As Dandadan moves on to its next adventures, let’s give a final look at the Acrobatic Silky arc—the people responsible, their fascinating influences, and especially, the majestic final episode led by up-and-coming star Shuuto Enomoto.
Although we frankly didn’t plan to write about Dandadan again this soon, the Acrobatic Silky arc came to an end in such a fantastic way that we simply had to return with a short, focused write-up. And, of course, that means talking about 1968 supernatural mystery series Kaiki Saisakusen, which some may know as Operation: Mystery. Stick with me for a second, I swear this will make sense.
Operation: Mystery was a somewhat experimental work for Tsuburaya Productions—still Tsuburaya Special Effects Productions at the start of its broadcast—as it was their first venture outside of tokusatsu premises. Fundamentally, it wasn’t all that different from their genre of expertise: whether it manifests in the form of large monsters and heroes or human-sized mysteries, it’s all about solving supernatural issues that stem from negative human traits or broader societal tendencies. While that formula may not have resonated as broadly as the likes of Ultraman, it’s still a neat offering that coincided with a pivotal era in one of the most beloved lineages in Japanese entertainment, so you can bet that people still hold fond memories of it.
One particularly beloved episode is #25, its second-to-last adventure. The ridiculous statement of a title that is I’ll Buy Kyoto matches the tone of an outlandish yet somehow grounded episode. Shiro Maki, a member of the sci-fi investigation organization SRI, appears to fall in love at first sight with a woman who may be involved in the mysterious disappearances of Buddha statues across the city. Miyako’s passion for those pieces of art is palpable, and her behavior more than a little suspicious; after being dragged into a disco, Shiro witnesses her dancing as she hands out contracts to people so that they sell their ownership of Kyoto. As she later explains to Shiro, their willingness to go along with it as if it’s a joke proves that the people of the present no longer love the city’s traditional beauty, already establishing the theme of the episode.
Leaving aside the outcome of the mystery—I hope I’ve baited at least one person to check it out—the episode’s off-kilter, whimsical vibe is embodied by one musical choice: the recurring usage of Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart, based on The Magic Flute. This guitar piece by Ferran Sor (Fernando Sor if you don’t happen to be Catalan like the person typing this out) perfectly accompanies a romantic pairing between dissimilar people finding common ground.
Shiro may be one of the main characters in a paranormal series, but he approaches that from a strong belief in science, and seeks justice for the sake of people. Miyako, on the other hand, is deeply attracted to figures that embody the spiritual and, if anything, feels contempt for people. And yet, the two of them find their groove together, always accompanied by the playful notes of this song. With its compelling direction and such a clear motif, it’s no surprise that the episode has remained deeply embedded in the minds of some viewers. While Sor’s work has been featured every now and then in more popular works, there is a reason that real connoisseurs tend to point to this usage as its most iconic still.
At the end of the day, though, we’re still talking about a single episode in a niche toku-adjacent series. So let me pose this question: among famous anime directors, who do you imagine to be enough of a geek to remember it multiple decades later, and also skilled enough to recapture the unusual vibe of its origins? If that doesn’t spell out Hideaki Anno, I don’t know what does. I’m sure he was delighted that he finally got a chance to deploy it in Karekano #08, with a more renowned couple of dissimilar people—despite sharing fake, perfect masks—growing together. Just like in Operation: Mystery, the track accompanies the two’s awkward, playful flirting, which only makes Anno’s next usage of it even funnier.
As you may know, the director and composer Shiro Sagisu were rather liberal in bringing back Karekano songs for the Rebuild of Evangelion films, and that very much includes Sor’s work. The romcom cliches that accompany Shinji and Asuka in Eva 2.0 include classics like overly loud discussions about their bento situation while in class, which Rei just so happens to overhear. It’s not those two that are granted this musical motif with their standard romantic trappings, however—Anno is more of a sicko than that. Instead, it’s Rei and Gendo’s questionable dinner date, where the former tries to understand the trope she witnessed and pitches the idea of eating together with everyone as a way to make everyone happy; the fact that catastrophic wife guy Gendo sees Shinji’s mom over her face at that moment just completes this beautifully messy scenario. I hope that knowing this song’s legacy of cute awkward romance between dissimilar people has helped give you extra appreciation (or bafflement) about that scene.
Why go on this whole tangent, though? After the climax of the first arc, Dandadan winds down with an episode dedicated to the romcom side of the series. Momo and Okarun couldn’t have been any more different as individuals. As it’s still obvious across this episode, the two of them belong to entirely different castes in school; something that he’s happier to overlook now that he’s got a close friend… and the supernatural ability to beat up anyone at Jerk School who badmouthes her, for the record. Even in their relationship with the supernatural, their backgrounds appeared to be completely opposed—but can romance bloom between a spiritual girlie and a sci-fi nerd?
Dandadan’s answer to that is a resounding yes. Or rather, it’s a rhythmic, playful assertion. Right after making it clear that the two of them are dying to hang out together, one particular song starts playing. Momo and Okarun haven’t magically become similar people just because they’ve gone on a thrilling adventure together. If anything, they remain opposites on the surface, hence why their search for the other keeps spectacularly failing; though the general idea comes from the manga, Hiromi Nishiyama’s storyboards and direction are well worth a shout-out for details like coming up with posing that miraculously keeps them out of their fields of view.
Back in Operation: Mystery, the most upbeat part of this recurring song kicked in as the two hopeful partners sat together on a bench. After impossibly missing each other for an entire scene, the two Dandandan leads are in separate yet parallel benches right as we hit the same musical point. But just like the detective and the suspect, just as Karekano’s vanity gremlin and traumatized boy, they have found common ground—and it’s not just their teeth clacking together at exactly the right time, though that’s appreciated too. After this meeting, the two still have time to speedrun (Dandadan hasn’t been a series to take a breath… for now) a classic genre misunderstanding after this. Through finely tuned execution and one brilliant musical choice that carries a bit of a legacy, though, the episode had already said all it needed to about their relationship.
Incidentally, I would expect series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Fuga Yamashiro to have been the one to come up with this idea, although I can’t rule out Kensuke Ushio himself. As we’ve discussed in our pieces before, Yamashiro is very mindful of Dandadan’s roots in tokusatsu when it comes to imagining the world of sci-fi, which he has reinforced through details like making Okarun’s transformed look more Ultraman-esque by increasing the reds, or outright channeling the feeling of watching the original series over its reality. Borrowing from a classic Tsuburaya series would be a similar move, but to be fair, it also fits within Ushio’s stated vision of capturing the series’ eclectic nature through sample-heavy Big Beat tracks; something that includes mixing classical music, as shown with the usage of William Tell Overture: Finale and Can Can in episode #04. For as much as the composer has noted that this time around he hasn’t been as involved in the execution as he is in the works of Naoko Yamada, episode #05 proves that Dandadan can successfully build entire scenes around his tunes regardless.
After these romcom hijinks and the introduction of Aira, an arrogant girl who will surely not be at the core of a deeply emotional arc, Dandadan switches gears to its most juvenile form to reveal that it’s Testicle Quest time—this is not a complaint, as the author is right in thinking that balls are funny. What has led to some complaints, though, is the way that Shinsaku Kozuma’s excellent animation layouts were processed. Although the feeling is understandable, I believe that different issues are being conflated here, and a lack of perspective for that matter. For starters, it’s worth noting that the sequences he worked on turned out to be great regardless; the dynamic additions and fun posing in his animation expand naturally on the already quirky body language of the manga.
It is, however, not as expressive and lively as what he had originally drafted… which is quite the common happening in TV anime, yet only a topic of conversation when fans of popular action anime overseas catch wind of it. Mind you, it doesn’t mean it’s good, whether it’s due to an overly strict animation director or the fact that a sequence was deemed just a bit too complicated for the episode’s resources and got nerfed while getting finished—mostly column B in this instance.
Although this is known to happen with newcomers, especially those recruited internationally and without a grasp of the realistic scope of TV anime productions, this is proof that it does happen to veteran legends as well. While it was never a secret, the fact that we’ve gone through this cycle multiple times already means that no one should be surprised anymore: Dandadan was assembled quickly by a talented yet not necessarily super high-profile team, which leaves a noticeable gap between its high priority outings and those that needed to be more modest to meet the deadlines. If studio Science Saru doesn’t fundamentally change their production model, or at the very least their pace, this will continue to happen. With its pretty high floor and spectacular highs, most people won’t even notice those fluctuations, and if they do they’ll forget about them by the next time the show hits a high. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, nor that it’s an issue with Dandadan and the people who actually make it.
Episode #06 continues the show’s economical trend—which as we’ve been seeing, has nothing to do with the talent of the team nor their ability to put together something charming. In her first effort alongside Saru after starting her career at Pierrot, director and storyboarder Nozomi Fukui wastes no time to match cut a crystalized testicle with the moon. The contrast between the juvenile premise of the episode and the highly dramatized layout work is quite funny, and Fukui makes sure to preserve Dadandan’s humor through the immediate juxtaposition of opposites. It is, of course, also inherently amusing material. As it turns out, Aira was hit in the head by one of Okarun’s precious lost items, a genitalia impact that awakened a messiah complex within the school’s most superficial weirdo.
Despite its limited share of energy, the episode can still invoke enough beautiful imagery and involved camerawork to feel like a thrilling ride. Along the way, the two leads stumble upon the truth: it wasn’t so much a goofball prone to misunderstandings who was going to give them trouble, but the youkai (born from a certain online myth) that is stalking her. Their first bout against Acrobatic Silky is a microcosm of the action in Dandadan: peppered with gags, ridiculous, puzzle-like in nature but with gloriously dumb answers. In this case, that involved the protagonists setting themselves on fire, which the anime attempted to depict with an illustrative detail more reminiscent of the original manga. Like the episode altogether, it’s a commendable effort in doing the best they could with their limitations; look no further than the difference between how Kyouhei Ebata’s animation was finished here in contrast to previous, higher priority cases. Not a bad result by any means, but clearly not the production at its most powerful.
To witness that, you simply have to wait for episode #07. It’s not that it raises the bar qualitatively off the bat—which it also does—but that it’s clearly inviting you to the fully realized embodiment of someone’s vision. And that someone is, for the most part, debuting storyboarder and animation director Shuuto Enomoto. Although perhaps best known for his work across Tengoku Daimakyou, Enomoto’s involvement with Saru runs deep; in a recent interview with Newtype, he admits that working alongside creators who’d made the type of animation he idolized in his youth revitalized his career, which had started at Gonzo and led to a gradual loss of passion.
Mind you, this is not to say that Tengoku wasn’t an important step in Enomoto’s career. A look at the credits alone won’t tell you how integral he was to one of the best-produced TV anime in modern times—though hearing its director Hirotaka Mori calling him the soul of its animation might do the trick. Enomoto was one of the artists who best established the show’s very articulate, fun acting style, a key factor in twisting those principles for dramatic situations when required, and was even entrusted with the most emotionally charged sequences down to their in-betweening. His output in Tengoku was an excellent execution of qualities that he’d exhibited before, and while doing so, he seems to have internalized ideas that he’d be putting to use when making his directorial debut. And that time is now.
Given his professional background and the type of quality that Enomoto’s work focuses on, like said articulation of human emotion via movement and deformation, it’s not a surprise that he approached Dandadan #07 with the slightly unusual duality of roles that is storyboarding and animation directionAnimation Direction (作画監督, sakuga kantoku): The artists supervising the quality and consistency of the animation itself. They might correct cuts that deviate from the designs too much if they see it fit, but their job is mostly to ensure the motion is up to par while not looking too rough. Plenty of specialized Animation Direction roles exist – mecha, effects, creatures, all focused in one particular recurring element.. What this also means, of course, is that the episode was directed by someone else; something you may not realize as even industry folks exclusively refer to this as the Enomoto episode. Although he was clearly the creative core of it all, the episode also shows qualities more intimately related to episode director Kotaro Matsunaga, especially in its careful regulation of lighting. In a way, that is oddly on brand: Matsunaga is yet another pupil of Takahiko Kyougoku, whose massive legacy doesn’t receive enough attention due to the type of show he specializes in. Kyougoku’s own talent was curiously overlooked until he directed Land of the Lustrous, and the frankly ridiculous number of talented directors who have grown under him continue to not receive enough love. I suppose we’re here to break the cycle, so hats off to Matsunaga and Kyougoku.
After an intriguing sequence that will make more sense later, the episode warms up with an entertaining action setpiece. The way that the storyboards emphasize a three-dimensional, tricky labyrinth that Okarun has to weave through builds up to the eventual punchline about Acrobatic Silky’s hair getting tangled even better than the manga did, especially once the framing choices and looming shadows hint at it as well. This initial part of the episode is enough to tell that, by being almost entirely under Enomoto’s supervision rather than Dandadan’s usual crowded chaos of animation directors, the artwork has a cohesive quality the series never had before. The organic touch to the drawings, even recurring bits like the Eizouken-esque expressions and shorthands, comes down to the fact that it was him heading the animation effort. And, as the storyboarder as well, it leads to Dandadan’s most coherent incarnation.
In the source material, more time was dedicated to this action and the shocking reveal that Aira has passed away than to Acrobatic Silky’s past—the events that pushed her to be obsessed with this now-deceased girl. While that worked well enough for the manga’s positively demented pace, especially because the cornerstones of a compelling character story were laid out as it breezed through, the anime made the executive decision to slow down for the first time. As Enomoto mentioned in the aforementioned interview, it was series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Yamashiro who fleshed out that incident and decided to make it the actual focus of perhaps its biggest episode yet.
Beaten up as she is, Acrobatic Silky’s proposal to save Aira comes across as suspicious to the two leads; and who can blame them, it’s coming from the creature that ate them all a few minutes ago. The situation calls for action and Momo decides to give it a try, and by physically connecting with the youkai, she’s able to tap into the memories of the woman she once was. The very first thing we see once that happens is the pink hue of a love hotel; not dissimilar from the color that will eventually represent her supernatural self, and very much not the color of love, but rather a reddish, dangerous tone.
We quickly find out why: she’s a single mother in an impoverished family, relying on sex work on top of her regular job to make ends meet. These sacrifices are making her sense of self crumble, as we see through fleeting shadows and reflections. It’s easy to see that she was originally someone with passions and dreams of her own—these shoes are big for a reason, and this isn’t an amateur’s guidance. It’s tragic that she’s had to drown so much of herself, but there is a silver lining; or perhaps a golden one, as that is the type of bright light that always welcomes her home: her one lovely daughter. The musicality that the show’s direction has had at its very best smoothes the juxtaposition of these two sides of her life.
The episode’s ballet dances alongside her happy daughter and animation by Enomoto himself, whose storyboards spin round and round their life as a ballerina would. Until they no longer do. Wishing to make her daughter happy and allow her to wear new clothes for once, she buys her a beautiful dress… which clashes with the ruthlessness of the underworld that debts have pushed her towards. The visceral style that Enomoto imbued the entire episode with—not just through corrections but also with lots of cuts by his own hand—makes the scene into the type of nightmare that would indeed birth a monster. It doesn’t do it by switching to a new look altogether, but by twisting that coherent animation philosophy, so the episode can continue to flow as one harmonious vision. Though the tone couldn’t be any more different, that is similar to a certain slimy episode we recently wrote about.
In the same way that the mother’s violent struggle feels like a natural extension of the organic artwork the episode sports since the start, so does the frantic timing of the sequence where she rushes to find her daughter after the yakuza take her away; the 3D layoutsLayouts (レイアウト): The drawings where animation is actually born; they expand the usually simple visual ideas from the storyboard into the actual skeleton of animation, detailing both the work of the key animator and the background artists. were assembled by Enomoto himself, then refined by both Yamashiro and the CGi personnel before Enomoto could draw the animation layer. While the episode doesn’t shy away from the bloody nightmare, it makes an important change when it comes to depicting her final moments.
Having lost her one source of happiness, she embraces those dreams she had given up on, set against the dreamy, starry sky she timidly gazed at before. Much as she was forced to sacrifice them, they had always and will always remain a part of herself. Her last dance has an ethereal beauty that again feels like a natural extension of the overarching style Enomoto established. Although the brutal sound effect at the end tells you enough about what happened to her, this haunting scene feels fundamentally different from the more grounded equivalent in the manga—one where her intent to jump off a building is clear, explicit since the start of the scene. While I never had an issue with it, I find this version much more elegant and respectful to the character; it’s one that chooses to highlight the beauty of her final actions and, after all that’s happened, chooses not to intrude too much in her gruesome end.
Just like it had served to depict raw action and humanity at its crudest, Enomoto’s style naturally shifts one last time for the purpose of capturing tenderness. It’s his pen that delicately captures a young Aira mistaking her for her own mother, unaware of her own tragedy. Acrobatic Silky extends her hand timidly, a universal gesture for reaching out to one’s goals and dreams, but holds back like she had been doing in her life. But with the same small hand that has nonchalantly grabbed her, the same one she uses to tightly grab onto her dad, Aira bids her goodbye, accidentally awakening a monster with twisted emotions in the process. When she was attacked by the yakuza, her bleeding hand dirtied the family photo she treasured. In a hazy state after death, that bloody tragedy no longer allows her to remember who she lived for. But she recalls a sweet daughter, one just like the kid who just approached her. So, Aira must be her loved one.
It was just chance that brought them together, and their initial meeting had a tragic spin to it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t build a meaningful relationship. To bring Aira back to life, Acrobatic Silky has had to sacrifice her entire existence. The first part of her that falls apart is her arm, and Enomoto’s storyboards emphasize the shattering hand; another symbol of reaching out to her dreams, gone. But maybe she doesn’t need to. A beautiful match cut takes us back to those fond memories, but also to her regrets about how she literally cast a shadow upon her daughter’s happy life. And yet, Aira’s run matches her daughter’s as she happily ran to her every day when she returned home, to prove that she was loved—and that Aira won’t stop loving her, even if Acrobatic Silky vanishes. With her one remaining arm, she reciprocates Aira’s hug. The same tenderness that her daughter’s hand had when reaching out for the stars, which flips the episode’s motif towards a more fortunate, kinder world.
Though I don’t want to end on a downer after such a fantastic episode, I find it hard not to note that episodes like this are antithetical to the direction that this studio is taking. This is not criticism of the rest of Dandadan or even an implication that Science Saru doesn’t make great works—they produced my favorite movie of the year, for starters. But those who are only acquainted with their current output rather than Masaaki Yuasa’s older work may not be aware that this type of episode is what once drew people to their work, and something that has become increasingly more uncommon from this team.
Again, it has nothing to do with quality or production values. What sets Dandadan #07 apart is the full realization of a singular vision. Commercial animation production is almost necessarily a group effort, and so are episodes like this. What this has, though, is an individual with the ability (both the skills and the resources) to lead everyone towards a very definite, coherent goal. This is what the likes of Michio Mihara, Osamu Kobayashi, current studio president Eunyoung Choi, and of course Yuasa himself would do (sometimes repeatedly) in all of this team’s TV shows. Although the way that their independent edge has been dulled is understandable, the way their production pace actively gets in the way of it is frustrating when you witness proof that new generations of artists who looked up to those works can still do something as bewitching. Until we reach that kinder world, this exceptional episode will have to do.
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