Warning! Spoilers ahead for Dandadan chapter 38!

A Mongolian death worm or Kuragari in Shonen Jump's Dandadan takes Lord Voldemort's Basilisk from Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets to a whole new dark level.

The defining characteristic both beasts share - besides their massive, serpentine bodies - is that they are forced to rely on hearing when hunting. Danadan's Kuragari is a massive man-eating earthworm cryptid that's inherently blind, forcing it to depend on the sounds that reverberate from various surfaces to locate its prey. Of course, Voldemort's Basilisk could originally see but lost the ability when Dumbledore's meddlesome phoenix Fawkes ripped out its eyes. The Basilisk's blindness, however, becomes such a defining characteristic in its battle against Harry that it doesn't matter that it was inflicted. While Harry Potter's monstrous serpent leverages all forms of sound to locate the eponymous wizard, the Kuragari in Dandadan can only hear certain reverberations when hunting the heroes Momo Ayase, Jin "Jiji" Enjoji and Ken Takakura aka Okarun in chapter 38.

Related: My Hero Academia's Traitor Arc is Ignoring a Massive Conflict

How exactly the death worm actually diverges from the Basilisk is partly why Dandadan received its 18+ rating. Instead of Petrifying its victims like Harry Potter's giant serpent, the Kuragari somehow causes certain prey to feel compelled to take their own life. During the death worm's relentless attack, Jiji not only has to contend with the overly massive cryptid itself but with his friends Momo and Okarun trying desperately to end themselves. Although Dandadan has yet to explain why Jiji isn't affected by this phenomenon, readers assume it has something to do with the fact that he doesn't have any supernatural powers. Meanwhile, Momo is a spirit medium and Okarun currently possesses every part of a problematic spirit known as the Turbo Granny except her consciousness, which resides in a cat statue.

The entire arc involving the Basilisk-esque death worm is one of many random incidents sprinkled throughout Dandadan. In keeping up with the manga's pattern of failing to identify a "Big Bad" that controls the malicious spirits and aliens that Momo and Okarun must fight against, the only reason why Momo and Okarun are battling the death worm is because Momo's first boyfriend Jiji randomly appears one-day asking Momo to use her supernatural powers to investigate his house that he suspects is haunted.

But much like how Dandadan is becoming notorious for failing to string seemingly unrelated random events together, the unsettling characteristic that separates its death worm from Harry Potter's Basilisk is bolstering one of the manga's best features: The strong relationships between its cast of characters. The latest development in the series' intriguing romance - that's starting to look like an uneven love triangle plus one - includes the friction between Jiji and Okarun. Although both characters are in love with Momo, Okarun can't find a way to dislike his recent rival - and not without a lack of trying. This despite the fact that Jiji is an overly handsome flirt and that Okarun is overprotective of Momo since she's his first real friend. This failure can be blamed on Jiji being uncharacteristically goofy and friendly despite his jock-like persona. It was only inevitable that he and Okarun would become fast friends who even bicker over absurd things like who loves Momo more through even more ridiculously ambivalent means such as trying to one-up the other based on which of Momo's qualities they like most as though this somehow helps either of their cases.

Dandadan's Kuragari is boosting this dynamic through Jiji's attempts to prevent Okarun from killing himself, a compulsion that the death worm is imposing on him, proving that Jiji's relationship with Okarun is legit along with his overly friendly persona. Like Okarun, readers are having difficulties disliking Jiji - and the Harry Potter-esque death worm is making it harder.

Next: Dragon Ball Super's New Villain Just Powered-Up a DBZ Threat's Power