This week marked the debut of Dan Da Dan’s anime adaptation, something folks have been looking forward to for a long time. Good news: not only have audiences taken quite a shine to it, Shonen Jump is building on the anime’s momentum by making the manga’s opening act open to everyone, membership or no.
From now until…whenever Shonen Jump says so, the first five chapters of Yokinobu Tatsu’s supernatural romcom are free for everyone to read for a “limited time.” It’s something we saw last year with One Piece: to coincide with Netflix’s live-action adaptation, the first 12 volumes of the ongoing series—aka, the entire East Blue Saga—was made free in nearly two dozen languages. Dan Da Dan can only give so many chapters away (by this Sunday, it’ll have hit 169 chapters), but it’ll give you a good idea of what to expect from the series.
Aliens exist, and spirits do too… And once they collide, the world will never be the same!
Dandadan, Chs. 1–5 are now free for a limited time in Shonen Jump! Download the app and experience a phenomenon that’s completely out of this world! https://t.co/cELnwuhxDP pic.twitter.com/f9dnPmxJng
— Shonen Jump (@shonenjump) October 4, 2024
If you’re trying to determine how much territory the first season of the Dan Da Dan anime will cover, its first three episodes fully adapt chapters 1-4 of the manga proper, while episode four seems primed to handle most (if not all) of chapter five by November. Shonen Jump clearly hopes this sampling will entice you enough to sign up for their membership and keep binging, or at the very least, pick up the collected volumes as you work your way through the series. And if you don’t want to do any of that, there’s always just watching the anime itself and learning about the series’ inevitably wacky twists and turns on a week-by-week basis with everyone else.
So if you want to see what Dan Da Dan’s all about, give the first five chapters a shot right over on Shonen Jump’s website. While you’re here, tell us what you thought of the manga’s first episode down in the comments below.
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