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Netflix's Dan Da Dan has one of the catchiest opening numbers of all the streamer's anime, and if you know anything about the medium, that's a big deal. In particular, it's the band Creepy Nuts that are responsible for this song, titled Otonoke, a fact fans of the series probably already know. But do they (and let's face it, you) actually know what the song means? What do those catchy, upbeat Japanese lyrics actually say? Thanks to one Dan Da Dan devotee on Reddit, we now have an excellent answer.

Let's back up a bit - I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the easiest way to get an English translation of Otonoke is just by copy/pasting the Japanese lyrics into Google translate and having the program turn the Dan Da Dan song into English for you. However, as anyone who speaks multiple languages knows, no two dialects perfectly translate to another - things like slang, different grammar, and imprecise word translation are all reasons why.

Take, for example, this section of Otonoke in the original Japanese I've selected at random:

Kokoro karada atama

Natsukashii atataka sa

Ashimoto ni ima hana ga saita naraba

Kurayami kara osaraba, ay

Tobitatte yuku kanata, woah!

Now, let's run it through Google translate:

Heart, body, head, nostalgic warmth

If flowers were to bloom at my feet now

Say goodbye to the darkness

And fly away to the faraway place, oah!

As you can see, that doesn't make much sense, which was exactly what Reddit user u/K-Lionheart set out to solve.

In a post made in November of 2024, u/K-Lionheart translates Otonoke not just word by word, but so that the song actually makes sense. In particular, so that the song makes sense to a western audience. "I've found all the english translations are quite literal," writes u/K-Lionheart, "and for a lot of us westerners the urban legends and meanings go over our heads. So I thought it'd be a fun challenge to try adapting the lyrics while referencing western lore we'd be more familiar with! Try to spot the references!"

With that in mind, let's take a look at that same section Google worked on above, as translated by u/K-Lionheart:

Heart and mind and body overflow

With a dreamlike warmth that we both know

Flowers bloom on the side of our yellow brick road

Cast aside the darkness far away, ay

You and me, we'll fly so far away (woo!)

Now that sounds like an anime opener. Not just because it rhymes, comes in complete sentences and, well, makes sense, but with that Wizard of Oz reference (which I am not 100% certain appears in the original Japanese), we can tell what kind of story the song is talking about.

Fans of Dan Da Dan can check out the entire English lyrics to Creepy Nuts' Otonoke (translated by the heroic u/K-Lionheart) right here, so when Dan Da Dan season 2 premieres in July of 2025, you can be ready.

In the meantime, Dan Da Dan season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.

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Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
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• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead
• 40 years after its debut, Dragon Ball is a pop culture force like few others
• Dan Da Dan's most emotionally devastating sequence proves that sometimes words aren't necessary
• Gnosia, the "Among Us meets Everything Everywhere All at Once" visual novel is getting an anime adaptation that needs to be as weird as possible
• Assassination Classroom is a Shonen anime well worth revisiting, ten years on
• Sony is making big moves to own the anime industry by buying Kadokawa, publisher of Oshi no Ko, Sword Art Online, and Konosuba
• 2025 is the year One Punch Man season 3 finally adapts the cosmically weird Monster Association Arc and I can't wait