Dan Da Dan season two is finally streaming on Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu, and with it comes new anime opening and outro themes that are bound to take the anime world by storm.
Last year, Dan Da Dan became the Johnny-come-lately anime on every fan’s lips. The series, created by Yukinobu Tatsu, follows Okarun and Momo Ayase, two high schoolers who encounter paranormal misadventures with aliens and yokai as they journey to find Okarun’s missing balls. It’s a long story. The series’ acclaim is due to the shonen anime’s ingeniously mixed romance-comedy narrative, its talented voice cast, its vibrant animation, its touching backstory writing, and, arguably, its most prominent feature: its catchy opening theme song, “Otonoke” by Creepy Nuts.
While season two won’t see the Japanese rap band return to offer their vocal talents to its opening and closing themes, the anime’s hotly anticipated second season does have fun and vastly different opening themes, respectively, in Aina the End’s “Kakumei Dochuu,” and WurtS’ “Daka Shiteru.”
First up is Aina the Ends’ “Kakumei Dochuu.” The opening theme, which intercuts key moments from season one while teasing new characters in the forthcoming season, is told from Okarun’s point of view as he gazes at Momo and runs towards her. The whole thing is typical anime fare, with its protagonist running toward “something” in a dramatic black and white fashion until Momo, using her powers, grabs ahold of Okarun and awashes the opening in vibrant colors as the pair race towards a new journey together. It’s very cute and is riddled with sneak peeks of new characters like Kinta Sakata.
The anime’s outro, “Daka Shiteru” by WurtS, sees Okarun Momo and company gathered in their classroom, preparing for what looks like a school festival. In between glimpses of characters like Chiquitita and his father, Peeny-Weeny (again, don’t ask), the main cast dances along to the theme song. In a mix of what anime fans saw in Jujutsu Kaisen‘s first outro, Dan Da Dan‘s cast dance along to Daka Shiteru as if they were posting a new trend on TikTok. Given the meteoric rise of anime, it probably won’t be long before folks are recreating their dances on the social media app.
Season one opening director and season two co-director Abel Gongora hyped up the opening theme song by Aina the End as a great departure from his own Ultraman-inspired silhouette-heavy opening animation to the tune of Creepy Nuts’ Anime Award-winning “Otonoke.”
“It’s gonna be completely different. I cannot say much, but it’s gonna be really different and I’m happy about it. I think it’s amazing,” Gongora told io9. “I wanted something different, because otherwise it might look like trying to redo something that was good, and I thought that wouldn’t be interesting.”
Coming off the heels of its finale, which left fans on a cliffhanger at the start of its Evil Eye arc, Dan Da Dan‘s second season sees Okarun, Momo Ayase, and Jiji Enjoji contend with the shamanistic Kito family and a secret hidden beneath Jiji’s family home. The episode, in typical Dan Da Dan style, is filled with action, notably with Momo and the Kito family matriarch throwing hands, and the latter referencing Jennifer Lopez’s Anaconda as a chant to empower her.
In io9’s review of GKids’s theatrical release of Dan Da Dan season two’s first three episodes, we lauded the premiere as a genre-bending comeback bound to occupy anime viewers’ watchlist this summer, writing, “Evil Eye teases how the show will go beyond briefly winking at other genres by fully leaning into a dynamic approach to fully manifesting their foundations and aesthetics, further solidifying Dan Da Dan’s ever-evolving identity.”
Dan Da Dan is streaming on Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Hulu.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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