One Great Character: Jiji, from Dandadan

Jock on the outside, goofball on the inside

Sometimes I surprise myself, and this happened most recently when I realized I’ve never done a One Great Character about anyone in Dandadan. I’m so upset with myself. So I’m making up for that here, with my main man, Jiji.

The amount of roles that Jiji fulfills in Dandadan is multitudinous (love that word), and it’s constantly evolving, but also remains the same in a lot of the most important ways. He is as versatile as a character can be, and yet he’s also just an endless source of comedy. So even if you don’t want to get into his depths, you can just enjoy his surface-value ridiculousness in just about every single panel he’s in.

Let’s talk about those depths.

When he’s first introduced into the story, Jiji is vital to the plot in two ways. The first way—he’s a wrench in the Okarun/Momo dynamic. Okarun and Momo are trying to suss out how they feel about each other, and then Jiji arrives, an immediate rival to Okarun since he is a longtime friend of Momo. He’s also sporty and handsome.

That would have been an easy direction to ride out. Let’s add a jock to the ensemble mechanics.

But almost immediately, Yukinobu Tatsu does an about-face with Jiji and shows how kind and goofy he is. He befriends Okarun, plays soccer with him, makes funny faces, it’s a really good time. And while that tension still remains, it’s mostly diffused. Tatsu-sensei does, however, regularly cast doubts on how diffused it really is. In the Saint-Germaine arc, there is a rekindling of Jiji’s care for Momo and Okarun notices. But he’s still that lovable goofball!

All that and I need to get back to the second reason why Jiji was vital to the plot when he was first introduced to the plot. This will be a lengthier feature later this week, but Dandadan is brilliant in the way it works in new characters. Their story takes over, the ensemble solves the new characters quandary, and then someone new arrives. It’s a flawless system that keeps working. And Jiji was one of the first.

Back to why his goofiness is so spectacular though, because let’s be honest, that’s why I like him so much.

Everyone in Dandadan is goofy. But none of them are redundant. It’s another remarkable aspect of this series. Most series have a character or two for comedic relief, but what series other than Dandadan has every single character providing a different kind of comedic relief?

Jiji’s brand is ridiculous facial expressions and silly body language. Which means that even when he’s just in the background, or not the feature of a panel, his humor is still there. As long as he’s involved, no matter how involved he is, he’s always funny.

It’s a rare character that’s always funny. That rare character is Jiji.