This week, we calm down for a bit before getting into our next major plot. ; or, “Let’s Play Ball.”
So, most of the focus here is on the relationship between Momo and Okarun. It’s honestly material that needs to get out, even if some of the beats may seem a bit overdone, so it’s best to go through it in basically this episode while being as funny as possible.
Okarun, while he had a nice parting with Momo after the whole incident, is uncomfortable interacting with her at school. Momo wants to talk about all the supernatural stuff, particularly picking Okarun’s brains about aliens, but he’s a little shell-shocked first thing in the morning.
Towards lunch break, each of Momo and Okarun decide to seek out the other, hoping to do things a little better, but they repeatedly just miss each other, going to all the right places in all the wrong orders. The mirroring of their activities isn’t really a knee-slapper, in part because the real emotion behind the scene isn’t humor, but I would call it funny. As this goes on, both of them actually get rather depressed that the other is avoiding them… until neither Momo nor Okarun is looking in front of them and they literally run smack into each other, face first.
The two of them almost work out their differences, but some of Momo’s friends “saw her kissing” and take the opportunity to tease and/or grill her about it. This makes Momo get defensive, and while Okarun is generally a kind of spineless dude, he does at least rise to the bait whenever Momo provokes him. Thus, they end up trading barbs rather than making up, even though Momo’s friends think this qualifies as good chemistry. The frosty situation continues even as Okarun becomes sure there’s a real problem he needs to talk to Momo about.
What finally gets the two of them talking again is the introduction of a pink-haired obvious plant named Aira. She bumps into Okarun and acts super-nice to him, but as she walks away, Momo (who was already starting to regret her hostility) overhears her talking with her friends about how she was basically trying to lead Okarun on, revealing herself as a trashy mean girl. We already know Momo takes a dim view of bullies, so she clocks Aira with a washtub (via psychic powers so nobody can know it was her) and acts very publically buddy-buddy with Okarun as they walk home.
For better or worse, we’ll be seeing more of Aira. She is in the intro a good deal, after all.
Thus, Okarun is finally able to get out the crisis he was worked up over before, which will be kind of our underlying issue for at least the rest of this season and probably beyond: his balls are (still) missing. Let it not be said that DanDaDan isn’t crass. I think it by in large knows how to use its crass, getting more skilled with it as the material goes on, but it’s there and it’s not going away.
As Momo laughs her ass off, grandma figures he’s got a spirit problem, and rigs up an exorcism to fix it. The result is the revelation that Turbo Granny survived by unbinding from the site-bound spirit and hiding in Okarun’s body… but also Turbo Granny’s imprisonment in a maneki neko doll without her spiritual powers. Those powers are still left in Okarun, allowing him to transform into speedster form like before. Granny agrees to restore Okarun’s balls in exchange for her own freedom, but wouldn’t you know it? She lost them. So we’ve got a case of missing nuts and need to track down the offending bits in whatever form they’ve taken.
This episode was, frankly, much needed and reasonably strong for it. Not only did we need to air some of the drama between our leads and introduce our new plot elements, we did rather need a breather. Since episode 1, DanDaDan has basically been going at full tilt, and even though there’s something to be said for wild energy, it’s easy to forget that knowing when to pause, even for most of an episode rather than just a critical scene, is important.