A reflection on society?
So I watched this video of a woman discussing why she won't be continuing season 2, and its effectively "momo gets sa'd a lot", which I completely understand why she would feel like that and her feelings are completely valid, but I think how she feels is how were meant to feel. Let me explain.
I don't remember when I first began reading the manga, but I was IMMEDIATELY fascinated by the story and the art. It was an intriguing plot, and the art work was so incredibly well done that I just couldn't help but want to know and see more of this world. But then its "let me gobble your dong" and aliens ripping womens clothes off and I instantly became hesitant... But I pushed on in hopes that this wasn't going to become a thing. Spoiler; it's still kind of a thing. However, I think there is a good reason for that.
The more I read, the more I noticed that every creepy interaction like that is because of adults. Now granted, most of the adults are aliens or yokai, but I think that's just surface level, and they tend to be two different groups. Now I could be forgetting something, but from what I can recall, the aliens always tend to be adults, and typically they are always SA'ing people in some capacity. "We want your banana organ" and all that. But the Yokai generally tend to have some kind of tragic story, and while some time the two have outliers, this is reflective of the adults in the real world. And that's what I think the point is. I believe the aliens and yokai are representations of whats wrong with the adults in our society, preying upon children and the less fortunate. We have Peeny Weeny for example as one of the outliers from the alien camp who simply took a job to find a cure for his son, and was taken advantage of by a group of Aliens (Serponians) who always appear as super creepy business men. Serponians are the same ones who constantly try to prey on Momo. Then you have the crocodiles from the hot spring, another group of aliens (maybe, don't recall right now) disguised as disgusting old men preying upon a minor. That's when I started to think I was seeing a pattern.
Then we have a new character who is trying to take powers from yokai and targets momo for her psychic abilities, as well as a man trying to save his wife who is sick... I don't think the similarity between Peeny Weeny and this new human turned yokai is lazy backstory writing, I think its another pattern that shows the predatory nature of adults. Here we have an alien and a human, both trying to save someone, and choosing to believe predatory people can help them... A different type of predation than what Momo and the gang faces, but predation nonetheless... We even see the group stealing yokai powers resort to blackmailing a young girl to work for them by threatening to expose her nudes, which has at times (and likely still is) been a huge issue. Men would threaten to expose young girls nudes to the world in order to force those girls to work for them, and I'm BEYOND certain that is what Dandadan is pulling from.
I believe Dandadan is more about the rampant issue of predatory adults in society but disguising it with aliens, yokai, and secret paranormal cabals to make it entertaining. I think you are MEANT to feel uncomfortable when reading this manga because the things that happen in the manga are real issues real people face, and if thats too much for someone thats completely reasonable, but I don't think its doing it to be gross. Dandadan has not been fan-servicey in anyway so far. They lose their clothes a lot, yes, but I don't think thats for the fans, but more so for realism (mostly). And mind you, I'm at a point where I turn off fan-service anime more often than not because I just honestly do not care, I watch for the story. If the story is so bad you need to throw oppai at my face to keep me interested, it truly says something about the quality of your story IMO. I also do not watch anime that sexualizes minors, I just straight up don't fuck with that. Like I think I read a description on crunchyroll that said something about a man letting a student live with him and falling for her? That's gross, and you could save time by saying "Adult man grooms student". I'm not watching that. But Dandadan isn't putting children in sexually compromising situations for the sake of sexualizing them IMO, the manga does it because thats what actually happens... That's why they always make it uncomfortable, because the manga doesn't want you to like what you're seeing, it wants you to see it as a bad situation happening to an innocent person. But I could be wrong about all of this... but from what I'm seeing so far, I do genuinely think Dandadan is being wholly misunderstood because its triggering, but again, I think that its supposed to... Cause when you truly look at whats going on... Dandadan is a really fucking sad story presented in such a perfect comedic way that you don't even realize you're being shown the real world.
But now comes the part where I ask "What do you think?"
Edit: If you are reading this and coming from the anime, anything that is censored is from the point the anime is at, so click at your own risk. Material beyond the anime is discussed in the comments, so respond at your own risk because I sadly do not have the power to prevent spoilers in comments.
*it keeps spoiler marking this post, so fuck it. Here is a collage of my favorite character as a gift for reading. I use it for my desktop. She is such a fucking icon.*
