Why do we find other people’s misfortune enjoyable?
There is a saying, “Other people’s misfortune is like honey.” But why is that? Is it because we compare others’ misfortunes to our own and think, “Ah, at least I’m better off”? But even if we make such a comparison, our own misfortune does not become any less significant. The reasoning must be different.
Perhaps, then, we should look more closely at the value of misfortune itself.
After all, without misfortune, tragedy cannot begin. And without tragedy, there is no catharsis—and perhaps much less pleasure in a story. The philosopher who discussed tragedy and its emotional effects in the earliest surviving systematic account was Aristotle.
So, in this essay, I would like to examine the appeal of Dandadan through the lens of Aristotle’s Poetics.
Thinking About What Makes Something Interesting in an Aristotelian Way
Recently, whenever I have free time, I find myself watching Dandadan. No matter how many times I watch it, I never seem to get bored.
If I were to say this, perhaps someone like the “King of Logical Arguments,” Hiroyuki, would retort, “Watching an anime over and over when you already know the story—are you stupid?” Of course, this is purely my own imagination.
And yet, I still want to watch it repeatedly. Why?
One reason is that Creepy Nuts’ opening theme is absolutely amazing. In fact, I first discovered Dandadan through Creepy Nuts. I had been listening to Otokonoke on Amazon Music without even realizing it was the opening song for this anime. Then, after discovering Dandadan, I completely fell in love with its Ultraman-inspired animation.
Another reason might be Ayase Momo, who is incredibly charming. She has a great personality, is funny, and is simply cool. I cannot help wondering how her story will unfold. Perhaps I have become a huge fan of Momo without even realizing it.
However, let us try to analyze Dandadan by focusing on its story itself. In other words, let us examine its structure—what Aristotle would call its plot.
And for thinking about plot, Aristotle’s Poetics might be surprisingly useful.
Using the ideas of an ancient Greek philosopher who lived more than two thousand years ago to analyze a currently airing anime may feel somewhat strange. But if an old idea helps us articulate something about a new work, why not use it?
After all, Aristotle’s ideas have survived for more than two thousand years for a reason.
“Poetry” Is Anime
Aristotle (384 BCE–322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who laid the foundations of numerous academic disciplines. In his Poetics, he begins by considering poetry in terms of mimesis, usually translated as “imitation.”
Aristotle writes:
“Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in three respects,—the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.”
The Poetics, then, is not simply about what we now call poetry. Aristotle is interested in the representation of human action through different artistic media.
When he discusses tragedy, he also writes:
“Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily follows, in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be a part of Tragedy.”
If we reinterpret Aristotle’s media in modern terms, it is not difficult to see how anime could fit into this framework. Anime combines language, music, sound, visual spectacle, and the representation of human action.
Calling the Poetics a “study of anime” would obviously be an exaggeration. Yet the basic idea of applying Aristotle to anime is not nearly as strange as it might first appear.
“Penis” Is Funny
Aristotle distinguishes forms of poetry according to what and how they imitate. He writes:
“Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type…”
He then explains the distinction between tragedy and comedy:
“The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.”
His discussion of comedy also contains a curious connection to the world of Dandadan:
“Tragedy—as also Comedy—was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities.”
The phallic refers, of course, to the male sexual organ.
Just as mischievous elementary school children can laugh hysterically simply by shouting “penis,” something about the phallic seems to possess a primitive comic energy. The same kind of humor occasionally appears in popular culture in wonderfully childish forms.
Speaking of which, in the opening of Chainsaw Man, Power-chan was seen rolling golden balls.
And Dandadan is, among other things, a story about searching for balls.
Perhaps Aristotle would not have found this connection entirely surprising.
Pity and Fear
Comedy is certainly one important part of Dandadan. But what interests me more here is its tragic side.
What exactly is tragedy?
Aristotle gives us one of the most famous definitions in the history of literary theory:
“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.”
There are several important points here.
First, tragedy is an imitation of action.
Second, that action must be complete.
Aristotle explains:
“A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
This is easy to see in Dandadan.
The episodes concerning Turbo Granny roughly follow this structure:
Momo and Okarun meet → they confront Turbo Granny → the spirits are finally released.
The Acrobatic Silky story similarly follows:
Aira Shiratori is introduced → Aira confronts Acro-Sara → Acro-Sara disappears.
The details are more complicated than these simple summaries suggest, but the basic point remains: the stories possess a movement from an initial situation through a conflict toward a transformation of that situation.
Yet Aristotle’s definition contains something more important than mere narrative completeness.
It contains pity and fear.
Aristotle explains:
“For pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves.”
This is especially important for understanding Acro-Sara.
When Momo’s psychic abilities connect Aira to Acro-Sara’s aura, Aira glimpses the story of a young mother who desperately wanted to raise her daughter.
We had previously encountered Acro-Sara primarily as an enemy. But once her past is revealed, our understanding of her changes.
Her suffering was not something she deserved.
This produces pity.
At the same time, her circumstances are not completely alien to us. The struggles of a parent, the fear of losing one’s child, and the vulnerability of an ordinary person are recognizable human experiences.
This is where fear enters.
The important point is that Aristotle does not regard misfortune itself as sufficient. What matters is the relationship between misfortune, character, action, and the audience’s recognition of what is happening.
Reversal and Recognition
This leads us to two of Aristotle’s most important concepts: reversal and recognition.
Aristotle writes:
“Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.”
And:
“Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune.”
The distinction is crucial.
Reversal concerns a change in the direction of the action.
Recognition concerns a change from ignorance to knowledge.
And Aristotle says that the best form of recognition occurs together with reversal.
Most importantly for our discussion, he continues:
“This recognition, combined with Reversal, will produce either pity or fear; and actions producing these effects are those which, by our definition, Tragedy represents.”
This gives us a remarkably clear structure:
Reversal + Recognition → Pity and Fear
And this structure helps explain something fascinating about Dandadan.
The Moment of Destruction Is the Most Beautiful
To make these ideas more tangible, let us turn briefly to Toshio Okada’s analysis of Hideaki Anno.
Okada, one of the founders of Gainax, has argued that one of Anno’s central visual themes is the idea that the essence of something is revealed in destruction.
When a mecha is destroyed, its internal components become visible. A system that had previously appeared as a single, unified object suddenly exposes the structure hidden within it.
Destruction reveals what was previously concealed.
The same pattern can be found in other anime.
In Demon Slayer, demons are initially presented as monsters to be defeated. Yet when they are destroyed, their human histories emerge. The destruction of the enemy becomes the moment in which the audience discovers who that enemy really was.
In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the destruction and transformation of magical girls similarly reveals the connection between the girls and the witches they fight.
The important point is not that destruction itself is necessarily identical with Aristotle’s reversal. It is more subtle than that.
Destruction can become the event through which recognition occurs.
Something that appeared one way is revealed to have been something else.
The audience’s understanding is overturned.
And that change in understanding can transform the emotional relationship between the audience and the character.
Acro-Sara
This is precisely what happens with Acro-Sara.
At first, she is an obstacle. She is frightening, violent, and apparently hostile.
Then her past is revealed.
We learn that she was a mother who desperately wanted to protect and raise her daughter. The character whom we had regarded as an enemy is suddenly seen from another perspective.
Ignorance becomes knowledge.
Hatred gives way to sympathy.
The person who seemed to deserve destruction becomes someone whose happiness we wish had been possible.
This is recognition in a particularly powerful sense.
And the timing matters.
The recognition occurs at the moment when Acro-Sara is disappearing.
Her destruction does not merely end her role in the story. It reveals her essence.
This is why the scene is so emotionally powerful.
The character becomes most fully understandable at the very moment when she is being lost.
In this sense, Dandadan makes excellent use of a mechanism that Aristotle identified more than two thousand years ago: a change in our understanding of a character, connected with a reversal in the action, produces pity and fear.
What Is Catharsis?
We have now reached the most difficult question.
What exactly is catharsis?
Aristotle tells us that tragedy produces pity and fear and effects their proper purgation. But what exactly does this purgation mean?
Aristotle himself does not provide a full explicit definition of catharsis in the Poetics. This has led to centuries of debate.
Perhaps the emotions are released.
Perhaps they are purified.
Perhaps they are clarified or brought into a proper condition.
I am particularly interested in the idea of purification.
But even then, I do not think the process can be adequately described simply as “balance.”
To understand what happens in Dandadan, I think we should return to recognition.
At the beginning of the Acro-Sara story, we see a threatening supernatural being.
At the end, we see a mother who suffered terribly and wanted to protect her child.
The difference is not merely that we have acquired additional information.
Our emotional relationship with the character has changed.
We no longer simply want the enemy to disappear.
We wish that she could have been happy.
And this, I think, gives us a clue to the meaning of catharsis.
The Purification of Our Wish for Another’s Happiness
Aristotle tells us that pity arises from unmerited misfortune and fear from the misfortune of someone like ourselves.
If this is so, then tragedy does something remarkable.
It takes us from seeing another person as an object of hostility, fear, or indifference and leads us toward a recognition of that person’s humanity.
The emotional movement might look something like this:
Ignorance → Recognition
Recognition → Pity and Fear
Pity and Fear → Concern for the character
Concern → A wish for the character’s happiness
This last step is my own interpretation rather than a definition Aristotle explicitly gives us.
But it seems to me to capture something important about the experience of watching Dandadan.
Catharsis may not simply mean that our emotions have been emptied out.
Perhaps what has been purified is the object of our desire.
At first, we may want the monster to be defeated.
Then we discover the person inside the monster.
And finally, we find ourselves wishing that this person had never suffered in the first place.
The character we wanted to see destroyed becomes someone whose happiness we wish we could have protected.
That is why the disappearance of Acro-Sara is so beautiful.
It is not beautiful because suffering itself is beautiful.
It is beautiful because suffering has revealed something that was previously hidden.
And once that hidden essence has been recognized, our hostility is transformed into compassion.
The Moment of Destruction Is the Most Beautiful Moment
The destruction of Acrobatic Silky is therefore, in a certain sense, the most beautiful moment of her story.
Not because destruction is beautiful in itself.
Not because misfortune is inherently valuable.
But because the moment of destruction is also the moment when recognition becomes complete.
We finally understand who she was.
And that understanding changes what we want for her.
This is where Aristotle’s ideas become especially illuminating.
The story gives us a reversal.
The character we regarded as an enemy becomes someone we pity.
Recognition changes ignorance into knowledge.
Pity and fear arise from the recognition of undeserved suffering and vulnerability.
And through this emotional process, something in us changes.
We no longer merely want justice, victory, or the defeat of an enemy.
We simply want the person before us to be happy.
That may be one of the deepest pleasures that a story can give us.
“Please, Let No One Harm Them”
There is a moment in Dandadan that, for me, expresses this idea perfectly.
Aira says:
“Please, let no one harm them. May they live in a kind and happy world.”
This is what I think catharsis can feel like.
We begin by watching another person’s misfortune.
We experience pity and fear.
We discover something that we did not know.
And then, almost without realizing it, we find ourselves wishing for the happiness of someone who, only moments before, was an enemy.
Perhaps that is why other people’s misfortune can become “honey.”
Not because we ultimately desire their suffering.
But because a well-made tragedy can transform the way we see another person.
It can take destruction and turn it into recognition.
It can take recognition and turn it into compassion.
And it can take compassion and purify it into a simple wish:
Please, let no one harm them.
May they live in a kind and happy world.
Perhaps that is the true pleasure of tragedy.