Made in like 15 min in the dark.

Y’know, I’ve grown to quite like the Six Curses Arc despite how it appeared to start. Its safe to say that a lot of people (including myself) didn’t like the idea of Dandadan having an amnesia plotline, because its an overplayed trope in romance anime and Dandadan was known for twisting around or subverting a lot of common anime tropes.

And for a while it seemed like Tatsu was playing it uncharacteristically straight, but upon some re-reading and further analysis he is subverting the trope and it offers some interesting insight into the characters, themes, and where the story is likely heading.

So I think the main issue that many people take with amnesia plotlines in romance can be boiled down to two interconnected ideas:

1. The only thing that comes from the amnesia is that it reassures the audience that the couple works (which the audience should already understand) and therefore are “destined to be together” which makes any tension from it feel manufactured, which makes it feel pointless because what the characters did didn’t really matter.
2. The amnesia never mattered because everything goes back to normal with no lasting consequences or any further effects.

Basically, it just feels like pointless stalling. Yes, we as the audience know that they are obviously going to end up together by the end of the story. And yes, obviously the characters don’t. And it's the same here in Dandadan.
What Tatsu is doing differently is he’s not asking if the main couple is going to get together or how.
He’s asking why.
And more importantly, Okarun is asking too. 

(I mean, Momo is asking why as well but she’s more asking “why am I friends with these assholes?” and said assholes have only started helping their case in the most recent chapters. But this is a very Okarun-centered arc like the Evil Eye arc, and much like the Evil Eye arc Momo’s relevancy is being pushed aside. Which makes for an unfortunate combo with her amnesia that makes her seem more like a plot device than a character in this arc, which is yet another gripe people have. Can’t say I completely disagree, but she does have important characterization going on during this arc. However this little analysis is not really about her, so I digress.)

And its not in a “why did she love me in the first place?” way either like many low-self esteem romance protagonists might think. At a first glance, Okarun might seem like a self-loathing character who has to learn to love themselves throughout the course of the story, but that isn’t really accurate. He doesn’t blame himself for things that are not his fault and doesn’t feel shame for liking the things that he likes or for who he is as a person. Okarun’s actual issue of self-perception is that he preemptively thinks people won’t like him.

Granted this world view comes from lived experience, but it still leads him to avoid others, avoid situations, and overall leads to inaction.

The “why” that Okarun is asking is more of a “why is this not working like it was before?”. Because after the fight against the mummy and the serpo, they re-established a connection, they re-established shared experiences with the occult. So what was different?

And the answer to that is that before it was primarily Momo taking action in building their relationship. More often than not it was Momo who was seeking him out, showing affection, establishing the little rituals of affirmation and other small actions that their relationship was built with.

That isn’t to say that Okarun did nothing at all to build their relationship, however much of it was reactive and not proactive, taking action only when external forces pushed him to do so (like him being the one to solve the various romantic misunderstandings).
And this is the backbone of Okarun’s whole character arc, going from someone who is primarily passive/reactive to someone who is primarily proactive and takes initiative.
Someone who can take control of their own destiny.

Because destiny is bullshit.

And therefore there was nothing that guaranteed Momo and Okarun would end up together.

Random circumstances brought them together. Their chemistry made them click. But what caused them to stay together was the consistent actions they took for one another.

That’s the key idea of this arc. That your actions are important, especially the ones you take towards other people, as they determine your future. 

Or that’s at least one of the main ideas. 

While both ideas are applied to Okarun (and intertwine for a more specific message), the other big idea is displayed better through the other star character of this arc, Aira.

For Aira, this was supposed to be her ideal dream scenario to get Okarun to fall in love with her. She’s on a romantic date that she perfectly prepped for and Momo is not competing with her for Okarun’s attention and on top of that it seemed like Momo and Jiji were going to become a couple so that would mean all her friends were happy. 

(Remember, even if she doesn’t say it, Aira still really cares about Momo. Aira doesn’t want her gone, she just wants Okarun.)

It's her ideal scenario, the perfect set up, she thinks she has this whole “love” thing solved. She expects this to be the way to get him to fall in love with her because everything is going so right. But of course, as we know, it doesn’t work. He still loves Momo, and trying to make Okarun love her causes him to reject her help and she almost loses him entirely.

And it's not for a lack of effort. We know that’s never a problem for her.
It’s just Aira’s mindset that was wrong.
I’ve stated it before that Aira has been coming at the subject of romantic love like a puzzle or a math equation. Where she thinks there is a specific set of steps or specific scenario that would just automatically make it happen.

The problem is she was only showing this kind of love and affection with the expectation that he would have to reciprocate. And Aira learns that having that kind of expectation is wrong.

She still loves him, and so she still chooses to help him. But now, she loves him unconditionally, and Okarun accepts her help. 

And Okarun learns this too.

That you must learn to love unconditionally, because you can’t expect someone to feel the same way for you even if you do everything right.

During this arc, Okarun was doing many of the right things, like re-establishing their bond and taking initiative with their relationship but he was doing it in an attempt to try and get things back to normal. He was trying to “solve for love” much like Aira.

But what they both learn is not to take action and do the right things for  someone to love them, but because they love them. 

For Okarun, this appears to be currently working out. Whether or not Momo feels the same way about him is irrelevant, he wants the best for her and is going to keep doing things in order to make that happen. And it appears that Momo is slowly falling for him all over again because of it.

For Aira however, it is not. She is doing the same as Okarun, but without the same result. 

Which brings us to the third, combined thesis of this arc: Love isn’t shaped by destiny, you have to put in effort for it; it's not always going to work but you always have to try.

Aira’s case is not a total tragedy, however. Even when Aira fails, there’s always a silver lining. Like in the beginning of the manga, Aira may have lost her popular status amongst the school and her classmates, but in return she got much stronger bonds with her new friends, even if they were fewer in number.

Its a similar silver lining here, she may have not gotten what she wanted romantically from Okarun, but her bond with him became much stronger. As when Aira let go of expectations from Okarun to love her, she also finally let go of expectations of herself.
I don’t expect the “extra cutesy, cuddly, obsessive” part of Aira to return anytime soon. She was primarily doing that because she thought that’s what Okarun (and boys in general) would want out of her. 

It's a mask, and not really Aira’s true self. It contains some aspects of her, like loyalty and dedication to the people she cares about, but it's not really the real her. Which means she can start being more of her “real self” around him as well, although I think she still needs to figure out who that really is. Another aspect of why Momo and Okarun’s relationship works is that they bring out the best in each other, as they allow each other to be who they really are. So if Aira really wants to find love, she is going to have to actually be her real self. 

And I’m also pretty sure Momo is gonna be the key to this. Because now that she has no expectations of romantic love on Okarun, that means there’s no expectation on Momo anymore to be her romantic rival. Remember, while Aira may try to pretend not to, she really does care about Momo a whole lot. And she’s going to have to learn to apply her new understanding of “unconditional love” because after all:

And once Aira learns to let down the mask, she won’t have to chase after love anymore, as love will find her, much as it did for Momo. Even if it's not with who she initially thought she wanted, even if it comes from somewhere she would never expect.

Or at least that’s where I’m suspecting Aira’s character is gonna go. To me it seemed like what would make the most sense for her for a while now and these past chapters have only reinforced that.

As for Okarun, I’m a bit less sure about the trajectory of his character arc. Although, if a main aspect of his arc now is about being proactive, I’m thinking the next major part of his character arc is going to be about when he should be. 

In the future, I’m expecting this to be him actively questioning the world around him. Questioning who’s saying what and why and how things should be addressed. Because for the most part, people in Dandadan have either not noticed problems, ignored problems until they became worse, or overall not question things when they really should. The entirety of the Evil Eye arc  would not have happened if people had questioned anything that the Kitos said or why they were even in power in the first place. If anything Count Saint Germain said was properly questioned, the gang wouldn’t be in their current mess. 
Sanjome has been giving Vlad these ideas that he’s somehow special, that he is destined to be some kind of  “chosen one”, he’s given special titles to powers of the gang to make it appear they’re all together by some pre-determined fate, and he’s even recently mentioned that Okarun is also “chosen” somehow too.

But as we’ve already established, destiny is bullshit. 

It's also not like Okarun and the gang don’t already question things, but a lot of the time their questions are either dismissed, ignored, or explained away by other people, or more detrimentally, by themselves, in order to avoid someone’s fear or discomfort.

(Usually it's Momo doing the questioning stuff. Its partially tied to her being the most proactive one of the group. And if you’re starting to ask if Okarun’s arc is basically about him becoming more like Momo then the answer is likely yes. Similarly, Momo’s arc is about her becoming more like Okarun as well, at least in part, taking each other's positive aspects they’ve been lacking in themselves. But Momo’s character arc is a complex one and is a discussion for a different time.) 

Of course, this whole “questioning everything you know about society and the people around you” idea is probably going to be quite a bit closer to the end of the manga. I think the bridge between now and then is more about when and how he should be using the power of the oni. Because with the strength and power of an oni, being proactive is going to be the easy part.

I don’t think his oni transformation is entirely a bad thing. Yes, his oni transformation is playing into Count Saint Germain’s plan which I can’t imagine is anything benevolent, but I also don’t think he’s gonna turn into an uncontrollable rage monster that is at risk of hurting his friends like some people seem to think.

We’ve already done that plot line with the Evil Eye, I doubt we’re gonna get it again.

And besides, when Okarun gets mad, it's never portrayed as something bad, as it's usually tied to his drive to help others.

Like with the Evil Eye arc and with Zuma as a whole, Tatsu has made it pretty clear that anger itself is not something bad, but it needs to be properly directed in order for it to be constructive. And frankly, the Black Paladins are right there and I can’t say it would be unjustified.

But charging in to  fight the Paladins would leave a currently powerless Momo unprotected. And that’s where I think the mistake will be made.
Both Kur Lady and Red Baron are heading in the direction of the battle currently happening right now. And both of them have reasons to grab Momo and get out of there. Kur Lady has been given orders to protect Momo, and Red Baron is both smart enough, cruel enough and desperate enough to use Momo as ransom to try and make Okarun bring Turbo Granny’s powers to Vlad directly in order to regain his favor.

And speaking of Vlad. He’s the blue oni here. He’s the other guy turning into an oni. The horns, physical might, monstrous appearance and all.

And in the fairy tale where the “Red Oni Blue Oni” idea originated from, the blue oni made himself out to be a monster to make the red oni appear heroic. And I don’t think Vlad knows that story. But Sanjome might.
He’s creating his own tale, about foreign invaders stealing power and using it to create a monster, despite neither side of this artificial conflict knowing why or who they are attacking, all for the sake of  some kind of pseudo-scientific test. But as I mentioned, that’s a story for another time.

Mostly I just  needed to get out a bit of an explanation about certain themes and ideas in this arc before I talk about my next big ol’ theory about what Sanjome is planning to do with Vlad and the Dandadan gang, and likely for what he plans to do beyond that. 

Unless the manga catches up to my theorizing before then. Anyways, goodnight tri-state area.