Dandadan Review: Where Japanese Folklore Meets Modern Manga

What Do You Put in the Genre Box?

If someone asks me what genre Dandadan is, I freeze. It is a supernatural action manga. It is also a romance. It is a horror manga. It is a comedy. It is a coming-of-age story about teenagers processing trauma. It is a love letter to Japanese folklore and global paranormal lore simultaneously. In a single chapter, you might witness an alien abduction, a yokai attack, a confession of feelings, a fistfight that destroys a city block, and a joke about a teenage boy losing his genitals to a ghost.

This should be an incoherent mess. Instead, Dandadan is one of the most thrilling manga being published today — and the fact that it should not work is precisely what makes it extraordinary.

The Story (Spoiler-Free)

Momo Ayase believes in ghosts. Ken Takakura — nicknamed Okarun — believes in aliens. They argue about it, and to settle the debate, each visits the other’s territory: Momo goes to a UFO hotspot, Okarun goes to a haunted tunnel.

Both are proven wrong in the worst possible way. Momo is abducted by aliens. Okarun is cursed by a yokai called Turbo Granny. Within the span of a single chapter, their worldviews shatter, their lives are in danger, and they realize that the only person who can help them is the one they were just arguing with.

What follows is a series that escalates relentlessly — each arc introduces wilder threats, deeper character development, and action sequences that push the boundaries of what manga can depict on a page. And through it all, two teenagers are quietly, awkwardly, beautifully falling in love.

The Yokai Are Not Fiction (Not Entirely)

Here is something that most international readers do not realize: the yokai in Dandadan are not invented. They are drawn from real Japanese folklore — urban legends, regional ghost stories, and spiritual traditions that Japanese people actually grow up with.

Turbo Granny (ターボババア) is the perfect example. This is a genuine Japanese urban legend, as widely known in Japan as Bloody Mary is in America. The story: an old woman on a bicycle chases cars on the highway at impossible speeds — 100 km/h or more. Every Japanese kid hears this story. It is told at sleepovers, during school camping trips, whispered in hallways. When I first saw Turbo Granny appear in Dandadan, I laughed out loud — not because it was funny, but because of the shock of recognition. Tatsu took a story from my childhood and turned her into a genuinely terrifying antagonist while keeping the absurdist humor that makes the original legend so memorable.

Acrobatic Silky (アクロバティックさらさら) draws from the tradition of female spirits associated with water and silk — a category of yokai that varies by region across Japan. In the northeast, she might be called a “nure-onna.” In the west, she might take a different form entirely. Japanese folklore is hyperlocal in a way that surprises foreigners — the ghost stories in Aomori are different from those in Osaka, and locals take pride in their regional supernatural heritage.

This matters because of how Japanese people relate to yokai compared to how Western cultures relate to monsters. In the Western horror tradition, monsters are threats to be defeated. You kill the vampire. You exorcise the demon. The story ends when the monster is destroyed.

In Japanese tradition, yokai are not simply enemies. They are part of the natural order — spiritual beings that exist alongside humans, sometimes dangerous, sometimes helpful, always demanding respect. You do not kill a yokai. You negotiate with it, appease it, learn its rules, or suffer the consequences of ignoring it. This is why Japanese horror films like Ringu or Ju-On feel so different from Western horror — the threat cannot be destroyed because it is not an aberration. It belongs here. You are the intruder.

Dandadan captures this nuance perfectly. The yokai and spirits the characters encounter are not just boss fights. They have histories, motivations, and grievances. Some can be reasoned with. Others are forces of nature that simply must be survived. This is how Japanese people actually think about the supernatural, and Tatsu renders it with an authenticity that comes from genuine cultural immersion.

How Japanese children learn about yokai is worth understanding. The foundational text is Shigeru Mizuki’s “GeGeGe no Kitaro” — a manga and anime that has been running in various forms since the 1960s. Kitaro presents yokai as a parallel society, complete with its own politics, customs, and moral code. Japanese children grow up with Kitaro the way American children grow up with Disney. Beyond Kitaro, the “Gakkou no Kaidan” (学校の怪談, School Ghost Stories) franchise taught an entire generation that every school has its own haunted bathroom, its own cursed staircase, its own resident spirit. These are not believed literally, but they create a cultural comfort with the supernatural — a familiarity that Dandadan exploits brilliantly.

The Student Who Surpassed the Master

Yukinobu Tatsu worked as an assistant to Tatsuki Fujimoto during the creation of Chainsaw Man. This lineage is visible in Dandadan — both manga share a willingness to blend tones recklessly, a fascination with the grotesque, and a refusal to follow genre conventions.

But Tatsu has diverged from his mentor in crucial ways.

Fujimoto’s storytelling is cinematic. His panels mimic film techniques — tracking shots, jump cuts, sustained silence. The reading experience resembles watching a movie.

Tatsu’s storytelling is animated. His panels mimic anime — dynamic motion lines, exaggerated impact frames, characters moving through space with a fluidity that feels like watching animation in still images. Where Fujimoto creates dread through stillness, Tatsu creates exhilaration through motion.

This is not a quality judgment — it is a stylistic distinction that explains why Dandadan feels fundamentally different from Chainsaw Man despite sharing DNA. Fujimoto makes you hold your breath. Tatsu makes your heart race. Both are masterful; they just target different physiological responses.

Tatsu has also developed an emotional warmth that Fujimoto deliberately avoids. Chainsaw Man keeps readers at a distance — you observe Denji’s pain more than you share it. Dandadan pulls you in. When Momo and Okarun share a quiet moment between catastrophes, you feel the tenderness directly. This warmth gives Dandadan its unique emotional signature: a manga that is simultaneously wild and gentle, chaotic and intimate.

Art: The Most Dynamic Pages in Current Manga

Tatsu’s action sequences are, panel for panel, the most kinetic in manga right now. This is not hyperbole — it is a technical observation.

What Tatsu does differently is multi-directional movement within single panels. Most manga artists compose action along one vector — a punch goes left to right, a character falls top to bottom. Tatsu’s characters move in multiple directions simultaneously. A kick arcs upward while debris sprays diagonally while a background figure dodges laterally. The result is panels that feel three-dimensional, as if the action is happening in space rather than on a flat page.

His creature designs deserve special attention. Each yokai and alien is visually distinct, unsettling, and often beautiful in its grotesqueness. The Turbo Granny design — an old woman’s face stretched across a supernatural form — captures the exact feeling of Japanese urban legend horror: something familiar distorted into something wrong. The alien designs pull from global sci-fi traditions but are filtered through a Japanese aesthetic sensibility that makes them feel fresh.

But what truly amazes is his range. The same artist who draws these devastating action sequences also renders quiet romantic moments with genuine tenderness. When Momo blushes, when Okarun nervously looks away, when their hands almost touch — these moments are drawn with a softness that contrasts sharply with the explosive action. This contrast is not just stylistic variety. It is emotional architecture. The gentle moments feel more precious because they exist inside a world of constant violence. The violence feels more intense because we know what these characters stand to lose.

The Most Honest Romance in Shonen Manga

Dandadan has one of the best romantic subplots in modern shonen, and it achieves this by breaking almost every convention the genre has established.

Traditional shonen romance follows a pattern: boy meets girl, both are too embarrassed to express feelings, misunderstandings pile up for hundreds of chapters, confession happens near the series finale. Think Naruto and Hinata, Deku and Uraraka, Ichigo and Orihime. The romantic tension is maintained through avoidance.

Dandadan does something radical: it allows its characters to develop feelings at a natural pace and — crucially — to show those feelings through action rather than just internal monologue. Momo and Okarun protect each other not out of obligation but out of genuine care that develops through shared trauma, mutual vulnerability, and the simple accumulation of time spent together.

For Japanese readers, this resonates with a generational shift in attitudes toward relationships. Younger Japanese people increasingly value emotional honesty — “sunao” (素直, straightforward sincerity) — over the performative shyness and indirect communication that older manga romanticized. The era of the tsundere as default love interest is fading. Momo and Okarun represent what young Japanese readers actually want in a relationship: someone who shows up when things are terrifying and does not pretend they do not care.

The supporting cast reinforces this theme. Jiji, Aira, and others each bring their own relationship dynamics — jealousy, unrequited feelings, the awkwardness of developing emotions — handled with the same honesty. Nobody is reduced to a love triangle plot device. Everyone’s feelings are treated as real and worthy of attention.

What Gets Lost in Translation

Dandadan’s humor and cultural references are deeply embedded in Japanese language and tradition.

Okarun’s nickname: “Okarun” is a portmanteau of “okaruto” (オカルト, occult) and “Ken” (his real name, Takakura Ken). This wordplay — blending a loanword with a Japanese name — has a playful, affectionate quality in Japanese that the English “Okarun” preserves phonetically but not semantically. Japanese readers hear the joke every time someone says his name.

Yokai names as cultural shorthand: When a character identifies a yokai by name — “That is a Nure-Onna!” or “It is Kuchisake-Onna!” — Japanese readers experience a rush of associations: childhood stories, regional legends, specific emotions tied to those legends. English readers see a proper noun and perhaps a footnote. The cultural density of a yokai name — the accumulated weight of centuries of storytelling — cannot be translated.

Comedy rhythm: Japanese comedy relies heavily on “tsukkomi and boke” (ツッコミとボケ) — the straight man and funny man dynamic. Dandadan uses this constantly, with Momo as the exasperated tsukkomi to the absurd situations around her. The timing of this humor — which panel gets the reaction shot, how long the pause before the punchline — is calibrated for Japanese comedic rhythm. Translations preserve the jokes but sometimes lose the timing, which in comedy is everything.

Humor as a Japanese Survival Mechanism

Dandadan is genuinely, consistently funny. But the humor serves a purpose beyond entertainment.

In Japanese culture, using humor to deflect from painful or frightening experiences is a deeply understood social mechanism. The phrase “warai tobasu” (笑い飛ばす, to laugh something away) describes the act of processing fear or pain through comedy. It is not denial — it is a coping strategy that Japanese people practice from childhood.

The teenagers in Dandadan laugh because the alternative is breaking down. They crack jokes in the middle of life-threatening situations because that is how Japanese teenagers actually process fear. This gives the comedy an emotional authenticity that pure comedy manga lacks — and it is why the funny moments and the heartbreaking moments can exist side by side without tonal whiplash. They are two expressions of the same emotional reality.

Who Should Read This

You will love Dandadan if you:

• Want a manga that is impossible to predict and refuses to be categorized
• Enjoy action with genuine emotional stakes and romantic development
• Are interested in Japanese folklore presented with affection and authenticity
• Liked Chainsaw Man’s energy but wanted more warmth and humor
• Enjoyed Gintama’s blend of comedy and action, or Urusei Yatsura’s supernatural romance chaos

You might struggle with Dandadan if you:

• Prefer stories that commit to a single tone
• Dislike crude humor (there are running jokes about body parts that some readers find tiresome)
• Want slow, methodical pacing — Dandadan moves fast and does not always let emotional beats breathe
• Need extensive worldbuilding explained upfront (the rules reveal themselves as you go)

Verdict

Dandadan is essential reading for anyone who loves manga. It has the action of Dragon Ball, the heart of a romance manga, the horror of Junji Ito, and the comedy of Gintama — all somehow working in harmony. Yukinobu Tatsu has taken what he learned from Fujimoto and built something entirely his own: a manga that is simultaneously the wildest and most tender series in serialization.

For international readers, Dandadan is also one of the best gateways into Japanese folklore available today. The yokai and spirits it features are real parts of Japanese cultural heritage, presented with genuine affection and remarkable accuracy. You will learn something about Japan from reading this manga — and you will have an incredible time doing it.

Rating: 9/10

The only minor flaw is that the pacing occasionally rushes through emotional beats to reach the next setpiece. Some quieter character moments deserve more room to breathe. But when the action is this good, the romance is this genuine, and the yokai are this faithfully rendered, it is difficult to complain.

Which Dandadan yokai surprised you the most? For Japanese readers, Turbo Granny is pure nostalgia turned nightmare. I am curious which creatures made the strongest impression on readers encountering them for the first time.