DAN DA DAN’s Tokusatsu Connection – This Week in Anime

Coop joins the TWIA team just in time to discuss how DAN DA DAN is a love letter to Ultraman with Chris. Tokusatsu love is the purest love of all.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

DAN DA DAN is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix, while Ultraseven, Gridman the Hyper Agent, and other Ultra classics are streaming on Tubi. Ultraman Arc is officially streaming on YouTube.

Coop

I don’t know what’s going on here, Chris… A few minutes ago, I was just minding my own business, primarily thinking about Beyblades and sneakers as one does. Then all of a sudden I see a bright flash of light, and now I’m here—in a chat with my name in big, bright green letters. Was I abducted by aliens?

Anime critics?! Whew, that’s a relief! I was worried I’d been captured by some Alien Dada-looking dudes who wouldn’t stop talking about bananas for some reason.




Those dudes aside, thank you for the warm welcome! I’m looking forward to chatting with you and the rest of the crew about anime, the weeb culture, and a little bit of business-side news. Oh, and bugmen… Oh boy, will we talk about more bugmen, Chris. Hell, we might even talk about some bugmen-adjacent stuff today!

Ultraman is dripping from DAN DA DAN‘s soul at all times, but not in a solely “I understood that reference” way. The black-and-white segment from episode two does harken back to the days of the original Ultraman series’ airing, but it accentuates DAN DA DAN‘s own artistic aims. It’s the perfect way to do a homage. How the opening references Ultra intros, like Ultraseven’s, is really cool…




And circling back on that segment for a moment, it might be a better way to convey the idea of “manga on screen” than, say… Uzumaki perhaps?

Amazing how stylization can go so right and so wrong at the same time in the same season.



The black-and-white segment is another stylization element that DAN DA DAN is pulling as an Ultraman influence, and like the Ultraseven-style silhouettes, is very much living in the “This is a stylistic choice that works for the series, and also pays homage to its influences” area of references. I similarly dug the first episode emulating the ol’ kaleidoscope-camera effect that popped up regularly in those ’60s and ’70s toku shows.

Now that you mention it, Momo’s encounter with the Serposians is incredibly similar to Kamen Rider‘s first episode. Particularly when Hongo finds himself in Shocker’s clutches following his bugmanification. Right down to the uncomfortable restraints, flashing lights, and the beam that either hurts you or makes you feel funny.

Momo even comes out of the situation with her own superpowers, albeit of the psychic rather than physical augmentation variety. She still has a mean kick, though.

I’ve never seen a Rider break a hole in reality with their kick before!

Obviously, we just need more gyaru Kamen Riders overall to see how far their powers can really go. Imagine what Momo’s kicks can do when she’s actually got her cool kicks on.

YES! And I gotta say, those kicks are cool. They’ve got some mad Jordan 1-vibes without the swoosh… for obvious reasons. Funny enough, they kind of look like the Jordans I have. As Momo alluded to herself, gyaru fashion is true battle gear.



Shoes are cool, man.

Now, the sheer density of all these references underscores the overall influence of tokusatsu, and Ultraman in particular, within the spheres of anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture. Like yeah, obviously Yukinobu Tatsu was a huge fan, but Ultraman is such a beloved institution that it’s inspired a bunch of major industry creators.



Real ones know what Hideaki Anno largely drew from for Evangelion.

He drew so much from it that he took a hit to the… Shins

Ooh, that was a terrible pun. You fit right in here already.

The Ultra series’ efforts at global releases have been pretty impressive to see… and also extremely frustrating in how it runs circles around Toei and their seeming disinterest in simulcasting their own Super Sentai and Kamen Rider shows. Even getting them on disc has felt like pulling teeth until very recently (shout-out to your crew at Discotek).




By comparison, Ultra shows have regularly been spewed out onto a variety of discs for ages now. On the other hand, the quality of those has been a bit hit or miss…

Yeah, people called Mill Creek out on those issues, and it’s easy to understand why. As we said, Ultraman is an institution, so fans are understandably going to be put out. Still, it seems to be an oddly reoccurring curse for Ultraman, not even exclusive to Mill Creek. Going back to the Hideaki Anno film, Cleopatra Entertainment‘s initial releases of Shin Ultraman had subs so atrocious they had to issue new versions.

And even then, those new discs weren’t exactly up to snuff from what I’ve heard. I’m glad that our friends to the north, Canada’s Raven Banner, put out a MUCH better set. While I did have a few minor technical quibbles, the love and passion that come from this release are spectacular. The disc might not have the budget of a Criterion release, but damn did the folks working on it treat it like one.

Among all the Ultra stuff that’s come westward, releases like Shin and Gridman ought to have better effort put behind them on account of their crossover appeal. Shin Ultraman is a love letter to the franchise that can also rope in new viewers via a legendary anime director. Gridman was the springboard for one of Studio Trigger‘s hottest franchises in recent years.

It’s part of what makes something like DAN DA DAN so cool. Like Evangelion, you don’t necessarily need to be aware of its Ultra influences to enjoy it, but it adds another layer, being able to feel the love for that material that inspired these creators in their own endeavors.



On the other hand, it does feel like general anime audiences are more aware of tokusatsu, and its relationship with anime, than ever before. There’s a Kamen Rider W anime streaming on Crunchyroll with a movie on the way. That Ultraman: Rising film got a lot of people on my timelines talking. Just last month, people’s interest was piqued by a live-action adaptation of a Masakazu Katsura manga.

It’s hard to say when/if the breakout moment might occur. One thing to remember with Ultraman specifically is that it’s actually had decent cultural penetration for ages now. Our grandparents were watching Ultraseven dubbed.

That’s true, even Will Smith thinks that Ultraman slaps.

Oh man, that would be wonderful. But, who knows? It’s a shame to see all that television history just go up into an auction like that, but what can you do? Right?

I mean, if the indulgences of creators on series like DAN DA DAN are any indication, the answer is to buy as many of those costumes and props as we can afford and just produce our own series inspired by the shows we love.

All right, you’ve convinced me. Time to sell an unnecessary organ for that transforming Astro Megaship miniature.



Or… how about we just come back and do this again sometime? That might be the more sensible option, eh?

We do this every week. Like going to church.

Amen.