Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Space Dandy Season 2
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Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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Hey, I know you guys take everything ridiculously seriously, but don't get so offended. And axe the distasteful sarcasm. Saying that Attack on Titan, Kill la Kill and Sidonia don't have panty shots would have sufficed. I was going to make a footnote about how some certain anime have widespread appeal, but I THOUGHT I could trust you guys to infer that on your own. I believed in you! You can argue against my complaint, but generally Japan's audience has extremely varying tastes then fans around the world. Was I only blaming otaku? It wasn't my intention, didn't think I was using that terminology. |
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L'Imperatore
 Posts: 827 |
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Er... How many good-looking, pair-able (straight or slash) high-schoolers/teenagers are there in Space Dandy?
Wait a minute. How many recurring human characters are there in this show?! |
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Jayhosh
Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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Yeah, that's correct. But the best selling series in the past couple of years don't represent the majority of the anime produced. There are, what, hundreds of anime released every year in Japan? And out of all of those countless anime a majority of them, most would agree, are pretty "been there, done that." At least, that's what a lot of veterans would think. I've only been invested in the medium for about five years and I'm already starting to feel fatigue. It's the creative and unique ones that stand out, and are the reason why I'm wasting all my time watching this stuff in the first place.
K-ON is one of those moe shows that I enjoy. You know, remember how I said I like some of them? It's just the inspiration for an end barrage of uninspired copy cats, that's all. I do get teased for liking it, but that's what you gotta put up with around here. Space Dandy has little fan service, even Boobies has become something of a permanent setting than an actual joke. It's pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I've seen. |
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Jayhosh
Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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And you know what else doesn't have a continuous story arc? Pretty much 75 percent of the western animated TV series ever made. And you know what? A lot of those shows are great. I wouldn't even say that the show's simply "not for everyone." I'd just say that it's not for people who have grown too accustomed to solely viewing anime. Because that seems to be some requirement for modern anime. Having continuity and story arcs and all. People need to accept that there are many different forms of storytelling out there. I'm a big fan a animation in general, not just anime, so I have no problem with Space Dandy's loose story structure. It's nothing new. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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It seems like each week a new episode of season 2 airs and I wind up thinking to myself: "Wow. That was outstanding. Definitely a top 5 episode for the series". I've thought that about 7 times now though so I guess I need to adjust my scale. Really, that's how good this season is. Season 1 had a bunch of good episodes and a few great ones. This season is beginning to feel like amazing episodes actually outnumber the just pretty good ones.
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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Imo Space Dandy's problem (as far as success in Japan) is that it's target audience seems to line up with: (1) American adult-swim watchers, and (2) anime critics. From my perspective, it doesn't seem like an otaku type of show. It's more along the lines of Boondocks, Superjail (with lots less gore), or a more adult version of Adventure Time. Maybe that type of bizarre humor, disjointed plot and over-the-top visuals is just not something that otaku at large can get into. Also, Dandy is not exactly a self-insert type of hero that otaku can fantasize about being. I have had overall fun with the show myself (although I did find the first episode to be a bit too strange). But then, I enjoy the late night Cartoon Network lineup, so maybe I'm in the target audience. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4370 Location: New York |
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That episode last night felt a lot like the space dog one from Season 1 only without its self-aware irony. It's like "You're trying to create an emotion other than confusion or comedy?" And it felt like the show was finally starting to re-rail itself after weeks of terribly unfunny satire episodes or pseduo-intellectual drivel that wasn't artistic or entertaining. That ending was just "No."
I'm not going to get emotionally invested in any relationship when I know the reset button will be mashed at the end of the episode so hard it cracks each and every week. Death gets walked off, Dandy remains poor, some new director tries to create their surrealist masterpiece and fails miserably, rinse and repeat. |
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誤称
Posts: 549 |
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who recognizes this as blatant America-pandering drivel.
It isn't anime. It's anime studios trying to do Ed, Edd and Eddie level crap. Actually, I'll restate that. It's Japan trying to do Johnny Bravo and failing. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4370 Location: New York |
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Johnny Bravo didn't spend half a season on surrealist art projects that failed to be entertaining in every way possible. |
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RogueJedi86
 Posts: 501 |
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The Bebop crew remained poor and they actually carried over between episodes. What's their excuse? What's the difference? I love Space Dandy, and love that each week they get to try something new. It beats being like all the other anime out on the market right now. Creativity in a moe-obsessed, otaku-pandering society. |
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Just-another-face
Posts: 324 |
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This has to be the single stupidest and most ignorant comment I've seen yet. How is this show "blatant America-pandering drivel"? Ed, Edd and Eddie? Johnny Bravo? Where the hell do you even see those shows' impression in Space Dandy? All your post tells me is that you hate non-Japanese cartoons and that anime is sullying itself trying to imitate them (which, by the way, it's not). |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4370 Location: New York |
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Ongoing plot vs. stand alone. When I know that all the relationships are played for comedy and that the reset button will hit, unlike Spike who never starts at square 1 with the personal storyline that affects him and his lost love Julia, trying to have a moment fails miserably. Hell, the show itself has lampshaded this on numerous occasions, making fun of overly emotional sob stories with the space dog and not having consequences like Honey's unimportant origins. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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I don't know if I would compare it to E E and E, but I do think there are lots of similarities between Johnny Bravo and Dandy as far their characterization. |
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Cille
 Posts: 7 |
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Dai Sato said some very interesting and thread-relevant things at this year's AnimeFest, which was very Dandy-centric with 5 Japanese creators and 2 American VAs as guests. All of them, incidentally, really loved the show even beyond what you would expect from people playing up their own projects.
A few years ago Sato talked about how the industry in Japan was not really friendly to new, original anime concepts because no studios wanted to take risks on anything that wasn't a sure-bet franchise. Now here we are with a show being produced that is incredibly original on many levels (not based on a pre-existing work, being created by myriad different writers and directors, being presented in conjunction with American TV, fairly experimental in storytelling and art styles, etc.). So what changed in the industry to allow such a show to be produced? Sato's answer was that there actually seemed to be a backlash against the moe otaku-bait of the last few years (he amusingly used the term "anti-moe"), and people wanted to see things that were different and creative and maybe threw back to whatever's considered retro-cool at this point since show trends tend to go in cycles. So somebody over there is realizing that there is an audience for things that aren't moe or based on bestselling manga, and that's why we're seeing an upswing in more creative and arguably better shows in the last year or so. Part of it also seems to come down to the power of Shinichiro Watanabe, and they actually had a lot of writers, artists and musicians who requested to work on the show because they respected Watanabe's work so much. It's unfortunate that this isn't translating into sales over there, but that seems to be a recurring trend with Watanabe's shows being more popular in the US than they are in Japan. I will say that if they want to sell more stuff, it would be good to make that stuff available to people who will buy it. I don't know what the merch scene is like in Japan, but I've been to five anime cons since Dandy debuted and have yet to see a single official piece of Dandy merch for sale in a dealer's room. And most of what I've seen online is bootleg stuff on Redbubble. If I could convince them to make more episodes by buying a Boobies or Dropkix t-shirt, I totally would. |
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Jayhosh
Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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A LOT of These comments are pretty stupid. It's like I tried to get across earlier, anime critics are really cynical and will find a complaint in pretty much everything. So anything that is different from the norm is "America-pandering drivel?" Okay. Or it's just terrible humor. Which is bull considering that humor is a completely subjective topic, and they all know that. And of course there's the people who still complain about it not having a continuous plotline or there being no consequences to characters' actions. Really? That's not a flaw, it's the show's style and structure. I personally almost always enjoy the experiments in episodes. But like I said, it's all up to your own personal taste in humor, so I'm not saying they're wrong for it not being their style. But calling it a Johnny Bravo or EE&E rip off is just ridiculous. The shows style is in a league all its own. I'm okay if it doesn't appeal to the otaku fanbase, it's not like I need their approval to enjoy something. It's obvious that we don't share the same taste anyway. They'd probably hate Rick and Morty too just because of its episodic nature, and that show is genius. |
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