Dan Da Dan’s Dub Actors Are Feeling the Love

As 2024 comes to a close, Dan Da Dan has become the talk of the shonen town. From the chemistry of its two leads to its banger opening and offbeat style, Science Saru’s adaptation of Yukinobu Tatsu’s supernatural romcom has captured hearts and minds of animation fans, who’ve been tuning in on a weekly basis to see what madness Momo Ayase and Okarun will get caught up in next.

In early December, io9 spoke with Momo and Okarun’s respective dub actors, Abby Trott and A.J. Beckles, who came to the material through different avenues. Beckles was already reading the manga prior to auditioning, while Trott only knew of it through the audition. They both became captivated, and were pretty shocked they booked the parts—and how much the dub specifically has been singled out as great in its own right.

“Seeing some of the comments about how some people enjoy the dub, and have switched over to it, has been really cool,” said Beckles. The “sub v. dub” war has existed since the dawn of time, but he said Dan Da Dan avoided getting looped in thanks to heavy marketing for its dub, and the actors having proper time to record. That isn’t always the case with anime, and according to him, the show’s better for it: without preconceived notions surrounding either the Japanese or English voices, viewers have been free to like whichever version they want.

While audiences have sung the show’s praises for months now, some viewers were thrown off by the first episode’s second half, wherein both Momo and Okarun find themselves in peril by otherworldly beings. While Okarun gets chased around and possessed by the demonic Turbo Granny, Momo ends up in a more harrowing situation wherein she’s kidnapped by aliens called the Serpo, who strip her down to her underwear and prepare to steal her reproductive organs. It’s a pretty sudden tonal shift, not helped by there still being traces of comedy as the Serpo call said organs “bananas.”

When asked, both actors readily acknowledged how “unpleasant” the scene could be to watch, and neither faulted anyone for jumping off the show because of it. For Trott, the scene is a key moment for her character, since that’s when Momo’s psychokinetic powers emerge. Once she realizes what she can do, she immediately goes on the offensive, and several of the season’s big action beats have involved Momo getting a better handle on her abilities—so to have her come into that power and immediately use it to “kick the Serpos’ butts” was satisfying.

“In that scene, we’re not saying the Serpoians are good, it’s quite the opposite. There’s a lot of dynamics to this anime, and definitely some hard parts to get through,” said Trott. “But the good outweighs those tough to watch moments.”

Beckles shared a similar sentiment, and pointed to how Momo using her grandmother’s advice and getting a surprise assist from Turbo Granny as examples of how women support each other throughout the story. As a manga reader, he indicated things improve going forward, saying viewers would “see, as the show continues, that it does take those moments more seriously.” The two actors also highlighted Okarun’s presence and “healthy perspective” on women, which lets the show contrast him with the more invasive Serpoians.

After its fourth episode, Momo and Okarun’s slow burn romance really begins to take shape. Their growing relationship is all the more notable since other shonen often have romance as an addition to their stories rather than the core. Tatsu famously revealed that while pitching Dan Da Dan, his editor Shihei Lin recommended he read shoujo (or “young girl”) manga, which puts focus on personal and romantic relationships. If Lin hadn’t doled out the advice, the series might not be what it is now, and would likely lack the same impact and excitement around it. Audiences love a good love story, and they know when it’s not hitting. But because they’re so well-written and clearly defined—and can never be normal around the other, especially in public—it’s hard not to root for Momo and Okarun.

Even when the pair are caught up in some wild stuff, their feelings for one another inform nearly everything they do. Learning this was a love story didn’t change either actor’s handling of the material, but Trott said the scene where Okarun and Momo bicker for the first time made it clear where things were headed. For Beckles, some of his favorite scenes for his character are when Okarun’s “just trying to figure out how to talk to a girl for the first time,” or telling Momo how much he cares what she thinks.

The dynamic between the leads is just as important in the booth. When it comes time to record, the actors both said they prefer when the other’s already come in first, since it allows them to feed off one another. Trott said she gets “so much” from her co-lead, especially since Okarun often “provokes a certain response” from Momo that makes her adjust her responses accordingly. The same’s very much true for Beckles, who admitted the more intimate, romantic scenes would trip him up since Okarun tends to speak from his heart. 

Where Momo’s encounter with the Serpo helps trigger her psychic powers, Okarun’s experience with Turbo Granny leaves him with a partial essence of the spirit’s powers, which let him transform into a faster, smoother, and more laid-back emo version of himself. As Beckles explained it, finding a default voice for Okarun—which he’d then use for when the character’s more expressive or in his Turbo mode—took several recording sessions. In those early episodes, Okarun was “always screaming or whispering, and there was so much of it happening back-to-back-to-back” to establish a baseline. Beckles credited voice director Alex von David for guiding him toward moments to make his voice “more nerdy or more endearing. Alex has the overall vision, and he knows where Okarun’s going. I really leaned on him on the points where it was difficult, but it’s good when it’s a challenge to try and do something the right way.”

One specific challenge he cited was episode four’s “goodbye” scene between Okarun and Momo, which he called one of his most “infuriating moments” to record. Since he came into the booth first that day, it was hard to consider Okarun’s thought process, how Trott would perform during her recording time, and the meaning behind each “goodbye” uttered. “Once [Abby] recorded first the next day,” he said, “the puzzle pieces started to connect. I could play off her emotions, and it could build that way. I don’t think we could’ve gotten that endearing, childlike read without her ‘See you later!’”

During our talk, Beckles and Trott shouted out several others that’ve made Dan Da Dan’s adaptation a success. Along with the fans and von David, they gave glowing praise to their fellow dub actors Lisa Reimold (Aira) and Barbara Goodson (Turbo Granny), and their own characters’ respective Japanese performers, Natuski Hanae and Shion Wakayama. (Trott called Wakayama’s Momo one of her favorite anime performances ever, and a “perfect embodiment” of Japan’s gyaru subculture.) Going on this journey has been a blast for them both, so it’s good we’ll be hearing them again on Netflix and Crunchyroll with season two in July 2025.

And while they couldn’t say anything about what’s to come, Beckles teased that where things left off “is tame compared to where the show goes later.”

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