The Dandadan manga by Yukinobu Tatsu first appeared on April 6, 2021. It is an ongoing series that currently has 17 published volumes and is one of the major shounen hits in both Japan and the world. After several failed attempts, Tatsu finally found his voice and a project that will surely earn him a place in the history of the industry.

The anime adaptation of the manga premiered on October 4, 2024, after the first episodes were shown as part of a special movie titled Dan Da Dan: First Encounter, which aired just ahead of the anime’s premiere. The series has been a hit and for a good reason.

The anime’s most recent episode, “To a Kinder World,” which is Episode 7, has been receiving praise since its premiere and we can only confirm that it is a brilliant episode that shows why Dandadan is so good and why it is going to be one of this season’s biggest hits.

Unlike Heavenly Delusion and Frieren, who were not mainstream titles but whose anime adaptations skyrocketed them to fame, Dandadan was a fairly known and popular series even before Science Saru’s amazing adaptation.

Sure, it’s not Bleach or One Piece, but it was a known title and an anime adaptation that the fans had been expecting for a while.

While the content of the manga is sometimes borderline adult (due to the violence and sexual content), Science Saru has been doing an amazing job in adapting the series. The animation is absolutely brilliant, as the crew managed to capture the fluidity of Tatsu’s panels and animate them in a truly brilliant manner, which is why everyone loves the anime.

But it’s not just the production values, it’s also the story and the characters. Momo and Okarun are two characters who, each in their own way, manage to capture the hearts of fans; they are both “types,” but they also go beyond that in the most beautiful way, showing everyone that there is always a lot beneath the surface.

Alongside them, there is also a plethora of interesting side characters, and in the continuation of this report, we are going to talk about one of them, Aira Shiratori, whose story has been explored in Episode 7.

Long story short, Turbo Baba stole Okarun’s “family jewels” and turned them into two golden orbs, one of which was found by Aira, the school idol of their school.

This awakened her psychic powers and she took it upon herself to save the world because she is the most beautiful girl in the world; she targets Momo but is also targeted by a woman in a red dress, the spirit called Acrobatic Silky. Acrobatic Silky claims to be her mother and she wants to eat her, while, at the same time, she has to defeat Okarun and Momo who try to stand in her way.

The battle takes a turn in Episode 7, the second part of the two-parter story, in which Okarun and Momo manage to defeat Acrobatic Silky, but they also discover that Aira is dead.

Tubo Baba explains that a normal human swallowed by a spirit will, naturally, die and that there is nothing they can do about it. This is where Acrobatic Silky comes in and offers her aura to save Aira. In a moment that seems strange, it is discovered that Acrobatic Silky was, indeed, Aira’s mother, a poor single mother who worked hard in a store and was secretly also a prostitute so that she could give Aira a relatively normal life.

The love is there, the emotions are palpable, and the animators did an amazing job in adapting this dark storyline that concludes with people beating up Aira’s mother and taking the baby away from her, as she dies in the streets. Later, she continues to wander the world of the living and after Aira once notices her spirit, she turns into Acrobatic Silky, wanting to get her daughter back.

The manga was much more explicit than the anime, but the darkness of the storyline is visible in both versions, which is why Episode 7 will remain one of the best anime episodes of the year.

Dandadan is doing an amazing job and the fact that the crew was able to adapt a dark storyline in such a way that everyone could understand it, regardless of their age, is a major plus that we simply had to praise. Looking forward to more of the same!

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