[Loneliness]

Dandadan is a manga following the hijinks of Momo Ayase and Ken Takakura, nickname Okarun. The two high school students each harbor what initially seem like extreme or incomprehensible beliefs. Momo speaks of spiritual beings and ghosts as an of-course. Okarun mocks this silly belief in spirits, but takes deep offense when Momo pushes back on his assertion that aliens absolutely exist. After a wager between the two intended to prove one or both wrong, it is revealed that, surprisingly, they are both right.

This is the core premise of Dandadan — ghosts and aliens exist in a struggle for dominance and humans are caught in the middle trying to avoid being swept up in the crossfire. Fortunately, Momo’s grandmother, Seiko, is a spirit medium and prepared Momo for any run-ins with spiritual beings. This combined with Okarun’s inadvertent possession by a particularly curmudgeonly spirit forcing him to wrangle with unexpected supernatural powers gives the two protagonists a leg up on dealing with the encroaching threats they suddenly find themselves beset by.

For those familiar with shonen storytelling this should not read as particularly novel. Series like Dandadan are built on an expectation that stories have highly visible, engaging characters working through plots that can draw readers in quickly with minimal need for longwinded worldbuilding from the jump. This is not a criticism of Dandadan or the shonen genre; a story being simple or easily accessible does not somehow invalidate its quality any more than a story being obscure and full of abstraction lends it undue credibility. These are just storytelling techniques that can help keep things fresh over the course of hundreds of chapters.

That being said, I am not interested in dissecting the technical merits of shonen storytelling or Dandadan’s mastery of tropes. My interest in Dandadan stems from its exploration of the ways we as humans come together. The experience of bonding with a ragtag group of friends while dealing with strange, often unexpected changes. Like others before it (see One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, etc.), Dandadan builds its narrative off of the experience of community and how that community expands and evolves over and through conflict.

That is where much of the appeal of Dandadan lies. Certainly, Yukinobu Tatsu’s impeccable art and the idiosyncrasies of the story’s continuously escalating threats help, but the camaraderie of a collective of, let’s be generous and say “quirky”, weirdos is what amplifies these underlying strengths. In an age where academic analyses are being focused on an “epidemic of loneliness” or discussions of the long-term ramifications of our deeply unhealthy ideological partisanships, a story about characters fighting large monsters, unlocking new levels of internal power, and then sharing a chaotic meal together appeals.

At a certain point it seems necessary to address that, yes, I am saying that a story aimed at adolescent males with the premise of “cool characters do cool things” is good. A more interesting premise might be to dissect the way Western media has followed the same pattern in media like Reagan, Elvis, or Southside With You, where real men and women are caricaturized to appeal to nostalgia in much more cynical ways. However, as much as I enjoy hagiographic biopics, I will spare you that conversation in favor of one more topical in the latter months of 2024. While our collective conversation consistently revolves around the best way forward, or why the proposed way forward is wrong, diagnoses alone do not resolve the issue of isolation we seem remiss to actively address.

Why do stories like Dandadan’s feel particularly pointed in 2024? Is it because of rising rates of depression and anxiety fueling our desire for escapist fantasy? Do we seek the relative calm of an amusing science-fiction romp where world-shattering problems can be punched into a resolution, while our own world seems to be spiraling into uncontrollable chaos? Or is it because they offer a more specific respite from the untenable state of things? Wiser people than myself have diagnosed the rise of factionalism and groupthink in the social media age. Particularly over the last decade, there has been a troubling rise in overt distrust of those who do not fit within the boundaries of an individual’s ideological tribe. Differing perspectives on social or economic policy are no longer minor things to be politely disagreed over, but moral absolutes that indicate a level of existential depravity on the part of anyone who would dare to disagree. My area of expertise within criminal justice is much too niche to try and speak to such trends with any kind of authority, so I will avoid oversimplifying the issue here. However, I do not think one needs an in-depth knowledge of these trends to recognize this is a poor way to live.

Fear of saying something that offends, self-censoring lest social groups be disrupted by ideas that differ from the preferred norm, and reducing fellow persons to a state of non-person due to a perceived difference in value is a difficult way to live. Speaking as an American, we have an entire political wing that has been reformulated on the brand of othering dissidents and denigrating alternative viewpoints. It is a nigh-impossible to function effectively in such a state of constant duress. A piece of fiction where the biggest problem is a rogue kaiju knocking your house over seems positively quaint by comparison. Particularly since, even if your house is, in fact, knocked over, the band of dorks with their own superpowers you have collected can help rebuild your house (or maybe turn it into a car) and then fight the problem kaiju the next time it shows up on your doorstep.

You and I do not have the benefit of such simple solutions. Disillusionment with our collective ability to move forward, distrust in authority and institutions, as well as a general sense of malaise complicate our attempts to connect. If there is nowhere positive to go and we are left to scrounge for means of satiating our base needs before dying unremarkably, what benefit is there in the work of developing relationships? If I, and perhaps my immediate kin, are the only persons worth connecting to, why not prioritize those proximal relations and avoid the complication of external influence? If relationships were pursued elsewhere, others might fail to be sufficiently similar and we would be forced to consider differences.

Something that has been somewhat lost in this age of hyper-individualism is the joy of sharing passion with people outside of one’s own like-minded community. My wife has been rewatching The Haunting of Hill House with a friend over the last week and their joyous conversations are lovely to overhear. I spent more than a little time this past Summer discussing the lore behind the music of Twenty One Pilots with my brother-in-law, whose passion made my own enjoyment of the music grow. I am writing this entire essay because it gave me an excuse to talk about Dandadan and why it is awesome. Social media is built for this kind of communication, entire careers are built on talking about “cool things” on the internet. However, as social media algorithmizes everything into convenient boxes and we only see ideas we are predisposed to agree with (or be properly enraged by), it is important to recall the merits of pushing out of familiarity.

Momo derides the notion that alien creatures could exist in the “real” world. Okarun scoffs at the superstition of those who see a spiritual realm alongside our own. Dandadan’s core premise is built off these two characters looking to prove the other wrong and ultimately settling on a compromise. The narrative foundation is built on the idea that an individual sharing their passion with another is a good thing and good things come from building community. Straightforward as this concept seems, I wonder if we have collectively forgotten how to do that. Too often we are so fixated on which ideological tribe one might fall into and how this impacts our perceptions of them, that we fail to account for the personhood that should transcend that ideology.

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At risk of inadvertently advocating for “both-sidesism”, it should be noted that, yes, there are ideas and ideological movements that should be opposed on principle. However, the human tendency to slot fellow persons into categories of un-personing fails to recognize how unfruitful this approach is long-term. Put another way, the level of othering that has become de jure in our daily discourse does not engender confidence in the ongoing health of our collective coexistence. We cannot pay lip service to problem solving while ignoring the lived-reality, wrongheaded or not, of our fellow persons.

I proposed the idea that Dandadan offers a counter-narrative to our current cultural issues. Or, more realistically, I half-sarcastically suggested that we seek out material like Dandadan as a respite from a frustrating and tedious existence. I do not think either of those takeaways are a fair weight to place on the shoulders of a manga series that, enjoyably bonkers as it is, cannot be the cure-all to our social ills. As per usual, I am obfuscating my desire to articulate ideas under the guise of “I am just here to talk about [media].” I’ve been doing this since, at least, 2010 so I am anything if not consistent.

2024 has been a difficult year and I have had multiple conversations with others who have walked through similar difficulties. Many of us feel isolated, burdened, depressed, and fearful of the future we are moving inexorably toward. In a rare moment in my adult life, I feel like I may not be the saddest person in the room. Is the solution to talk about silly things we are passionate about? Do we work together to fight giant crab monsters on top of trains [spoiler]? I do not have a degree in that particular field of study and my own ability to compartmentalize feelings of isolation is frustratingly fickle, so I’m the wrong person to ask. However, I think exploring how we are failing to build community and, in many cases, actively undercutting community is something we should consider.

I want to share a quote from Kristin Kobes du Mez. For those who may be unfamiliar, du Mez is a historian primarily focused on patriarchal and nationalistic influences in American Evangelical spaces. As such, I have found her work, particularly Jesus and John Wayne (as well as her substack), useful in my own research on white supremacy. Looking at trends in American Christianity in 2024, du Mez notes —

What would it look like if American Christians took the prayer of Jesus in John 17 seriously. I remember still when I first stumbled across that passage in my own devotional reading. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was stunned to find those words in the Bible. Here we had Jesus himself praying directly for us — for me. What was his prayer for us? “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” He prayed for those of us who followed to be brought “to complete unity.”

The story of Dandadan sees Momo and Okarun slowly growing closer to one another as well as the gaggle of assorted weirdos they continuously find themselves butting into. With each subsequent arc, the cast grows and the ensemble is forced to navigate new quirks and personalities in their midst. All told, it is a fairly simple premise that just happens to be exceptionally well executed. I am certainly attaching undue philosophical weight to what is a story about fighting monsters, but my intention is not to pitch Dandadan as a thought-provoking bit of meta-fiction. Nor am I trying to argue that this is a story so transcendent everyone would enjoy it. If shonen storytelling is not to your liking, Dandadan is not likely to be the narrative that wins you over. Truthfully, my only goal here is to explore an idea about how we relate to one another. In a time where community is more necessary than ever, we seem to be consistently finding reasons to keep each other at arms-length.

I do not know if Dandadan will be to your liking, reader, and I very much doubt my musings about social stratification will create a ripple effect of positive change. As has always been the case, I write because I find the process interesting. I myself need to be better about building community and writing this piece has been a means of reinforcing that. Maybe the positive ripple will be an imperceptible one in the grand scheme, but if greater community can result, I think that is something worth pursuing.

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Endnotes:

I think it should be acknowledged, there is certainly some benefit to insular communities of like-minded individuals. Speaking strictly for myself, I have benefited enormously from the fan community built around Zack Snyder’s work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In my mind, the trouble is not like-mindedness, the trouble is failing to recognize how to properly weigh these kinds of communities alongside our more immediate, diverse communities.

“My prayers are not only for them, but for all who will trust in me through their message. I pray that all who walk with me will be joined together as one, in the same way that you, Father, are in me and I am in you — that they may be one in us. This is how the world will believe that you have sent me.

“The beauty you gave to me I have given to them. This will join them together with us. In the same way you are in me, I will be in them, beautifully joined together as one. This is the reason you sent me into this world, to show that you love them just as you love me.

John 17:20–23 (FNV)

If you aren’t interested in reading almost 200 chapters of an ongoing manga, the anime adaptation of Dandadan has been going for two weeks now. It is pretty good thus far. Minor tweaks have helped clean-up some of the series’ foibles in its early story beats.

That’s all I’ve got, thanks for reading.