Plot: Dandadan is still relatively new, as of the time of writing this review I had read the first 120 chapters, which I believe got me up to date with the series. Much like other early chapters of battle Shonen published by Shueisha, Dandadan feels like its still in its set up arcs. We all know these arcs, you meet the leads and the supporting cast, one after another, with maybe some minor bridging plot to tie these short stories together. East Blue, Black Clover's series of stories following Asta and each member of the Black Bulls one at a time, we've all seen it.
In Dandadan, these set up arcs follow poor Ken Takakura, and his quest to recover his dick and balls. Which is kind of funny, it definitely helps give the teenage boy protagonist a slightly more grounded and immediately relatable motivation. He makes a few friends, two boys and three girls. All six of them get standard Shonen power sets and they all fight monsters. Simple, effective and very derivative. Mixing the threats of aliens and yokai is a cute idea, but little has been done with the concept.
So far the plots a solid 5/10, but average isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Art: The art is... pretty good... I guess. Some of the monster designs are creative and some are just references, which is fine if not a bit dull. The page layouts flow generally well, there were few moments where I needed to go back and re-read sections due to cluttered layouts. I can tell all the girls apart, which is fairly rare for a battle Shonen, so I have to applaud the character design in the series too.
All together, the art is probably a 7/10, its clean, flows decently well, if not a bit forgettable.
Characters: Dandadan stars an awkward teen boy. Due to discovering some unseen powers, he makes new friends and challenges the mystery's of the world together..... blah blah blah...... The characters are boring. They're all standard teenage arc types, but the author is pretty good at playing them off each other in charming if ineffective ways. And of course, all three teenage girls have fallen in love with Ken. Why have they done this? Because he's the lead of the series of course.
The chaaracters are charming if not a bit predictable, soooo 5/10.
Conclusion: Dandadan is a battle Shonen. If you like battle Shonen, you'll probably like Dandadan. I generally like Dandadan, its a fairly well put together battle Shonen. It doesn't break new ground and isn't particularly creative, but its solid and didn't feel like a waste of time to read, therefore its a 6/10.
