickly, and here we have a special kind of villain this show has to offer: the Kito Family who are not monsters but act and behave like one anyway. If you enjoyed the first season you’ll be right at home (well, not Jiji’s rent home) with this second season. It’s a real treat to look at, and it’s weird but never afraid to be a weirdo.
Potential: 40%
Betrothed to My Sister’s Ex
Short Synopsis: A neglected daughter is forcibly engaged to a handsome count after the passing of her sister, his previous fiance.
Wooper: Before watching this episode, I figured that it was merely this show’s localized title that made it sound like bargain bin teen lit. Then I watched the episode and realized that’s exactly what it was. The author of Betrothed to My Sister’s Ex must be the gorillionth writer in history to use Cinderella as a jumping off point for her own work, tweaking a bunch of the details but ultimately crafting a story of an abused young woman with whom a gallant prince (here a count) falls in love. The way that “Betrothed” heaps misfortune on its heroine Marie’s head is more blatant than any Cinderella adaptation – here it’s both her father and her biological mother who call her ugly and force her to do manual labor, rather than just an evil stepmother. Only Marie’s sister shows her any kindness, so naturally, she has to die midway through the premiere. The entire setup is quite clumsy, but perhaps there’s a bright spot to this avalanche of tragedy – with so much of it out of the way so early, the show can move on to less derivative material. As far as the production goes, I’m tempted to call it threadbare, but the show does nail its close-ups, and the moment when a beautified Marie descends the stairs of the count’s estate really sells her transformation, however cliched. This show won’t land on my summer watchlist, but it’ll be a couple thousand fans’ first shoujo anime ever, and honestly, they could do worse.
Potential: 10%
Cultural Exchange with a Game Center Girl
Short Synopsis: A Japanese-speaking arcade employee and an English-speaking customer strike up a flirty friendship.
Wooper: From a production standpoint, Game Center Girl (GaCen Shoujo to Ibunka Kouryuu) has quite a few bugs. The animation is hiccupy, the imprecise editing causes some shots to linger without purpose, and while its use of mostly diegetic music suits its arcade setting, it could have used a more robust soundtrack to smooth over some of its more awkward moments. For decades, though, the anime machine has been overcoming these kinds of limitations through sheer cuteness, and I’d say this show continues that tradition. Contrary to how it might look, its cutest asset isn’t the vertically challenged blonde girl (Lily) on the poster, but the triumph of attraction over the language barrier, which is one of the romance genre’s all time greatest tropes. All of Lily’s dialogue is in British English, while arcade employee Renji can hardly put three words together in her native tongue. Still, he tries his darndest to communicate out of a mixture of kindness and curiosity, which comes across with clarity, especially during the scene where he presents Lily with a notebook where they can exchange messages in written English. Sure, the chase scene that precedes the notebook reveal is embarrassing to watch, and all the misunderstandings that will arise from this premise already have my head spinning, but this was still a fun first episode. That counts for something, even if I’m unlikely to watch any more.
Potential: 25%
Ok the fact that you are still bothered by the SA stuff is perfectly understandable but honestly there is too much great stuff coming in ddd for you to ignore. As someone who has read the source material the assault stuff does down and is overshadowed by the emotional moments
Also if my memory serves right I don’t think they were going to assault but theu were going to sacrifice her which is worse but you see girl and naked things and you instantly assumed rape!
I mean, it’s not like they couldn’t do both: they could just assault her first and then sacrifice her. And between the leering grins and the fact that, yes, Momo was nearly naked (which makes sexual assault an obvious motive – otherwise they could have targeted her elsewhere), it’s not a strange assumption to make. Is it possible that they would have merely kidnapped her? Sure. But it doesn’t seem all that likely, especially considering the culprits later talked about having to seek a ‘different spot’ now, and how the family talked about how it was a bother to have to deal with the ‘aftermath’ of the men’s crimes, which seems to hint they’re causing trouble outside of looking for sacrifices.
Anyway, I have to agree with Lenlo that the repeated sexual assaults are a slight on the show, and the humor is not really to my taste either a lot of the time. I had similar issues with Chainsaw Man, which I didn’t enjoy as much as many other people for that reason (humor is very subjective after all). And from what I saw of the trailer, there seems to be at least one other very prominent instance of sexual assault this season. I’ll still watch it, because the production is outstanding and the weirdness is generally very entertaining, but those issues do prevent me from seeing it as a genuine masterpiece.
By the way, I doubt you’ll discuss it here, since it’s technically not an anime, but the donghua (Chinese anime) adaptation of Lord of the Mysteries may also be worth trying (it’s on Crunchyroll). LOTM is one of the most highly regarded webnovels, with amazing world building, an excellent rock-paper-scissors combat system (with different pathways that each have their pros and cons) and a very likable protagonist who’s an actual adult with a mature mindset. The adaptation so far leaves me with … mixed feelings, though. It’s well animated for a donghua, but it’s very rushed (from what I understand around 80 chapters have been adapted in three 35-minute episodes), and new viewers will therefore probably be rather confused about many things (which is a shame because the tight world building is one of LOTM’s greatest strengths). So I’d say the webnovel is still the best way to experience the story. But if you want to get a taste of what it has to offer (the webnovel is very long after all), it’s still worth a shot if you’re at all into the fantasy genre.
Well you two are in the minority because most consider each series a masterpiece or at least great
Honestly I understand your aversion but it prevents you from really appreciating the true strengths of each series. As someone who has read both manga I can tell that they earned the right to be praised. Between strong emotional moments, great art (mostly for DDD) complex characters (Chainsaw) and a willingness to avoid most shonen clichés and kiddie BS, these series are pretty much carrying Jump right now. If you just watch for supercilious reasons and blatantly ignore the positives you are clearly missing out. I swear it’s like the complaints I heard for Undead Unluck and that’s usually from people who stopped reading after the first chapter and ended up missing a surprisingly great story. These stories ate certainly an improvement over Spy x family aka “barely anything spy related occurs and Anya does stupid cute stuff 90% of the time” or MHA, which wrapped all over it’s potential because of either editorial interference or because the author got cold feet and went the clichés SJ route or Iruma kun which has barely progressed the plot with the villains and dragging out the stupid romance between (not) Deku and the demon version of Erza!
UU, Chainsaw and DDD are some of the few “shonen” with actual balls to do things you wouldn’t normally see and I am very glad these stories exist and I won’t drop them because of a blatant nudity. FYI the sexualm assault stuff pretty stops in DDD after the big alien arc so no excuse to drop it.
I don’t think either Lenlo or me talked about dropping it, though? (At least for now – Lenlo does seem to keep the option open.) And I’ve read the first part of Chainsaw Man, so I didn’t drop that either. I agree that both series have great strengths, and I do appreciate them for that (I’d have dropped them otherwise), but there are some blemishes as well (in my experience, anyway) that keep me from really loving them. And I don’t think that’ll change no matter how many strengths you point out, because in the end, how much you enjoy a series inevitably depends on many subjective facets, like your personality and sense of humor.
But in any case, if the sexual assault stuff gets removed and DDD gets better still, then great! The humor probably still won’t 100% be my thing, but that’s fine, I’m still having fun with the series. I just don’t like it quite as much as you do, haha…
Dandadan is shounen action at the end of the day, but it contains some pretty pointed social criticism. Specifically, notice how the youkai are evil manifested as a response to some really nasty aspects of Japanese society. I think this story does a good job of introducing them without getting too explicit (unlike Heavenly Delusion, for example, but that’s sci-fantasy seinen). My main complaint is that the new OP/ED are dreadful compared to last year’s. I wish they’d kept the first OP and animated a new sequence.
As for the ball jokes, I still enjoy a good fart gag, so different strokes for different folks I guess.
Big points for “diagetic” 👍
If I’d spelled it that way, I’d have gotten no points at all. :^)
Points revoked for unnecessary cruelty.
Still great reviews. 👍