Of Course ‘Dan Da Dan’ Season 2’s Huge Okarun Evil Eye Struggle Has a ‘JoJo’ Anime Reference

Dan Da Dan‘s third episode is out now, marking the conclusion of GKids’ restricted theatrical compilation launch, Evil Eye. Whereas this implies extra new moments to return for anime followers to obsess over, Science Saru didn’t depart followers empty-handed, lastly showcasing Okarun and Evil Eye’s long-awaited conflict and a intelligent reference to standard long-running shonen anime, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, so as to add to its cool issue.

A lot of the advertising main as much as the second season of Dan Da Dan emphasised the extreme showdown between Okarun and his new pal, Jiji Enjoji. Within the earlier episode, Jiji, the category clown of the anime’s increasing group of buddies, spent a number of time making an attempt to stop Okarun and Momo from harming one another. This chaos was triggered by a large snake lurking beneath Jiji’s household house—a snake that possesses the facility to emit psychic waves, inflicting folks to aim to take their lives. 

Throughout his perilous endeavor to save lots of his buddies, Jiji encounters a yokai referred to as Evil Eye. Very similar to season one’s standout episode featuring Acrobat Silky, viewers see that Evil Eye is greater than only a menacing adversary. After studying Evil Eye’s tragically shifting backstory, Jiji befriends the yokai, however issues rapidly take a flip for the more severe. Much like how Turbo Granny possessed Okarun, Jiji finds himself being body-snatched by Evil Eye. In consequence, Jiji now sees Momo as an enemy. Simply in time for the climax of episode two, Okarun makes a cool return, setting the stage for his or her battle in episode three.

We’ll spare you the blow-by-blow play-by-play of their battle as a result of there’s completely no manner we will do it justice. Nonetheless, one climactic second of their battle sees Okarun dig in deep and lay Evil Eye Jiji on his beneficiant underwear-clad ass. After spending nearly all of their battle on the again foot, Okarun manages to eke out a victory with a volley of double-fist uppercuts propelled very awkwardly by a collection of lightning-fast leg crunches. Whereas Okarun isn’t wont to ship one-liners, he rises to the triumphant event with one referencing JoJo’s Weird Journey: Stardust Crusaders protagonist Jotaro Kujo’s climactic battle with DIO.

Much like Jotaro, Okarun tells his adversary—and ostensibly the viewers—how he was capable of snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s all as a result of Evil Eye made a grave mistake; he put his palms on Momo and pissed Okarun off. The road near Jotaro’s quote to DIO after his terror almost killed his personal grandfather. Given Okarun’s Turbo Granny mode sees {the teenager} act not dissimilar to the stoic JJBA protagonist (all the way down to his catchphrase, “Good grief”), it’s no marvel Okarun would faucet into that cool man persona to emphasise his decisive win over Evil Eye. The second is made all of the funnier while you have in mind that Okarun, who at this level within the anime is roughly 17 years previous, is one way or the other the identical age because the towering JJBA protagonist. Guess they fed anime protagonists nothing however crimson meat and cigarettes again within the day.

In an interview with AJ Beckles and Aleks Le, the English voice actors of Okarun and Jiji instructed io9 that their characters’ conflict was important to them because it represented Okarun’s first real battle.

“[Okarun] has to dodge and punch, or no matter else, which he doesn’t actually know the right way to do. You get to see that little bit of awkwardness, too, that he clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing versus Evil Eye, who appears so skilled compared,” Beckles instructed io9. “It’s attention-grabbing, and [Science Saru] did a fantastic job of exhibiting that.”

This isn’t the primary time Jiji and Okarun’s butting of heads (ostensibly over Momo) has yielded a deep-cut anime reference. Again in season one, an innocuous scene the place the 2 boys sang and chanted at one another after vying for Momo’s consideration featured the pair singing the opening and ending theme track to the ’90s-era basketball anime, Slam Dunk. Serendipitously, regardless of the love triangle leads within the Toei Animation collection, Hanamichi Sakuragi and Kaede Rukawa aren’t direct one-to-one non secular predecessors to Okarun and Jiji by way of character; the basketball rivals do share comparable hair colours, making their comparability considerably apt.

So glad they did not skip nor change Okarun and Jiji singing the Slam Dunk ending and opening pic.twitter.com/BwPfgEhJHo

— Mobu☄️ (@Captain_Atomsk) December 19, 2024

Given Dan Da Dan‘s propensity for referencing popular culture touchstones like Shin Godzilla and Ultraman, Science Saru’s breakout hit anime is more likely to have extra kitschy Easter eggs in retailer for followers to understand the collection all of the extra. In the interim, we will all take pleasure in witnessing its bully-whip-armed occult nerd, Okarun, delivering a cool man line straight out of certainly one of anime’s most prolific cool man collection.

New episodes of Dan Da Dan season two air each Thursday on Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Hulu.

Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to anticipate the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and every part it’s essential learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.