One of the best parts of reading the latest Dandadan chapter is seeing what wonderfully weird, heartwarming, or just plain tragic story Yukinobu Tatsu has cooked up this time. Chapter 184 was no exception and the chapter's events unfolded in a way that has us hoping chapter 185 comes out soon.
Thankfully, chapter 185 will be released on Tuesday, March 11 at 12am JST, exactly one week after the previous chapter. If you're located on the west coast like me, you can read the new chapter at 8AM PST on Shueisha's Manga Plus app or Viz Media's website. Though known for rarely taking breaks between chapters, Tatsu recently took two extended hiatuses, one in August 2024 and one in January. In late 2024, the anime adaptation of Dandadan was a huge success, and we can't blame Tatsu for wanting to take a break amid all the excitement. It takes time to tell a story of this caliber, so Tatsu's hiatus allowed him to research for the story as well as hopefully get some much-deserved rest and relaxation.
While the gang's still split up, this chapter focuses on Aira, Rin, and Rin's guardian spirit/childhood friend, Mai Kawabanga. Aira enters the school gymnasium only to see Mai holding Rin's severed head and crying while headless basketball players play with other severed heads on the court. Mai tells Aira that Rin was slam dunked (yes, slam dunked) and her head popped off. Thankfully, Rin's head is still alive and speaking, but she needs to reunite with her body or she'll basically be in spiritual limbo for eternity.
Before they can begin to devise a plan, Aira nearly gets slam dunked herself. As she makes her way toward the net, she thinks back to a time she played with her "Babylonian Family" dolls as a kid and how placing her doll in the bath made it appear headless. Like a true leader, she uses this kid logic to realize Rin's body is submerged in the spirit world, and grabs Rin's head with her hair and pulls it up through the basketball net, reconnecting it with her body. Rin then merges with Mai to enter her Idol form and the two prepare to fight the headless basketball players.