I've been thinking a lot lately about why Okarun feels so fresh as a character, and I think it's because it's weirdly rare to see a well written, likeable nerd in anime. The medium is so full of nerdy characters, and YET they're so rarely actually good. There's three common pitfalls that I think nerdy characters tend to fall into, and Okarun handily avoids all of them.
1. Butt of a joke
Now Okarun is in a comedy manga/anime, but the reason he's very much not *just* there to be funny. Yeah his interests are played for laughs, but they're also part of a backstory that's very much meant to be taken seriously. He's respected as character in his own right.
2. Obnoxious pervert or straight up sexual harasser
It goes without saying there's just... so many perverted characters in anime, but I feel like nerdy or dweeby characters are all the more likely to do this, and do it in a more aggrevated way. The less you're supposed to take a character seriously (hence, comedic characters, which nerds often are), the more likely they are to be just... terrible to women. Okarun though? He's like. Aggressvely not perverted. I think about that scene where Momo is changing, where the joke is that he keeps staring at the wall longer than he needs to. He's seen her in her underwear like... honestly a lot (now that's a part of Dandadan I don't love, but that's a discussion for another day...), but he's never weird about it. This is a low ass bar, but it's just nice to have character who's awkward, but not a rancid pervert.
3. Power fantasy wish fulfilment
This is probably the hardest point to argue, but I would not say Okarun is a classic case of wish fulfilment. There are definitely elements of that, with all the women who inexplicably like him and the superpowers. Still, I'd say there are two, maybe three things that set him apart from this trope. Firstly, he never becomes cool. He gets cool moments, he gets to do cool things, but at the end of the day, he's still just a polite, awkward kid. That never goes away. Second, I think it's important that he's never the most powerful of his friends. Frankly-- he might even be the weakest! Momo alone is more capable and versatile than he is, not to mention Vamola or Jiji/Evil Eye. Frankly, Momo is even way more of a main character than Okarun is. So Okarun is not really that powerful... but what about all the girls? I would say that part is much more akin to good old wish fulfilment. But to me anyway, it doesn't really feel that way. Mostly because we all know he's gonna end up with Momo, so it doesn't feel that much like a real harem.
Watching and reading Dandadan has really made me crave more good nerdy characters... The only other ones I can name off the top of my head are Ishigami from Love Is War and Okabe from Steins;Gate. And that's not a great showing for a genre filled to the brim with nerds.
