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Ah, the “will they won’t they” plot. Such a time honored way to get people like me invested in a story. I’m a sucker for romance, but it needs build up and tension to make the payoff worth it. That slow burn has been the thing about Dan Da Dan that has made the whole, sometimes frustrating, journey worthwhile. However, the current arc of the Dan Da Dan manga is taking the 'will they won’t they' formula to absurd levels, and it doesn’t even need to.

I’m going to be unpacking some spoilers for recent chapters of Dan Da Dan so if you’re waiting for the anime to catch up, this is your chance to look away.

The Dan Da Dan manga has been a series of adventures and fight scenes involving a bunch of teenagers with unique, sometimes weird abilities fighting creatures from space or magic with even weirder abilities. Which makes it sound a bit like Power Rangers without the giant robots (except for that time there was a giant robot fight at the end of season two of the Dan Da Dan anime). However, the real appeal of the series, even for the producers of the anime, has always been the romance between Okarun and Momo. These two kids are trying to save the world and their friends – all while having to figure out this whole “first love” thing.

It is a tough situation even without Momo spending the past three arcs shrunk to the size of a small bird and with everyone slowly being unable to see or hear her. Now, she’s got amnesia and doesn’t even remember that aliens exist, despite being abducted and assaulted by them on multiple occasions. Which actually sounds like a good result, until you realize she's forgotten all about her time with Okarun and the bond they share.

These two just can’t catch a break, right?

And thus we get to the biggest flaw in the “will they won’t they” formula; inevitably, it will reach the point where they almost certainly will but there is still plot to cover so the writer needs to string things along in increasingly clumsy and obvious ways. Oh, they can’t confess their feelings until Momo is the right size again. Now Okarun has been knocked unconscious and is having an out-of-body experience in the power lines. Here comes the childhood friend trope to mix things up. Now we’ve got a case of amnesia straight out of the laziest soap opera writers room.

The thing that makes this more frustrating is that Dan Da Dan didn’t need artificial ways to string us all along with the romance because it already has the most obvious reason these two teenagers can’t sort themselves out – they’re bloody teenagers. Teenagers are allowed to be clumsy and awkward and leave us all frustrated by their inability to just have an adult conversation because they’re not adults. They’re kids trying to navigate something that even grownups stumble with.

I was perfectly content to watch them fumble holding hands and struggle with the inevitable confession. Unlike with series like My Dress-Up Darling, there is enough other stuff going on that I am happy with a slow burn romance. You can just be like “They’re dumb teenagers” and I will nod and go back to watching the latest random battle happen. Part of the fun of young romance stories like this is letting them find their way to the end of the path without it feeling forced.

Making Dan Da Dan into a soap opera, complete with amnesia plotline and whatever nonsense the mangaka comes up with to keep Okarun and Momo from just confessing their feelings in the future, doesn’t add to the ongoing story. Their adherence to the “will they won’t they” tropes isn’t just distracting; it is unnecessary. You don’t have to convince me that teenagers will awkwardly stumble around the topic of romance and love. Despite years of therapy, I still remember being 16 years old.

Dan Da Dan just needs to keep it simple and let the kids be kids, is what I’m saying.

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