Dandadan Review

Dandadan should not work. It combines a possession plot, an alien abduction plot, body horror, a high school romance and a sense of humour that is frequently juvenile, and it does so at a pace that never lets a reader breathe. That it does work is down to Tatsu, who draws with a density, motion and design imagination that puts him among the best working in the medium; the monsters are genuinely unsettling, the action is legible at any speed, and the quiet panels between fights are drawn with the same care.

Momo and Okarun are a great central pair, sharp and awkward and clearly good for each other, and the supporting cast grows without diluting them. The story is a series of escalating episodes rather than a long arc, and its refusal to slow down occasionally becomes exhausting. It is the most purely entertaining new manga of its decade.