Fans of spirits, aliens, and gonzo humor, rejoice: the Shonen Jump+ manga sequence Dandadan shall be tailored into an anime in 2024. A brand new trailer launched on November 27 revealed 45 seconds of latest animation and names concerned with its manufacturing. Notably, the sequence is being made by Science Saru, the studio answerable for the Netflix hit adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s Scott Pilgrim graphic novel sequence, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Dandadan tells the story of powerful lady Momo Ayase and nerd boy Ken Takakura. Momo believes in spirits however not aliens, whereas Ken believes in aliens however not spirits. When Momo is kidnapped by aliens and Ken encounters a daunting city legend, the 2 of them should combat for his or her lives—to not point out Ken Takakura’s personal components!
The Artist
The artist of Dandadan is Yukinobu Tatsu, a former assistant of Chainsaw Man artist Tatsuki Fujimoto. Tatsu shies away from Fujimoto’s cruelty and cynicism in favor of adolescent awkwardness and continuous intercourse jokes. There are goofy characters, freaky monsters, and grand-scale motion scenes as huge as anything in Shonen Jump. As a web-based publication through Shonen Jump+, Dandadan contains scenes that may by no means fly in its print journal and even the Shonen Jump app.
Tatsu’s drawings are a stiff problem for any anime adaptation. Monster designs are huge, detailed, and sophisticated in form and performance. Dandadan additionally options hyper-detailed splash pages harking back to ONE and Yusuke Murata’s One Punch Man. The sequence calls for to be reconceptualized for the screen reasonably than replicated panel by panel.
The Staff
Thankfully, the Dandadan anime has highly effective allies. The strongest of all of them could also be creature designer Yoshimichi Kameda. Kameda served as character designer and occasional animation director for Mob Psycho 100, Bones’s once-in-a-decade motion comedy spectacle. His work will also be discovered in formidable motion anime like Space Dandy and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. If anyone could make the creatures of Dandadan work on tv, it’s him.
Other members of the Dandadan crew hail from MAPPA’s Chainsaw Man crew. Hiroshi Seko, a hyper-prolific screenwriter answerable for dozens of motion sequence, is adapting Dandadan’s script. Composer kensuke ushio is tackling the music. ushio has labored with Science Saru and its lead administrators since 2014’s Ping Pong. I’m not stunned that the studio would lean on him for a giant sequence like this.
Dandadan marks the sequence debut of director Fuga Yamashiro. Yamashiro got here up underneath Science Saru’s co-founder Masaaki Yuasa on his movies Ride Your Wave and Inu-Oh. He directed glorious episodes of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! in addition to Naoko Yamada’s The Heike Story. Most not too long ago, he joined Shingo Natsume for Tatami Time Machine Blues, the sequel to Yuasa’s beloved 2010 sequence. Now that Yuasa has left Science Saru, I’m excited to see Yamashiro evolve as a solo director.
Last however not least is character designer Naoyuki Onda. Onda’s designs have a tendency in the direction of realism, and he’s particularly good at good-looking gothy varieties, as seen in Ergo Proxy and Gantz. But he’s simply as able to drawing foolish and expressive characters, as long as the animators can sustain.
But What About Science Saru?
Dandadan could very nicely be one among 2024’s greatest anime sequence. It’s additionally a barometer of how a lot Science Saru has modified in the previous two years. Masaaki Yuasa, Eunyoung Choi, and their associates based the studio to make anime with the help of Flash. They promoted themselves as a studio that follows their very own muse reasonably than business tendencies. But then Yuasa left in 2021, and the studio got here underneath hearth for poor administration not far faraway from different business horror tales. Now they’re adapting a Shonen Jump comedian, which, if you happen to’re a Western comics reader, is like if Fantagraphics began publishing Batman in collaboration with DC.
In the wake of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, I imagine the artists at Science Saru will discover alternatives for private expression in Dandadan. I can also’t assist however want that the artists at Science Saru had entry to the identical alternatives Yuasa benefited from as a younger artist. Yuasa spent a few years working on franchise movies just like the Crayon Shin-chan sequence. But his profession actually took off along with his “original” initiatives similar to Kemonozume, Kaiba, and Mind Game.
Original anime sequence are uncommon as of late as a result of time and labor required to supply them. Those that exist are much more typical than what Yuasa received away with again in the early 2000s. I don’t know if of us like Fuga Yamashiro would ever be given the chance to make Kemonozume or Kaiba as we speak. In reality, I’d commerce a dozen (good!) Shonen Jump diversifications for only one unique sequence of that kind by a crew of younger Science Saru artists.
So Dandadan isn’t precisely what I need from Science Saru in the mean time. Do I count on Yamashiro and firm to knock the task out of the park anyway? Absolutely. I’m excited to see the sequence on air alongside fellow Fujimoto assistants like Tatsuya Endo (Spy x Family) and Yuji Kaku (Hell’s Paradise.) Hopefully, Science Saru’s adaptation does justice to the supply materials and the crew’s explicit pursuits. If all else fails, although, there’s at all times Naoko Yamada’s upcoming movie.
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