Jiji, Evil Eye, and the Mongolian Death Worm – Dandadan Vol. 5 Hits Hard

Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

I am absolutely loving Season 2 of Dandadan. I’ll admit, I still miss the Season 1 intro song “Otonoke” by Creepy Nuts, but the new one, “On The Way” by AiNA THE END, is growing on me. That’s a topic for another post though. The real reason I started reading the manga in the first place was because Season 1 ended on such a nail-biting cliffhanger: Jiji and Okarun uncovering the hidden room, Momo being attacked in the hot spring, I just had to know what happened next. That impatience paid off because Volume 5 picks up right where the anime left off and throws us straight back into the chaos.

Momo’s fate at the hot spring is quickly resolved thanks to Turbo Granny, who channels the maneki-neko’s lucky charm to save her. Meanwhile, Jiji and Okarun run headfirst into the sinister Kito family, who reveal their plan to sacrifice them to a giant snake said to protect the town from volcanic eruption. That “snake” is revealed to be nothing less than a Mongolian Death Worm, and soon enough all three of our heroes are trapped underground with it. Things escalate quickly when the worm unleashes psychic waves that drive people to suicidal thoughts. Both Momo and Okarun start to succumb, and it’s only Jiji who remains unaffected.

What follows is one of the strongest moments for Jiji in the series so far. He literally binds Momo and Okarun to stop them from hurting themselves and carries them through the darkness, shouldering the responsibility of saving his friends. And that’s when the twist hits. Evil Eye, the terrifying yokai haunting Jiji is the one cancelling out the worm’s psychic attacks. This leads into one of the most heartbreaking backstories we’ve seen since Acrobatic Silky. Evil Eye was once just a lonely boy, locked away in a tiny room, chosen to be sacrificed to the Death Worm. He used to watch other children playing through a sliver of a window, until he met his cruel fate. After death, his spirit was forced to watch more children led to slaughter, twisting his grief and loneliness into vengeance, and finally into the yokai we know.

The emotional weight of this reveal hits hard. Jiji, moved by the tragic story, vows to be Evil Eye’s friend and promises that he’ll always play with him. It’s a touching moment that shows Jiji’s kindness, but Dandadan being Dandadan, the series doesn’t let it end there. Evil Eye, inhabiting Jiji’s body, declares that instead of friendship, what he truly wants is to wipe out humanity. And that’s the brutal cliffhanger Volume 5 leaves us on.

This is what makes Dandadan so addictive for me, the wild mix of absurd supernatural battles, deeply human emotions, and cliffhangers that make it impossible to stop reading. Volume 5 was packed with action, lore, and heartbreak, and for me it’s a solid 5/5. I absolutely love how the anime is handling this arc and I'm going to start volume 6 and 7 so that I can keep up with the anime.