Warning! Spoilers ahead for Dandadan chapter 33!
Shonen Jump’s Dandadan shares a similar premise with the manga anthology's more established Jujutsu Kaisen and even follows an almost identical plotline that its predecessor stuck to around the same time in its run. But Dandadan's mangaka Yukinobu Tatsu chose to deviate from the veteran series in certain ways that greatly improve upon Jujutsu Kaisen.
The first 33 chapters of Dandadan focuses more on the fast-evolving relationship between the psychokinetic Momo Ayase and her friend/possible love interest Ken Okarun who is cursed by a powerful spirit like Jujutsu Kaisen's Yuji Itadori. Even newer, possibly secondary characters are given an extensive amount of time in the limelight for the better, including the highly popular but prudish and naïve Aira Shiratori as well as Momo's first boyfriend, the handsome but ridiculous Jiji/Jin Enjoji. This character-centric approach in turn diminishes the antagonists of the series who, like Jujutsu Kaisen, appear to be spirits, in addition to aliens, but that's not a bad thing.
In fact, the actual enemies are still relatively unknown in Dandadan. There are spirits that Momo and Okarun seek to exorcise like the cursed spirits in Jujutsu Kaisen, and there are creepy aliens that appear randomly to steal the heroes' powers. The essential nonexistence of any centralized evil threat in Dandadan doesn't detract from the reader experience, however, since both the aliens and spirits Momo and Okarun fight are so absurdly creative that their ambiguous backgrounds come across more as a captivating mystery than an absent detail.
Mangaka Yukinobu Tatsu fills this gaping hole with more character interactions, depicting heroes who are all so intertwined in each other's lives that their time outside the battlefield in school doesn't feel like unnecessary filler. What further underscores this more impressive cast of characters is that all of them either share or are suspected of having feelings for another, a dynamic that's completely missing at the beginning of Jujutsu Kaisen except for its adorable Yuji/Todo bromance. Momo and Okarun's relationship is the main highlight. What starts as yet another tired trope of "nerdy boy meets beautiful girl" quickly evolves into something more. Mired in misunderstandings and social pressure, their relationship begins with the popular Momo showing the awkward Okarun kindness when others tease him, an act of charity that quickly takes shape as the two bond over their disagreements about the occult and aliens before their lives become bound together by a powerful curse. This core friendship is quickly complicated by a web of feelings, creating a fascinating group dynamic that's always getting deeper.
In Jujutsu Kaisen's early chapters, the relationship between its extensive list of characters was severely lacking to accommodate the series' antagonists Mahito and Pseudo-Geto, with the backstories for Yuji's classmates and school rivals getting crammed in between the numerous fights that transpire during the 30th Annual Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event. These flashbacks felt more like interruptions and didn't help deepen their respective characters unlike in Dandadan. Worst of all, romance is essentially nonexistent in Jujutsu Kaisen. In fact, Yuji's only love interest, Yuko Ozawa, is ultimately sidelined the moment she's introduced. Dandadan already proved to be a vast improvement over Jujutsu Kaisen long before the former series' latest chapter. It's a travesty Dandadan isn't more well known, especially in the context of Jujutsu Kaisen's prior success, though its 18+ rating probably doesn't help.