Dandadan does some interesting stuff with gender. My thoughts aren't super organized on this so I'm just gonna ramble here , but it kinda plays around with the concept of it and flips around gendered stuff with its characters.
So our biggest and best example here is with Okarun. A big part of his character is his struggle with masculinity, even though underneath the layers of anxiety and self-doubt he's greatest shining example of positive masculinity in the series.
However, the only time he can show off this part of himself is when he uses the powers of Turbo Granny, a female spirit. And while he is a melee fighter, its more dexterity and agility based rather than strength based. Which is more often seen with female fighters in anime and similar media.
Of course, after he loses these powers he becomes less reliant on them to show off the more "manly" aspects of himself.
But ultimately, in order to reveal his true masculinity, he had to embrace feminity.
Aira is also an example of some gender fuckery I've talked about before. She makes this extra cutesy, girly girl guise on the outside. But on the inside she has these more masculine associated traits: the head-strong, commanding demeanor; the chivalry/bushido like sense of honor, the blunt agressive competitivity. All of which are brought forth and amplified in her yokai form, which gives her an deeper voice and more angular facial features all while making her a melee fighter who can take heavy hits and keep going like captain fucking America.
But then at the same time, her feminity isn't a facade either. She still loves make up and dressing feminine and other traditionally "girly" things. And her yokai form still makes her more physically feminine looking in other ways, and her fighting style is focused less around raw strength and more about finesse and agility, and of course is also based on ballet. But her extra cutesy mask feels like an exaggeration or parody of those feminine traits like how her yokai form exaggerates her other traits.
And I've talked about Kouki's gendered duality in other posts before, such as with her name and her prince/princess thing going on.
And the other characters also have some non-traditional gender stuff going on with them too.
Like Momo's character arc/story about depression and self-worth is often seen more with male characters like Megumi, Denji, or Mob.
And with Jiji's bubbly and eccentric personality, plus the fact he loses basically all his clothes whenever he uses his powers, he might as well be an anime girl.
And that makes an interesting contrast with the hyper-masculine Evil Eye.
The only ones of the main gang who are more traditionally gendered are Zuma and Rin.
Anyone else kinda see what I'm saying? It's neat and I'm surprised I don't see much discussion on it.
