The highly anticipated premiere of Dan Da Dan was a treat for fans of science and supernatural fiction. It looks like it is possible that this series will get into a “monster of the week” pattern, but it may eventually develop an ongoing story. Anyway, this episode delivered lots of great character development, a cool fight scene, as well as fart and body part jokes. Without further ado, here’s a recap of all that went down. Again, warning there is some sexual humor in this episode, so viewer and reader discretion advised.

The episode begins with Momo refusing to call the male protagonist by his given name now that she knows what it is. Instead, she rechristens him Okarun, a Japanese pun on the word occult. He is not happy about this nickname and comical arguments ensue. They head towards Momo’s house to relax and recuperate after the ordeal they went through last episode and Okarun farts.

It turns out that Momo forgot to take down the paper ghost repelling talisman you see in every anime. The talisman causes Okarun to burn out because of his current possession by Turbo Granny. Momo uses her psychic powers to take him to the water to put out the fire and takes down the talisman.

At Momo’s house, she goes to her room change into clothes that aren’t battle damaged. Okarun barges in to tell her that Turbo Granny is starting to possess her. Momo is furious about him peaking and he becomes a slapstick victim. Another awkward moment occurs when Momo mentions that curse caused Okarun to lose a certain part of his bodily anatomy. He unzips to see if the curse really did that, and it did do that. Momo is curious, but Okarun does not want to show off his Ken doll anatomy. Okarun admits that he’s always wanted a friend to goof with and says he’s lonely. Momo says that he’s friendless because he pushes people away. Okarun gets upset at this criticism, but it turns out there are bigger issues to deal with as Momo forgot to put the talisman back up as a ghost appears.

Well, actually, Okarun points out that what they encounter is actually not a ghost, but a sumo wrestler themed alien and also points out the possibility that ghosts and aliens might be related if talismans can repel aliens as well as ghosts. The big fight scene finally occurs. The iconic shonen cliche of our hero gaining a new form shows up with Okarun getting a new form where instead of his normal form as a bespectacled petite geek guy, he becomes a macho guy with “cool” glasses. He ends up usually totally hip with the kids slang, yo, but Momo finds the slang rather tryhard. He ends up being able to remove some fingers from the ghost, but his new form takes a huge toll and him and he has to turn to normal.

With Okarun out of commission, it is now up to Momo to defeat the alien. She reasons that the alien will go away if it’s hand touches the ground, like in sumo wrestling, as apparently sumo wrestling aliens losing sumo matches causes them to go away somehow. It turns out she succeeds, but the alien cheats at sumo and grows another set of hands after the first set is forced to touch the ground. This cheating infuriates her and the battle continues. She gets absolutely pummeled by the alien, but it appears that having psychic powers gives her some degree of protection from blows, as the blows she took were unsurvivable for an unpowered human.

Both Momo and Okarun get punched through the gate, but that is actually advantageous for them as she has a trump card in the talisman. Because they are now outside the house, they don’t have to worry about the talisman incinerating Okarun. It turns out that talismans do indeed work on aliens as well as ghost. Yes, you read correctly. The girl defeats the villain of the week and saves the guy in a reversal of shonen tropes.

In a heated moment of emotion, something happens most unexpected. The two share an adorable hug during their defeat of the evil alien, an event that usually occurs in episode two hundred of most anime, not episode two. Momo then dramatically collapses and Okarun transforms again in a dramatic and sudden cliffhanger. Dun dun dun. Or is it Dan Dan Dan?

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