By admin ![‘DanDaDan’ Stars Share How the Vibe Shifts Between Season 1 and the “Tense” Season 2 [Exclusive]](https://i1.wp.com/static1.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/dandadan-season-2-okarun.jpg?ssl=1 "‘DanDaDan’ Stars Share How the Vibe Shifts Between Season 1 and the “Tense” Season 2 [Exclusive]")
DanDaDan is about to get serious. When the hotly anticipated sci-fi anime premiered last year, it introduced viewers to a frantic, goofy, mysterious, and action-packed story of two high school students discovering that ghosts and aliens are very real and using their newfound abilities to combat the strange and horrific supernatural entities around them. The stakes are higher in Season 2, though, as Momo (Abby Trott) and Okarun (AJ Beckles) face their greatest threats yet, including, most notably, the demonic Evil Eye, who pushes the pair to their limits. During a conversation with Collider’s Laura Adams for the Evil Eye compilation movie, English dub stars Beckles, Trott, and Aleks Le opened up about how the new arc sends the series in a more intense direction that leaves behind a bit of the laughs for more serious storylines.
Evil Eye kicks off the second season on the silver screen, covering the events of the first three episodes of Season 2 with the introduction of the Avatar of Hatred, who possesses Momo’s childhood friend Jiji (Le). It’s all part of the Cursed House arc, which sees the three teens discovering the dark secrets of Jiji’s home and tangling with the demonic force within. The danger is at an all-time high with Evil Eye vowing to kill all humans it comes across, leaving Okarun with no choice but to try to subdue the powerful foe before it can harm anyone else. With the more personal stakes for Jiji as the unwitting antagonist and the work Season 1 did to establish its characters, their relationships, and abilities, Beckles believes the season takes a more serious tone from the get-go in accordance with what the characters are feeling. Its job is to kick the story and character arcs of Yukinobu Tatsu‘s manga into overdrive.
DanDaDan is also a show about adolescence and, more specifically, the budding relationship between Okarun and Momo. If Season 1 showed where the teens are in life, Season 2 pushes their emotions to the extreme in the face of overwhelming forces a typical high schooler would never be confronted with:
“The first one I feel it was very establishing. It was a very ‘here’s the characters, here’s everyone’s little backstories,’ and, you know, introducing us to the world and where will the story go. The story is about relationships and adolescence. This season, so far to me, feels more like it’s focused on driving that plot forward, right? How far can we push those adolescent emotions? How much more of the action can we show? How many obstacles can be put into the middle of these relationships and watch them grow from there? I think that’s the vibe, and you can see that it’s a lot more tense. The first season obviously had some serious moments in those first couple of episodes, but a lot of it was just like, you know: funny, funny joke, serious, funny, funny, funny. [The second season is serious] straight out the gate. There are some funny moments, but mostly it’s serious, which is cool.”
‘DanDaDan’ Season 2 Is “A Lot More Purple” Than Its Predecessor
It’s not just the story and characters that are changing in Season 2. Anyone who’s seen the promotions for the new episodes will notice that DanDaDan‘s color palette is increasingly dominated by purple. “Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot more purple,” Le added, which Beckles and Trott agreed with. The color is tied heavily to Evil Eye, but it also symbolizes the gravity of the situation the teens are stuck in. On every level, creatively, the show wants viewers to know that the stakes are real and there’s a real chance Momo and Okarun won’t be strong enough to come out on top this time. “There’s definitely, and especially in the first three episodes, a lot of unsettling feelings and a kind of despair with the whole Evil Eye situation,” Trott continued. “So it’s kicking it off pretty dark.”
DanDaDan: Evil Eye is currently in theaters ahead of Season 2’s premiere on July 3 on Crunchyroll and Netflix. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the hit anime leading up to its return. Check out the rest of Adams’ conversation with the cast below.
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“There’s definitely…a lot of unsettling feelings and a kind of despair with the whole Evil Eye situation.”
