Ghosts are real. Aliens are real. Curses are real. Psychic powers are real.
Urban legends might be waiting for you in a tunnel.
And apparently the elderly woman sprinting toward you at horrifying speed is something you should be taking extremely seriously.
Welcome to Dandadan. Happy Bingetober.
At first glance, this thing feels like somebody threw every supernatural story they had ever heard into a blender.
- Momo Ayase believes in ghosts but thinks aliens are ridiculous.
- Ken Takakura—eventually nicknamed Okarun—believes passionately in aliens but thinks ghosts are nonsense.
So naturally, they make a bet.
Each goes looking for proof that the other person is wrong. This goes terribly.
Because ghosts? Real.
Aliens? Also real.
Congratulations, kids. Everybody wins.
Except Dandadan isn’t special simply because it combines UFO conspiracies, yokai, psychic powers, horror, action, comedy and teenage romance into one completely unhinged package.
Its best idea is much quieter.
Momo and Okarun each find one person around whom they can be completely weird.
And then something wonderful happens.
That permission starts spreading.
The Elevator Pitch
Dandadan follows Momo Ayase and Ken “Okarun” Takakura, two teenagers whose friendship begins with an argument over the supernatural.
Momo was raised around spiritual beliefs and is convinced ghosts exist. Okarun is an obsessive believer in aliens and UFOs.
Each thinks the other person’s favorite brand of weirdness is complete nonsense.
So they go looking for evidence.
Momo encounters extraterrestrials. Okarun encounters a yokai. Both discover that the universe is considerably stranger than either of them imagined. And their lives never really return to normal.
Momo awakens psychic abilities.
Okarun becomes entangled with the power of Turbo Granny, a terrifying yokai whose introduction alone should qualify this show for Bingetober.
From there, the story expands into hauntings, curses, extraterrestrial encounters, bizarre creatures, psychic battles, urban legends and supernatural problems that range from genuinely horrifying to absolutely stupid.
Sometimes both simultaneously.
But underneath all of that chaos is an increasingly sweet story about two lonely teenagers who finally meet someone willing to say: I believe you.
And eventually: You can be yourself around me.
The Familiar Version
It would be easy to describe Dandadan as: That insane anime where aliens and ghosts are both real.
That’s not wrong. This show is insane. Sometimes gloriously so.
A normal conversation can become a supernatural chase scene. A terrifying yokai can become comedy. A ridiculous joke can suddenly transition into real emotional devastation.
One minute you’re watching teenagers argue about romantic jealousy. The next, some creature that should never have been conceived by a human mind is crawling out of the darkness.
Then Turbo Granny says something absurd. Then somebody gets punched through a wall. Then Momo blushes. Then the soundtrack kicks in. Then you’re crying.
Good luck. The genre mixture is one of Dandadan’s biggest selling points.
- Horror.
- Romance.
- Comedy.
- Battle anime.
- Science fiction.
- Urban fantasy.
- Coming-of-age drama.
It somehow keeps grabbing new ingredients without completely losing its identity.
But that chaos can distract from how carefully constructed its emotional foundation actually is.
Because all these impossible things become believable through something incredibly simple: The characters believe each other.
The question that starts Dandadan is: What if every weird thing you believed was real?
But the story eventually finds a better question: What happens when somebody finally makes it safe for you to be weird too?
That’s where the real magic lives.
Momo Ayase — The Center of Gravity
Momo rules. Let’s establish that immediately.
She’s blunt. Funny. Argumentative. Protective. Impulsive. Emotionally transparent right up until she absolutely does not want to be emotionally transparent. And she has the wonderful supernatural-protagonist ability to adapt to complete insanity much faster than any reasonable human being should.
Momo can go from: This cannot possibly be happening.
to: Fine. How do I beat its ass?
at record speed.
But she’s not fearless. That’s an important distinction.
Momo gets scared. She gets embarrassed. She gets jealous. She gets hurt. She can feel completely overwhelmed.
Her strength isn’t that nothing rattles her. It’s that she keeps functioning after something does.
Her psychic abilities make her formidable, but her personality is what makes her the center of the story.
Momo reaches toward people. Sometimes awkwardly. Sometimes aggressively. Sometimes while pretending she absolutely isn’t reaching toward anybody.
And that becomes incredibly important for Okarun.
Because before Momo becomes anything remotely resembling a romantic interest… she becomes someone who talks to him. Someone who listens. Someone who knows what he loves and doesn’t treat him like a joke for loving it.
That’s huge.
Okarun — Let the Weird Kid Be Weird
Okarun is one of the easiest characters in the world to root for.
He’s awkward. Nervous. Obsessive. Earnest. And lonely.
He loves aliens. Not casually. This boy has committed.
And before meeting Momo, his interest in the occult has not exactly made him the social center of the school.
What makes his development work is that Dandadan doesn’t decide Okarun needs to stop being weird before he deserves confidence. That’s important.
He doesn’t become cooler by abandoning the things he loves. He becomes more confident because someone starts treating those things—and him—as worth engaging with.
Momo doesn’t cure Okarun of being Okarun. She gives him space to actually be Okarun.
Then comes one of the greatest romantic-joke setups imaginable. Momo has a very particular affection for the actor Ken Takakura. Then Okarun tells her his actual name.
Ken Takakura.
The universe itself basically leans into frame and says: Oh, we’re doing THIS now.
But beyond the joke, their relationship works because Okarun also gives Momo something important. He takes her seriously.
When the impossible happens, she doesn’t have to convince him she’s crazy. He was there too. He believes her because he knows.
And suddenly both of them have something they didn’t have before. A witness.
Before They Become a Love Story, They Become a Safe Place
This is the heart of Dandadan.
The romance is cute. The awkwardness is great. The jealousy is funny.
Watching these two human disasters slowly realize they care about one another is enormously entertaining.
But the relationship works because something more fundamental happens first.
They become safe for each other.
Okarun can nerd out around Momo. Momo can talk about spirits around Okarun.
- They can admit fear.
- Embarrassment.
- Confusion.
- Excitement.
- Jealousy.
They can experience something completely unbelievable and know the other person isn’t going to laugh them out of the room.
Think about how significant that is for two kids who both started the story carrying interests other people could easily dismiss as ridiculous.
Momo and Okarun don’t need to become less strange for the relationship to work.
They become more comfortable revealing how strange they already are.
And that’s why their connection feels so sweet.
Before Momo and Okarun become a love story, they become a safe place.
Everything else grows from there.
Aira — Oh, You’re Weird Too
Then Aira enters the picture. And initially, she can look like an outsider stepping into Momo and Okarun’s strange little orbit.
She’s confident. Popular. Dramatic.
And carries some very strong ideas about what is happening around her.
Then the supernatural world gets involved.
And slowly you realize: Oh. You’re weird too.
That’s one of my favorite things about how Dandadan expands its cast. The new characters aren’t simply recruits joining Momo and Okarun’s supernatural strike team.
They’re people whose own oddities gradually reveal themselves once they’re pulled into this space.
Aira can be ridiculous. She can be theatrical. She can misunderstand situations with extraordinary confidence. But once she becomes part of the supernatural reality Momo and Okarun have been navigating, she starts belonging to that world too.
The circle gets a little larger. And suddenly another person doesn’t have to pretend everything is normal.
Because nobody here is normal anymore.
Jiji — Handsome Childhood Friend, Enormous Dork
Then there’s Jiji.
At first glance? Oh boy. Handsome childhood friend. Existing emotional history with Momo. Outgoing. Athletic. Here comes the romantic threat.
Except Jiji opens his mouth. And approximately twelve seconds later you understand that this man is also a gigantic weirdo. That’s perfect.
Because Dandadan refuses to make its growing cast interesting by dividing them into: Normal people and Momo/Okarun’s weird supernatural world.
The longer people spend around this group, the more their own strange personalities are allowed to surface.
Jiji is charismatic. But he’s also goofy. Emotional. Ridiculous. Sincere. And capable of bringing completely different energy into the group.
Instead of destroying the safe space Momo and Okarun created, people like Jiji and Aira gradually expand it.
That’s the important part. The relationship at the center doesn’t have to become smaller when new people arrive. The room gets bigger.
The Weirdness Becomes Contagious
This may be Dandadan’s sneakiest found-family trick. Momo and Okarun start with: You believe me.
Then they reach: You know the embarrassing version of me and you’re still here.
Then Aira arrives. Jiji arrives. More people get pulled into whatever supernatural nightmare has ruined everybody’s afternoon.
And eventually the question stops being: Which one of these people is normal?
Nobody. The answer is nobody.
Excellent.
Instead, the group starts developing its own version of normal. Eating together. Arguing. Teasing each other. Getting jealous. Protecting each other. Dealing with some incomprehensible supernatural horror. Going back to arguing.
There’s something lovely about that.
The story doesn’t teach its weird characters how to fit into everyone else’s idea of normal.
They build a place where their weirdness fits.
That’s better.
Seiko Ayase — Maybe Grandma Knows What She’s Doing
And we need to give Momo’s grandmother her flowers.
Seiko immediately adds another layer to the supernatural world because she already understands that some of this stuff is real.
- She’s knowledgeable.
- Powerful.
- Confident.
And approximately zero percent interested in presenting herself like the traditional elderly mentor. Which fits Dandadan perfectly.
Seiko gives the younger cast a kind of home base—not merely physically, but emotionally.
When everything outside becomes absurd, dangerous or incomprehensible, there’s somewhere to return.
Somewhere to eat. Somewhere to argue. Somewhere people understand enough of the supernatural world that nobody needs to start the conversation with:
You’re going to think I’m crazy…
Again, the series keeps building spaces where belief becomes ordinary. That’s important.
Turbo Granny — Bingetober Royalty
Now we’re talking.
Turbo Granny is one of those concepts you hear explained and think: Surely I misunderstood something.
Nope.
Terrifying elderly yokai. Ridiculous speed. Haunted tunnel. Extremely inappropriate threats.
Eventually…cat.
Welcome to Dandadan.
Turbo Granny may be the perfect representation of the show’s tonal identity because she can be legitimately creepy and absolutely hilarious without one completely erasing the other.
Her introduction belongs in horror. Her later presence can become comedy. And somehow both versions feel like the same character. That’s hard to pull off.
Usually once a scary creature becomes the mascot, the fear disappears forever. Dandadan is unusually good at letting supernatural entities shift roles while still reminding you that the world they came from is dangerous.
Turbo Granny can be funny. But the supernatural is never completely harmless.
Ghosts AND Aliens — Why Choose?
Most paranormal stories pick a side.
- Ghosts.
- Demons.
- Aliens.
- Psychics.
- Cryptids.
- Urban legends.
- Folklore.
- Conspiracy theories.
Dandadan looks at that menu and says: Yes.
And that’s brilliant.
Momo and Okarun begin with narrow definitions of the impossible. Momo knows spirits are real. Therefore aliens are ridiculous.
Okarun knows extraterrestrials are real. Therefore ghosts are ridiculous.
Both are making essentially the same mistake. They’ve taken one piece of the unknown and decided it explains the boundaries of everything else.
Then reality humiliates both of them. Repeatedly.
The result is a world with almost unlimited storytelling potential. A traditional yokai can appear. An alien can appear. An urban legend can become real. Psychic abilities can emerge. A haunting can exist beside science-fiction technology.
Nothing feels automatically off-limits because the entire premise is built around admitting: Maybe the universe is stranger than your explanation for it.
That’s a fantastic engine for a supernatural series.
The Horror Actually Gets to Be Horror
The comedy can make it easy to forget: Dandadan can be creepy as hell.
Turbo Granny’s early appearances are unsettling. The abandoned locations work. The distorted bodies work. The faces work.
The feeling that something might exist just outside normal human perception absolutely works.
And then there are stories like Acrobatic Silky.
That’s where Dandadan proves something important.
The supernatural entities don’t always exist merely to provide cool enemies.
Sometimes there’s pain underneath them.
- Loss.
- Memory.
- Trauma.
- Human tragedy.
The series can make something horrifying… then force you to understand it.
That’s much more interesting than simply having Momo and Okarun defeat Monster of the Week.
Sometimes the monster has a story. Sometimes understanding that story hurts. And suddenly the series that had you laughing five minutes ago is emotionally kicking the chair out from underneath you.
The Action — Controlled Chaos
Dandadan moves. Boy does this thing move.
Okarun’s supernatural speed. Momo’s psychic abilities.
Possession. Physical comedy. Chases. Close-range fights. Enormous supernatural threats. Aliens doing alien nonsense.
The action often feels like somebody removed gravity from the storyboard.
But despite the chaos, character abilities remain distinct.
Momo fights through psychic manipulation and quick thinking. Okarun’s Turbo Granny-derived abilities create a completely different kind of movement and aggression. Other characters bring their own powers and approaches.
And because the supernatural rules aren’t locked into one single system, fights can remain unpredictable.
This isn’t always: My energy number is larger than your energy number.
Sometimes victory requires understanding what you’re fighting. Sometimes it requires improvisation. Sometimes it requires trust. Sometimes it requires surviving the latest unbelievable thing the universe has thrown through the wall.
That uncertainty fits the series perfectly.
Being Believed
If “A Safe Place to Be Weird” is the emotional heart, being believed is where that heart starts beating.
Think about how many supernatural stories begin with isolation.
Someone sees something. Nobody believes them. They sound crazy. They stop talking about it.
Dandadan nearly eliminates that problem between its two leads immediately.
Momo sees something impossible. Okarun has seen something impossible too. They disagree constantly. But neither can dismiss the other’s reality anymore.
That changes everything about how they move through the supernatural world.
When something terrifying happens, they aren’t completely alone. There’s at least one other person who can say: I know. I saw it too.
That’s enormously comforting. Not because believing someone solves the problem.
The ghost is still there. The alien is still there. The curse is still there. But now the fear is shared.
And shared fear is different from isolated fear. That’s true even without ghosts.
The Real Superpower Is Permission
Maybe that’s what Dandadan is ultimately giving these kids.
Permission.
Permission to care about weird things.
Permission to be scared.
Permission to get excited.
Permission to admit jealousy.
Permission to make mistakes.
Permission to look ridiculous.
Permission to care about each other.
And that permission becomes contagious. Momo gives some of it to Okarun. Okarun gives some of it to Momo.
Then their circle expands.
Aira gets room. Jiji gets room. Other people get pulled in.
Nobody needs to become the same. That’s important.
Found family stories sometimes work because damaged people discover they’re secretly alike.
Dandadan works because these people are different kinds of strange.
Their belonging doesn’t depend on sameness.
It depends on acceptance.
You don’t need to be my kind of weird to belong here.
That’s a wonderful idea.
Style and Presentation — Science SARU Went For It
Visually, Dandadan has exactly the personality a story this chaotic requires.
Science SARU doesn’t try to force every supernatural encounter into one visual language.
Colors change. Movement changes. Atmosphere changes.
Reality seems capable of bending depending on whatever bizarre thing has entered the story.
The action can become fluid and explosive. The horror can become oppressive. The comedy can become exaggerated. And the quieter character moments still get room to breathe.
That’s crucial.
Because Dandadan could easily become exhausting. Everything is already turned up incredibly high. The presentation works because the production understands when to floor it… and when to let Momo and Okarun just talk.
And then there’s the opening.
“Otonoke” by Creepy Nuts.
Absolute chaos.
Perfect.
It feels like somebody converted the series directly into music.
Fast.
Catchy.
Strange.
Playful.
Slightly unhinged.
The kind of opening where skipping it feels almost disrespectful.
Let’s Be Fair
Dandadan is not going to work for everybody.
And there’s one issue worth addressing immediately.
The series contains sexual-threat material, especially early on, alongside recurring jokes and plot points involving bodies and sexuality.
For some viewers, the opening episodes may cross a hard line.
That’s completely fair.
I’m not going to tell somebody: Just push through it.
Know what you’re walking into.
The series also moves between tones aggressively.
Horror can become comedy. Comedy can become romance. Romance can become action. Action can become tragedy.
Some viewers will find that exhilarating. Others may find it chaotic.
And the sheer amount of weirdness may become exhausting if you prefer supernatural worlds with clearly defined lanes and rules.
This is not a show terribly interested in calming down.
But if its wavelength works for you?
Very few anime feel quite like it.
Who Is Dandadan For?
Give Dandadan a chance if you love:
- Supernatural anime
- Ghost stories
- Aliens and UFO conspiracies
- Yokai and urban legends
- Psychic powers
- Horror-comedy
- Fast, creative action
- Awkward teenage romance
- Found family
- Weird characters who stay weird
- Strong female leads
- Anime that can make you laugh and emotionally ruin your evening twenty minutes apart
- Stories where genre boundaries are treated more like suggestions
You may struggle with it if you dislike:
- Sexual-threat material
- Sexual or anatomical humor
- Aggressive tonal shifts
- Extremely chaotic storytelling
- Romance mixed heavily into action
- Supernatural systems that aren’t confined to one neat mythology
And if you’ve ever wished an anime would stop asking whether it wants to be horror, science fiction, romance or battle shōnen and simply answer:
All of them.
Welcome home.
Why Dandadan Matters
There are plenty of anime about outsiders. There are plenty of stories about supernatural threats. There are plenty of romances between awkward teenagers.
What Dandadan understands unusually well is that being an outsider isn’t always about wanting to become normal.
Sometimes you just want somewhere you don’t have to pretend.
That’s what Momo and Okarun create for each other.
Then other people notice.
Aira gets pulled in.
Jiji gets pulled in.
The circle grows.
And slowly this bizarre collection of psychics, occult nerds, dramatic classmates, childhood friends, yokai and whoever else survives the week’s supernatural catastrophe starts resembling a community.
Their weirdness doesn’t disappear.
It becomes safer.
Maybe that’s why all the genre chaos works.
Dandadan isn’t arguing that all these different things are secretly the same.
Ghosts aren’t aliens. Momo isn’t Okarun. Aira isn’t Jiji. Everybody brings something different. But different things can still coexist.
That’s true of the supernatural mythology. And it’s true of the people.
Maybe that’s the real thesis hiding inside this completely insane anime: Belonging isn’t finding people exactly like you. It’s finding people around whom you don’t have to hide the parts that aren’t.
Ctrl+Binge Final Take
Momo believes in ghosts. Okarun believes in aliens. Both begin convinced the other person is wrong.
Then ghosts are real. Aliens are real. Curses are real. Psychic powers are real. Urban legends are real. And somewhere between haunted tunnels, extraterrestrial attacks, teenage jealousy and Turbo Granny ruining everybody’s week… something else becomes real too.
They matter to each other.
First, Momo and Okarun become people who believe one another. Then they become people who can embarrass themselves around one another.
Then they become a safe place.
And slowly that safe place gets bigger.
Aira.
Jiji.
More weirdos.
More chairs around the table.
Maybe that’s Dandadan’s strangest and sweetest idea.
In a universe where absolutely anything might exist, two lonely teenagers discover something neither was expecting:
Someone who lets them be completely themselves.
And once they find that?
They start making room for everybody else too.
Join the Conversation
Ghosts are real.
Aliens are real.
The weird thing you were convinced nobody else would understand might be real too.
So for today’s Bingetober Manga Monday:
What’s more important when you’re facing something nobody else would believe—having the strength to fight it, or having one person who believes you?
