Karen's Anime Blog

I didn’t jump to cover this one right when it came out, so I’ve had a few days to read some responses to it. There’s a big issue where some viewers are really put off by the fact that Episode 13 is the second time the character of Momo has been sexually assaulted, the first being the infamous “alien abduction” scene from episode one. I have some thoughts on this.

First, I completely understand why some people may not be comfortable with the use of SA on this show to create drama; if you don’t want to watch Dan Da Dan anymore because of this, that’s fair. However, thinking “I totally understand why you would choose to opt out” is not the same as thinking “The show never should have gone there.”

In Dan Da Dan, we have cleared the Recovering Okarun’s Penis arc; we are currently in the middle of the Recovering Okarun’s Testicles (1/2) arc. Sexual violation is a consistent theme in this show. Why manga author Yukinobu Tatsu chose to do this is an interesting question, but it’s a creative choice. The series is about monsters– yokai, aliens, whatever category you want– that are scary, and sexual assault is very scary. Some of it is surely done for shock value, but I think there’s a larger story at work here about how the series uses sex in the narrative; remember how the first scene of the show features Momo being chewed out for not having sex with her boyfriend? For teenagers, sex is a whole new world; how scary is it when that whole new world is filled with monsters?

You could make the argument that SA is a horrible thing that shouldn’t be depicted in our fiction, but we allow murder, gore and all manner of violence in our fiction. I don’t want to read or watch about sexual assault any more than the next person, but I’ve yet to hear a coherent argument for why it, and it alone, should be banned from art.

For the record I don’t think the show has handled this perfectly– the camera angles in the episode 1 scene seemed a little too fanservice-oriented, given the seriousness of what was going on. But I don’t think the show was immediately, unilaterally wrong for going this route. Time will tell if Tatsu and Science Saru use scenes of sexual violence for some greater purpose, but for now I’m not condemning them. It may turn out that going there was a big mistake, I just don’t feel like I have enough information to know that yet.

Momo: “Ugh, I was going to save going full Dark Phoenix for the season finale, but maybe I should bust that out a little early….”

So, enough talk! We start the episode with Momo dealing with middle-aged men who we will come to learn are members of the Kito family. I was confused after Season One if these guys were supposed to be aliens or just weird grey-skinned people. The implication is that they’re going to rape her, but the hot spring starts coming apart at the seams and literally collapses on top of the perpetrators. Apparently Turbo Granny was responsible for this, but how? I thought all of Turbo Granny’s yokai powers were located in Okarun’s body at this point; are we supposed to believe that she’s using her “Lucky Cat” power because she happens to be sealed into a Lucky Cat doll? Well, I’m not quite sure what’s going on there, but I’m glad to see Momo escape pretty much unscathed.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Okarun and Jiji get a visit from creepy gray ladies to match the creepy gray men. We find out that the Kitos are the landlords, and they’re not happy with Jiji’s sudden disappearing act, among other things. The main Kito lady whips out a hunting rifle in Jiji’s face, and I cringe. I was drilled in proper fire arms safety from a young age: You never point a gun at anything you aren’t fully prepared to immediately destroy, I don’t care if you’re some shady zombie landlady. Follow the rules! The creepy gray dudes from the hot spring come back to join the women, and the main lady gets scary-pissed when Jiji lies about Momo being part of their group.

Speaking of our heroine, she’s busy checking out a shrine. She notes to herself that she’d like to come back with Okarun, meaning all of us who are rooting for that relationship get a little jolt. From the shrine employee, who really wants to be a “BooTuber,” Momo learns about a legendary snake monster that lives in a volcano. To stop the volcano from erupting, the villagers have (or so the legend says) been sacrificing children to satiate the snake for 200 years. On another show, this would be foreshadowing for something that’s going to happen later in the season– here, it’s foreshadowing for about ten minutes later.

Supposedly skin shed from the snake monster. Momo isn’t impressed either.

Momo gets back to Jiji’s house, and Jiji and Okarun are on the floor, looking beat up already. Momo wastes no time to try to rescue her boys and starts fighting the creepy gray dudes, and a truly cool fight scene ensues. I like the fact that Momo’s powers aren’t exactly classic telekinesis– that grabby-hand thing she does is unusual– but in this fight, she actually starts using classic forms, like a telekinetic shield. A telekinetic shield! The comic geek in me is flipping out. To be honest, I kind of thought she’s been shielding all along, otherwise there’s no way she could tank the hits she takes on this show; Momo has gotten slammed into stone and concrete walls at speeds that would kill normal people.

“This is for you guys ganging up on me at the hot springs, and also my boyfriend from Episode One, he didn’t like it when I kicked him in the head…loser.”

Then the main lady (who I guess we should call “Mom,” since that’s what the creepy gray guys call her) joins the fight, and she fights like Jackie Chan for some reason that is not immediately apparent. She chants “Jennifer! Lopez! Anaconda!”– as battle cries go, I’ve heard worse– and Momo gets blasted through the wall into the secret room filled with paper talismans that Jiji and Okarun discovered last episode. Mom reveals to us that the Kito family have been the ones making human sacrifices to the “Great Serpent Lord,” on the site where this house resides, to keep the volcano from erupting for the past 200 years. Are the current Kito people supposed to be 200 years old, and that’s what the gray skin signifies? Maybe.

The floor in the secret room turns to sand, and Momo starts sinking in. Jiji and Okarun have had time to regroup and deck the entire Kito clan with a couch, but they just send everyone spiraling into the abyss. Then things get crazy and we see a huge cavern with a ton of houses– how does that make sense? Mom said that the outside of Jiji’s house was rebuilt several times to keep up with the times, but why would all the former houses have gotten sent down to the bottom of this cavern?

Sometimes I wonder what a typical workday is like at Science Saru.

Jiji falls off the tower of houses and lands on a giant snake, which Okarun’s occult knowledge identifies as a Mongolian Death Worm. So it’s not a God after all– the Kitos have just been ignorantly feeding people to a giant monster. That’s so very this show. Mom Kito offers the three teenagers as sacrifices to the Worm, and the Worm promptly slams into/kills/maybe eats the whole Kito Clan. Why do I tend to doubt that they’re gone? (EDIT: You can see them in the next episode preview– they ain’t gone).

Recap a Shonen Jump show, they said. It will be fun, they said….

The trio seeks shelter in one of the abandoned houses, but then Momo and Okarun start freaking out. Considering Jiji is the only one unaffected, something is probably affecting Momo and Okarun’s powers. Okarun goes full monster-kun and starts attacking Jiji, and we’re through with episode 13! Now we get to enjoy an inappropriately cheerful ED featuring the teens participating in a school festival or something– Oh, and there’s dancing. You know what? I don’t want to get tarred and feathered, but I’m kind of tired of all this dancing in anime OPs and EDs. It was cute ten years ago, but it’s played out now. Please don’t kill me.

See you for Episode 14– I have no frickin’ idea what’s going to happen, and I like that about this show.