Going into the 2025 Anime Awards, Dan Da Dan was the night's favorite with 22 nominations in categories including Anime of the Year, Best New Anime and Best Animation. Ultimately, the night's big winner was the Portal Fantasy hit Solo Leveling, which beat Dan Da Dan in every category they were both nominated in except Best Opening Sequence.
It was a bit of a controversial night for anime fans and fan discussions have been dominated by whether Solo Leveling really deserved to win as big as it did at the Anime Awards. Dan Da Dan still managed to bring home three awards during the ceremony: the previously mentioned Best Opening Sequence, Best Anime Song and Best Character Design.
Although many fans expected Dan Da Dan to have a better night, it was the consensus pick in those categories. Dan Da Dan's opening song "Otonoke" by the hip hop group Creepy Nuts — the perfect name for the performers of an off-beat Horror Comedy, all things considered — has become one of the most popular and recognizable anime themes of recent seasons. As of this writing, the version of the song posted by Crunchyroll (which we've shared just below) has amassed 57 million views in seven months.
Dan Da Dan is stylish and well-written
Although Dan Da Dani's actual wins at this year's Anime Awards were in production and design categories, it was nominated in most of the writing and direction-based categories. There aren't many fans who would dispute that it deserved it (and plenty were disappointed that it didn't take home any of those awards). Dan Da Dan is one of the most uniquely stylish anime series of recent seasons and it's also an incredibly well-written one.
Fundamentally, Dan Da Dan is a Comedy. It's almost sort of a really off-beat take on a Scooby-Doo sort of premise, following a group of high-schoolers examining paranormal mysteries — except the closest thing to the talking dog is an old woman's ghost trapped in a cat statuette. Momo is the granddaughter of a famous medium who believes in ghosts, but not aliens. Ken is obssessed with paranormal occurrences and believes in aliens, but not ghosts. Naturally, not long after they meet, they're soon dealing with ghosts and aliens in a series of encounters that bounce back and forth between genuinely hilarious and actually pretty scary.
Crunchyroll explains the premise in more detail:
"When high schooler Momo, from a family of spirit mediums, first meets her classmate Okarun, an occult geek, they argue—Momo believes in ghosts but denies aliens, and Okarun believes in aliens but denies ghosts. When it turns out both phenomena are real, Momo awakens a hidden power and Okarun gains the power of a curse. Together, they must challenge the paranormal forces threatening their world."
Despite the series' overall off-beat comedic focus, Dan Da Dan also features plenty of genuine Horror plot beats. Also, the anime's seventh episode, which delves into the backstory of the Acrobatic Silky ghost is a genuinely poignant tragic story and is absolutely brilliant in its execution, featuring fantastic animation, design and direction.
The first season of the Dan Da Dan anime adaptation concluded in December 2024. Fans will get an initial look at season 2 in the form of the upcoming movie Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye, which will combine the first three episodes of the season into a feature-length movie. Evil Eye is coming to North American theaters on June 6, and season 2 will officially premiere on July 3. In the meantime, fans can catch up with season 1 on Crunchyroll and Netflix, and read the ongoing story of the original manga via publisher Shueisha's Manga Plus website and app.