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“You believe in the paranormal, don’t you Ms. Ayase?” – Ken Takakura, Chapter One, Volume One “Dan Da Dan”
“Dan Da Dan” is a popular manga written by mangaka (author) Yukinobu Tatsu and released April 6, 2021. As of January 2026, there are more than 219 chapters of the manga released, with a promise of more to come.
The series is a supernatural comedy that follows students Ken (Okarun) Takakura and Momo Ayase on a journey to prove the existence of aliens and ghosts, which quickly turns sour. As you can imagine, within the first few chapters, they find out the hard way that both do, in fact, exist. The duo accidentally end up going to the extreme, with one being abducted and the other possessed.
The mangaka does a fantastic job of capturing the realism of teenagers in this day and age, with humor and very real reactions to the situations they find themselves in. I genuinely read this and felt like I would react the same way as these characters if I found myself in their shoes.
Additionally, the characters have a very genuine sense of humor among them and are actually some of the most relatable teenage representations I have seen in the media in a long time.
Momo is more of a snarky, standoffish type with a crude way of speaking and joking around. In her introduction, we see her attempting to kick some sense into a guy for trying to sleaze his way into sex with her. She immediately mouths back off to him and attempts to kick him in the head, only to get her own butt handed to her in return.
Okarun is a fan of the occult with an interest in aliens. He comes off as a shy nerd, but the reader quickly gets to see his quirky sense of humor and awkward nature within the first chapter. Both of them are awkward in their own respects, but they meld together well as eventual friends and potential love interests.
There are other really cool characters that pop up in the manga along the way, such as Momo’s grandmother and Turbo Granny. Turbo Granny is more of a spoiler, so I will stray away from her, but I assure you her personality is worth sticking around for. She makes the story interesting and plays a cool role in the series.
Momo’s grandmother, Seiko Ayase, is a minor player in the series, but the moments where she does show up are usually hilarious. She has one of those attitudes that screams badass yet wise. In later chapters, you get to see more of her as a character as she supports the kids in their endeavors.
A fun fact about the mangaka is that he was forced by his editor to read approximately 100 different romance manga to properly use romance elements in his story. I would argue that this really made the elements of strangers to friends to maybe lovers worth reading.
Though the manga is not finished, I urge you to read it. I even recommend watching what bit of the anime they have out on Netflix or Crunchyroll.
