“Please, take away their pain. Grant them peace. Guide them both to a kinder world,” is the final line of the latest episode of the supernatural rom-com anime Dan Da Dan. It also sums up an underlying, under-discussed theme of the series: how this world can be so brutally cruel to women and young girls.
Since the first episode aired, I noticed many anime fans and content creators were laser-focused on a scene in the premiere where the main female protagonist, Momo Ayase, is nearly sexually assaulted by a gang of male aliens solely bent on using her for reproduction.
Obviously, the uncomfortable scene was not well-received, and many viewers began writing Dan Da Dan off as just another weird, horny anime that fetishizes and exploits its young female characters. I even found myself squirming in my seat at the scene of Momo struggling to stay lucid and break free from her captors.
However, just because a scene is uncomfortable does not mean it serves no purpose. Earlier in the episode, Momo shares with her co-protagonist, Ken “Okarun” Takakura, a childhood memory involving her grandmother, Seiko.
Seiko, a medium, took in an orphaned Momo as a child and has tried to pass on her spiritual teachings ever since. When Momo was in elementary school, Seiko would tell her to perform a special ritual every day on her walk to class for protection. However, Momo stopped after the boys at school, including her crush, laughed at her. The young girl then went home, berated Seiko, and called her ways dumb—never practicing the ritual again.
Fast forward about a decade, and Momo is a teenager about to be assaulted by a group of male aliens using psychokinesis to subdue her. As she fights for consciousness, she recalls the day her grandmother taught her the ritual.
“Release your ki,” Seiko says to a young Momo. “By releasing your ki, you’ll never get hurt or sick. It will also keep evil away.”
Once again, Momo remembers rebuffing her grandmother and screaming, “I hate you! You’re a fake!”
But older Momo performs the ritual, hearing her grandmother’s instructions in her mind. Finally, Momo accesses her own psychic powers and breaks free of the aliens.
The moment made me think of my own childhood and all the stories and advice passed down to me from the older women in my life who were ultimately trying to keep me safe.
“Never take an open drink from a man.”
“Make sure to keep your keys (or a screwdriver) between your knuckles when walking alone.”
“Keep a pair of men’s work boots outside your door so people think you live with a boyfriend.”
“Always have your own ‘f–k you’ money, so if your man tries to play you or harm you, you have money to get away.”
Similar to Momo, I’d roll my eyes and shrug off some advice as being overly cautious, embarrassing, or silly. I’d let the pressure of my peers (or the boy I liked) get under my skin, causing me to reject the teachings. I’d think, “No, things are different. I’m different,” and would learn the hard way that while I’m amazing, I’m not so different that I’m immune to the violence of misogyny and rape culture.
As an adult, I’m still guided, protected, and strengthened by the words of women who came before me.
The boys poking fun at Momo’s ritual remind me of the men who guffaw at women who:
- Share their locations and schedules with their female besties
- Go to the bathroom in groups
- Don’t outright reject a man they’re not interested in when pressured for their phone numbers
- Learn to use their cell phones as weapons
Before the incident with the aliens, Okarun is being chased by a malevolent ghost called Turbo Granny, who steals the reproductive organs of men who enter her territory. We eventually learn that Turbo Granny spends most of her time comforting the spirits of young girls.
“This place is where girls your age were violated, chopped up, and left to rot,” Seiko explains to Momo of Turbo Granny’s territory. “For ages now, mediums have been trying to figure out what Turbo Granny’s deal was. We knew one thing about her, she always showed up near the spirits of murdered girls.”
With her soft spot for these girls and her wrath for men and their genitals, one can infer that Turbo Granny has witnessed many young women die at the hands of men who took advantage of them.
While Turbo Granny and her motivations are mostly inferred, the story of another spirit, Acrobatic Silky, is much clearer and heartbreaking.
Introduced in episode six, Acrobatic Silky is a towering, violent female spirit attached to a teenager named Aira Shiratori. When Aira was a child, she spotted Silky and mistakenly called her “mommy.”
The seventh and most recent episode of Dan Da Dan reveals that, in life, Silky was once a single mother raising her daughter in a small apartment. Silky was poor, worked several jobs, and engaged in sex work to provide for her child.
One day, Silky is brutally beaten by a group of men who knock her out and kidnap her daughter, presumably to be trafficked. She wakes up and chases after the men but collapses due to her injuries and watches helplessly as they speed off with her daughter inside a van.
Silky, who blames herself for failing to protect her daughter, dies by suicide. She becomes a wandering spirit who bumps into a young Aira. Aira, a toddler at this point, sees Silky and mistakes her for her own mother.
In turn, Silky sees Aira as her lost child and vows to protect her the way she couldn’t protect her real daughter. With her new purpose, Silky takes on the towering form we see in the present, wearing a magenta dress—the last gift she bought her child before the kidnapping.
When Silky accidentally kills Aira in a rage, she sacrifices her aura to bring the teen back to life. Filled with regret over failing both Aira and her real daughter, Silky’s soul crumbles and Turbo Granny reveals that with so much regret, Silky will not crossover into the next life. Instead, she will fade into nothing and everything about her existence will be forgotten.
As Silky deteriorates, Aira wakes up and hugs her, acting as her child.
“Mommy, I love you. I was happy, the happiest in the universe,” Aira says before begging the universe to take away the pain of both Silky and her daughter and to bring them together in a kinder world.
It’s revealed that Aira lost her real mother shortly before coming across Silky’s ghost, meaning she likely empathized with Silky’s story. Like Silky, there were things Aira wishes she could have done more with her loved one before tragedy took her away.
As a daughter, Aira knows that Silky tried her best as a mother to protect her child, and she knows her child must have been happy with her and doesn’t hate or blame her for their separation.
Aira consoled a guilt-ridden, grieving Silky—saving her soul from disintegrating. Seiko and Momo paid respects to Turbo Granny for comforting the souls of murdered girls. These moments paint a picture of community within womanhood and how women and femmes connect to each other in a way those outside of our experiences wouldn’t understand.
You might be thinking, “But, Eri, it’s just an anime. Don’t you think you’re reading too deep into this?” To that, I say anime is entertainment, entertainment is art, and art is almost always a reflection of our times.
In 2023, Japanese police reported 526 cases of kidnapping or human trafficking, marking a fourth consecutive year of increase. Single mothers in Japan also face many challenges, including social stigma, financial hardship, and housing crisis.
Machiko Osawa, a professor of economics at Japan’s Women’s University, wrote a commentary in The Japan Times about sexual violence against women.
“High rates of sexual violence persist in Japan, with 1 in 14 women having experienced forced intercourse, according to a 2020 Cabinet survey — a scourge symptomatic of patriarchal attitudes, values, and practices that put many at risk of abuse,” she says. “At the same time, underreporting remains a problem, as revealed by a landmark online survey conducted by NHK in 2022, whose questionnaire I helped draft.”
Osawa wrote, “I was especially shocked by the young age of many victims: Half were under 15 when they suffered abuse, while just over one-fifth were younger than 10. Overall, almost three-quarters of victims were below the age of 20.”
According to Osawa, 91% of the survey’s participants identified as female, 5.4% as X-Gender, and 1.1% as male. More than 38,300 people responded to the survey.
“To put this in context, such surveys typically elicit about 4,000 responses,” Osawa explained.
It’s not hard to believe that an anime set in modern-day Japan and featuring these topics as significant plot points would be influenced by the very real circumstances of Japanese women and young girls.
And, of course, these issues aren’t just present in Japan. In 2022, about 442,754 women were raped or sexually assaulted in the United States, marking an increase from the previous year.
We’re only seven episodes into Dan Da Dan, and I haven’t read the manga. For all I know, the series could pull a complete 180, and this blog will serve as the receipt for the words I’ll eat like the pho I cried over while watching this episode.
But for now, the series strikes a chord with me, and I look forward to learning more about the women of Dan Da Dan and how they may continue to find community and strength within one another.
TsundEri 
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