Dandadan (2023)
[ダンダダン]
Volume 8
Author/Artist: Yokinobu Tatsu
Publisher: Jump Comics+
Synopsis:
Okarun must apply what he has learned to defeat the Music Room Portraits and then challenge Evil Eye.
Story/Characters:
The fight with the Music Room Portraits ramps up in what feels a bit like a very well-dressed Attack on Titan meets World War Z. Once things are settled, Okarun takes on Evil Eye and the conclusion has about as much to do with applying the combat techniques he's learned as it does with him understanding and manipulating Evil Eye's psychology, a nice little mix of brain and brawn. With a truce successfully brokered, there's the matter of Momo and Seiko's house being completely destroyed. Enter Shako with his friend Ludris, who has this neat nanoskin stuff that they can use to rebuild the house (with Okarun and Aira's help, though Aira mostly spends the time playing with Chiki).
Jiji's folks come by to help the next morning, but they weren't counting on alien technology to get the job done. (Also, we see that Jiji gets his goofball personality from his mom, which is pretty funny.) Momo and Jiji go to school, but Jiji transforms into Evil Eye and the vending machines are out of hot drinks to turn him back, so they have to go the day with Evil Eye's social maladaptation going rather unnoticed (because Jiji is such a random goof in his normal mode; also, there's clearly some sort of perception barrier preventing normal people from noticing these transformations, as we could infer from the time Okarun transformed to stick up for Momo a while back, since I think there would've been a bigger reaction from the guys talking smack if they actually saw Okarun grow a good foot with white hair and red eyes). The half-tamed Evil Eye's antics are rather amusing, to say the least.
From Momo's friends, we get a lead on where Okarun's remaining ball is. We get introduced to a couple new characters. One is chubby nerd Kinta, who sees Okarun as a rival and wants to uncover his secrets of being popular with the ladies. (In the anime, you really feel that he should've been voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, but he ended up being cast as Tarou first.) He makes the grave error of thinking dirty jokes are the key after hearing Momo talking to Okarun about balls. The other is the yet-to-be-named class rep, who despite being the shrinking violet type, tries to stand up to Momo over her perceived bullying of Okarun. Eventually she'll get a role in the story beyond ticking Momo off.
Momo and Okarun go out to investigate the supposed ball sighting with the unwlecome addition of Kinta tagging along, but the little butterball does actually prove to be about 5% useful compared to the 95% being a hindrance and a nuisance. (Maybe he'll be improving those numbers shortly, but not too soon.) To leave some surprise for readers who are checking out this review before the volume, all I'll say is maybe, possibly our current opponent is a kaijuu. Great ghost of Ishirou Honda, Batman! Now, how would we confront such a creature and what kind of knowledge set would best serve under such circumstances? Stay tuned.
Art:
The Music Room Portrait fight has quite the finale with its nightmare fuel bug-eyed chorus. You'll never look at a night out at the opera the same. We get a nicely high-octane rematch between Okarun and Evil Eye. Kinta's design seems geared to annoy but it fits the character quite well. The pursuit of the mystery ball has some innovative teamwork making use of Momo and Okarun's respective power set and once the enemy that may or may not be a kaijuu is revealed, there are some rather stunning shots used to portray the scale of the thing with the first round (technically the second round) of the fight. The camera work is really impressive.
Other:
Once again, we get a color insert of the images of Momo and Aira from the cover and under the dust cover we get profiles of the Music Room Portraits and Evil Eye's briefs (if you don't know yet, it'll make sense, I swear). The bonus comic has Turbo Baba arguing with Seiko over chow (the price of which is going up and putting further strain on the household's meager finances).
Conclusion:
We get a good variety of action setpieces as we wind down the current arc and transition into the next one. You may be somewhat divided on the inclusion of Kinta in the cast. Personally, I don't like him very much, but I can appreciate his function (and the way Momo gets annoyed at him is pretty funny). There are a number of nice little touches as well that I didn't get into here, but all told, it's another wonderful package delivered with the flair Tatsu has become known for and I'm more than happy to recommend it for your collection.
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