The action part of the Evil Eye arc picks up with Dandadan Season 2, Episode 3, which also catches at-home watchers up with the theatrical run. Where last week focused on the backstory of Evil Eye, “You Won’t Get Away With This” is all about kicking the gas back into the arc with frenetic action. Those attempts succeed, but also include a bit of odd pacing to leave certain stakes in place to bring the theatre goers back to the small screen.
It’s always the springtime of youth
A majority of Dandadan Season 2 Episode 3 centers on Okarun’s defense of Momo and fight with the Evil Eye piloting Jiji. All of these scenes are peak Okarun and reward Dandadan viewers desperate for him to be cute with Momo again for their patience. The twSo get a genuine moment of quiet, just enough for Momo to adorably grab Okarun’s hand and have the longing look we love about these two.
Dandadan does a fantastic job in how it handles the awkwardness of high school romance. This quiet moment of the two barely being able to look at each other reinforces both their attraction and the inability to properly articulate it. Even so, it seeps out in who Momo refers to in her attempts to get everyone out of the sandworm trap: it’s always “Okarun and the others.” It helps communicate that there’s something real between these two, even if they don’t understand it themselves yet.
That’s gotta sting, Okarun
Meanwhile, Okarun and Evil Eye’s brawl gets really intense. The two chase each other all around the spiraling houses before really trading blows. Evil Eye hits like a truck-kun and the animation drives those hits home. This fight is the most shonen brawl Dandadan has really done yet, so it’s actually kind of surprising to see Okarun get as messed up as he does compared to other conflicts. While he gets the upper hand eventually — following a great protagonist monologue — it’s an extremely narrow victory.
“You Won’t Get Away With This” is also the most uneven episode of the season. The episode’s pacing is a bit strange, choosing to spend more time with Momo early on in the episode while she figures out how to defeat the worm. This means there’s nothing for the episode to cut back to after Okarun knocks out Evil Eye even as the camera rises to do just that before fading to black…and then coming back in playing that exact panning in reverse. There’s also some other repeat animation to fill brief gaps as Okarun tries to unstick Turbo Granny.
Early manga experimentation impacts anime planning
Some of this may come down to the way this arc is assembled. Like the Nessie arc, Dandadan splits up its characters to give them different threats to deal with. Unlike that arc, the Evil Eye arc doesn’t keep up the stakes on both sides of the narrative. The worm spends most of the episode in the background, explained as espousing poison, but that poison only impacts Jiji’s body for most of the episode. Despite using sound to navigate, it doesn’t hear any of the noise during the fight between Okarun and the Evil Eye. It’s clear that Dandadan is still trying to figure out the best ways to split up its growing cast.
While Dandadan Season 2 Episode 3 is the weakest of the theatrical block of episodes, it does still fit together well with the episodes it is linked up with. Together, they form a good starting point for the new season and leave us with just the right amount of escalation to draw us back in for the next simulcast episode. Even at its weakest, Dandadan is putting out the quality where it counts and continuing to earn its must watch status.
Dandadan airs weekly on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
Featured image ©Yukinobu Tatsu/SHUEISHA, DANDADAN Production Committee
-
‘DANDADAN’ - “YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS - 7/10
7/10
Travis Hymas is a freelance writer and self appointed Pokémon historian out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Known to be regularly obessive over pop culture topics, gaming discourse, and trading card games, he is a published critic featured on sites such as Uppercut and The Young Folks.
No Comments