Magic balls, psychic aliens, and part-time yokai

This post contains full spoilers for season one of the anime series Dandadan, which originally aired from October 4 to December 20, 2024.

The residual effects of demon possession, a traumatic encounter with space aliens, and touching magic balls are some of the charming and unusual ways that characters in Dandadan (ダンダダン) get their magic powers. Dandadan is a delightfully bizarre anime series about, roughly speaking, two Japanese high school students who team up to fight the demonic unquiet dead and space aliens.

I've previously wished for stories where magical power derives from something more interesting than just saying or writing special magical words. Dandadan delivers that!

And now, reader, I will warn you again, that things are about to get spoilerific. The specifics of how each character gets and uses their powers are big spoilers. You'be been warned.

Trauma-activated #

As a girl, Momo Ayase cultivated magic powers through psychic protective practices taught to her by her grandmother. While we don't learn much about the practice in the anime, it looked like a pretty classic chi/lifeforce cultivation. Although she gave up the practice after being teased by schoolmates, it seemed to lay the foundation for her psychic powers.

Momo's powers become activated when psychic aliens abduct and try to attack her, trapping her with their psychic powers. In the physically dangerous and emotionally intense moment, Momo has to defend herself and her psychokinetic power activates. Initially, she's incredibly powerful, defeating multiple alien attackers, but when she uses her powers later, they are much weaker. Her powers seems to be limited by her own psychological blockers and to regain full use of them, the main thing she needs to do is learn how to relax that block. She also becomes more effective with practice and precision. In a way, her psychic power is like athletic talent. Early childhood practice helped her develop some skill and the right moment let her see what she was capable of, but after that initial success she "choked" and needed to find her way back to the power and to develop precision.

Yoakai residue #

Okarun, another high school student, develops his magical powers after being cursed and possessed by the yokai Trubo Granny. Turbo Granny herself was initially a combination of two spirits, an immensely powerful location-bound spirit and a spirit of a dead person who refused or could not pass on. In Dandadan, the yokai^[1] seem to be the spirits people who died in violent, sudden, or unnatural ways that then became twisted and confused after death. Their anger, confusion and sorrow empower the yokai and also drive them to mostly use their powers towards malicious ends.

Initially, Okarun's power is a curse, and when he transforms he is taken over by Turbo Granny. After a partial exorcism, Turbo Granny's consciousness leaves his body but her powers remain. When he uses his magic powers Okarum transforms into a being that looks a like a combination of Turbo Granny and a teen idol--and is incredibly depressed and somewhat rude. Using his powers tires him out terribly so to become more effective Okarun must train in physical endurance and strength. At first Okarun's powers activate only when he's in emotional distress and danger, but over time he seems to gain the ability to activate them at will.

Okarun's powers are basically a curse with some mitigating factors. Especially when you consider that when she first cursed him, Turbo Granny stole his genitalia and he spends the rest of the season trying to recover first his dick and then his balls. But more on that later.

Transactional and location-based #

Seiko Ayase, Momo's inexplicably youthful grandmother, is a spirit medium. When we first meet her as a character she is on a TV show seeming to get every single prediction wrong while doing a psychic reading for a teen idol.

Seiko's magical power comes from a combination of deals she made with local land spirits and her vast study and experience. She also uses blessing cards with magical spells/prayers written on them. I get the impression these blessing cards are meant to be pretty ordinary things, like the equivalent of a consecrated saint card. Seiko's power, really, is knowledge. She knows which rituals to perform, and no doubt she was able to enter into the relationship with the local spirits to get her power because she had the know-how.

In a way, Seiko is a bit like a location-bound-spirit herself. Her powers only work in the territory that belongs to the spirits whose powers she's borrowing.

Touching magic balls #

Aira Shiratori, yet another high school student, picks up a magical golden sphere which lets her see spirits. The golden sphere is actually one of Okarun's testicles which Turbo Granny stole when she cursed him, and which went flying at some point during her fight with Seiko and Momo or the exorcism. Turbo Granny, now trapped as a shit-talking animated maneki-neko, explains that testicles contain life force and that's why yokai want them. Why they turn into magic golden spheres in this case is not clearly explained.

Unfortunately for Aira, if you can see spirits, they can see you, and a yokai named Acrobatic Silky becomes obsessed with her, convinced that Aira is her daughter. In a fit of misunderstanding and grief, Acrobatic Silky kills Aira. Devastated at what she's done, the yokai offers to donate her own "aura" to bring Aira back to life--and thus finally ending her undeath and dissipating forever. Later on, it turns out that the aura didn't just revive Aira, but also imbued her with some of Silky's power. Similar to Okarun's inherited Turbo Granny power, it lets Aira transform.

Banana? #

We also have some psychic aliens who want to steal human genitalia. Maybe they want the life force, too? Perhaps we'll find out in season two.

Some very interesting themes start to emerge: life force, curse residue, and magic emerging under emotional duress. There are some magic words, Seiko's blessing cards, but they're one of many forms of magic. I enjoy the variety.