I met her in a shrine down in old Japan
Where the kaijuu fight got extremely out of control-a
R-o-l-a, rola
She opened up her eyes, and she looked straight at me,
And before I knew I gave my one first kiss to Vamola
Vamo-l-a-mola
Va-va-va-Vamola

Well our lips pressed close on a starlight night,
The world was us, no one else in sight
Vamola was bold, she took me by the hand,
She said “Little human, I’m-a make you my man”
Well I’m not the world’s most experienced guy,
But when I met her gaze well, I almost fell for Vamoia
Va-va-va-Vamola
Va-va-va-Vamola

In the first place, I’d have used that subject line even if a new season hadn’t been announced (which it was). When something is as much of a dead-lock cinch at this, there’s no need for formalities. Dandadan is a kaijuu in and of itself by the Enzo (and any reasonable) definition. We don’t know the timetable for the next season, and this one was never intended to be a split cour – with Science SARU you never take scheduling for granted. But as long as there’s manga to adapt the production committee is going to adapt it.

To be honest, I’d totally forgotten that I made a Golden Kamuy comparison all the back at Episode 3 of the first “season”. But I’ve never felt that connection more than when watching this episode. It’s inescapable. The anything goes mentality, the seemingly bottomless well of ridiculous characters, all of whom strut around like they own the place, the sheer relentless energy. Thematically the two series are very different, but stylistically they’re brothers under the skin. Yukinobu Tatsu may have been Fujimoto’s assistant, but it’s pretty clear that Noda Satoru was an influence.

The only problem from a coverage perspective, I suppose, is that when Dandadan is in this mode (which is by no means its only mode) it can be a bit hard to write about. I mean, there are only so many ways to say “that was pretty cool, huh?”. But I mean, it was. Great Kinta Bodhisattva (Zeta Version) proved to be quite a troublesome beast, even for its creator. He had to consult the manual as the space kaijuu was bearing down on them, which didn’t go down so well with his gattai partners. Eventually Momo got fed up and just ordered everybody to pick a button and push it, but the results of that were pretty… unproductive.

Eventually Kinta does figure this out, more or less. Given the way the robot was created in the first place, it is sort of logical that moving would work the same way – imagining it into existence. This has the effect of reforming Great Kinta Bodhisattva (Zeta Version) as “Kinta The End Of Joytoy Pegasus Sakata” – which is a Warhammer reference, though I’d be lying if I said I knew that before Dandadan. The robot is now sans Okarun and Evil Eye, who’ve been jettisoned in the midst of all the button-pushing and hair-trigger airbag deployments.

Evil Eye gets a lot of the best comic moments of the episode, it must be said. Fact is he and Jiji are sort of alike – they’re both complete goofs, just in different ways. E.E. is sort of interested in the giant space kaijuu just as pure spectacle, but more than anything he’s just kind of pissed off that this isn’t Okarun-fight day. Inside Kinta In The End Of Joytoy Pegasus Sakata Momo too has figured out that she can power the robot with imagination, and she and Aira both impart their own unique talents to its capabilities as Kinda provides his own soundtrack.

No matter what else happens and how dangerous things get, this is still the best day of Kinta’s life and that’s why he’s great. He’s just a pure, hard-core otaku – of a different sort than Ken (or Momo) but an otaku just the same. And a social outcast for it. This is his redemption arc and he’s gonna savor every minute of it. Eventually the combined talents of the three are enough to kick the kaijuu’s ass into submission, but then its pocket space disappears and it’s left to Okarun to explain not just the appearance of a giant Buddha robot that turned into a UFO, but a kaijuu (albeit a lot smaller one now). He cleverly uses a steaming-hot nikuman to flip Evil Eye’s Jiji switch, and the pair of them have to lug the beast back to the Shrine.

As for what – or rather who – is inside, I suppose that’s best left to the third season premiere. Suffice to say she’s well-known to manga readers, like Kinta something of a divisive character I really like, and that she steals Okarun’s first kiss. Which triggers Momo (who’s just crawled out of the “house” after barfing her internal organs out from robot motion sickness) so much that she blows up the house (with Aira – still barfing her lungs out – inside  it). More on that next year – or whenever Episode 25 turns out to be.

I’ll say it once more – Dandadan just works better as an anime. I really like the manga, read it almost from premiere, and correctly predicted it would be a massive hit. It has “it”, and any experienced manga analyst who read it could see that. But by this point in the manga (never mind currently) it was starting to get a bit repetitive and, frankly, exhausting. The anime seems to be able to channel that energy in a more positive way, and the exhilaration factor still hasn’t worn off for me. Science SARU is a studio with a very checkered history in more ways than one, but as far as this adaptation goes they’re knocking it out of the park.