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I'll tell you one thing that didn't help Dandy for me - it cost £90 to get both BD collectors editions & took three years for a standard BD release. I'm a Dandy guy, but I ain't dropping that kind of money on it. It's also a pretty straightforward comedy, with simple characters, which repeatedly makes fun of the fact that nothing that happens matters beyond the end of the episode; whereas you can hit Bebop fans in the feels just by saying "Bang." I enjoyed it a lot, but if anyone involved in financing it thought they had the next Bebop on their hands, they should question their career choice.

Oh & something something otaku don't like what they can't masturbate to etc etc.

I agree with a lot of what Jake brought up here. I'm watching thru Space Dandy for the first time with some friends, and while it's really neat to see all the different art styles and stuff in play (like the episode with the teleporter gun and the fish planet), for me the biggest problem is that the episodes don't deliver satisfying stories (like that fish planet one).

I don't mind an anthology series as long as each episode is a satisfying experience, but it seems like that only happens once in a while. Sometimes an episode will have a really neat idea (alternate universe Dandys!) or visuals (that creepy marionette with the ukelele!) but they forget to make a satisfying story out of it, and it basically just comes off as an animation experiment under a "Space Dandy" prompt.

I'm mostly enjoying the show, but i don't expect i'll remember it as one of my favorites.

It was very interesting to read Jacob's thoughts on Space Dandy in a longer format once again.

The series was too different in content and basic approach from Cowboy Bebop to expect a similar response from the global audience, yet one can't help but wonder if a comparable level of enthusiasm could have been achieved under different circumstances. That's what makes this article quite bittersweet.

I suppose it is intriguing to consider Dandy's own personality and its roots in Japanese entertainment as a potential limitation, but curiously enough...the show seems to have performed significantly worse in Japan itself than in foreign markets. Which probably has its own unique explanations, no doubt.

Would a Netflix friendly binge watching experience have helped? That is indeed a popular way to consume media in this day and age, but not every single show works at its best when you reduce digestion time and increase the sheer speed of viewing. There is probably an entirely different article left to be written on the subject, beyond the inherent traits of Space Dandy. It would have still presumably led to more marketing muscle behind it though, so I wouldn't dismiss the possibility in this case.

When Space Dandy was first announced I scoffed at the notion that it could be "the next Cowboy Bebop". Bebop is such a fantastic, timeless classic that cannot be touched by any show of the same genre. As a result I refused to watch Dandy wile it was airing.

It was months after the two seasons of Space Dandy finished airing and heard more measured analysis of it that I finally watched the show. And it is a great anime, filled with interesting ideas and visuals. Space Dandy is its own show, and it never needed to be the next Cowboy Bebop.

I am more curious to know why Cowboy Bebop has this title of greatness attached to it.. As a whole CB was an above average series.. not Great but good. What it did have however were several individual episodes that went above and beyond the sum of everything, and a Music Score that was awesome.. There are other titles that were all released during this time period that did the same thing.. and some even better.. Outlaw Star, Trigun, Eva, Escaflowne.. just off the top of my head.

Space Dandy, was IMO overall a better series then Cowboy Bebop.. even with my Nostalgia colored glasses. And one of the simplest litmus tests I can use is the rewatch test.. Space Dandy.. passes. CB not so much.. maybe select episodes do like real folk blues, or the like but overall I find myself pushing to fully rewatch the series.. and that says alot.

Is Space Dandy an epic anime series.. no it's not Evangelion Razz

but I wouldn't put it below cowboy bebop either.

I can think of yet another reason why. Most of Space Dandy's really great episodes like "I Can't Be the Only One, Baby", "The Transfer Student Is Dandy, Baby", "Rock 'n' Roll Dandy, Baby" and "A World with No Sadness, Baby" were in it's back half that was delayed for about three months before resuming. More than enough time for impressions to form about whether the viewer like what they already saw and wanted to continue.

Interesting article. I also agree that Dandy as a protagonist was a big reason the show didn't have a bigger impact. As for me, I didn't watch Space Dandy back when it aired because it didn't seem like my kind of show, but decided to watch it after all last year. But still not because it was my kind of show.

I think Space Dandy is a good show, but also a very silly comedy without any characters you can genuinely sympathize with or get attached to. I knew it wasn't exactly my cup of tea because the kinds of jokes in Space Dandy don't usually make me laugh. Why did I watch it then?

Because it was a unique and creative production. Space Dandy was a fantastic playground for some of the most talented people in the industry, young and old, only bested by the Japanese Animator Expo in recent memory. It showcase a wide range of artstyles and settings and allows for a maximum of new ideas due to its episodic nature.

But the truth is, there were actually very few episodes I truly enjoyed. I found the show very interesting to watch, but not very entertaining. Only two episodes really stuck with me, and those were the ones with some kind of emotional payoff: The episode with the little girl that awakens Dandy's paternal instincts and the beautiful and poignant fish catching episode.

I can easily see why Space Dandy didn't become the next big show, and it's certainly regrettable that this production didn't live up to the hopes of the staff involved.

I liked Space Dandy - Sure, it could be a bit hit and miss but has some great episodes such as the one I watched only the other day where they go to Meow's home planet (which is a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse). At worst it's dumb fun, at best it can be emotional or thought provoking.

Though one thing it did suffer from is the same nerd-cry of "Why isn't this more Cowboy Bebop", which has plagued the response to everything Watanabe's done since from Samurai Champloo to Terror in Resonance.

Also: Why wasn't pacific rim the next pan's labyrinth
Why wasn't Silver spoon the next Full metal alchemist
Why wasn't dollhouse the next firefly

Arsehole internet commenter stuff aside i agree with one of the above posts, it didn't need to be. I mean samurai champloo is another very different beast from watanabe but we're not making those comparisons.

I tried to watch this show when it first aired on CN but only managed to make it through around 4 episodes. The only part I remember actually finding funny was how they were able to keep finding out where Dandy was. I don't think I'll be revisiting it anytime soon.

I gave up when the show did a High School Musical parody. I hate musicals, the show had long since ended, and it felt like most of the episodes that tried to be funny weren’t while the rest where experimental art pieces that never came together in a satisfying way. It just wasn’t entertaining.

I think it doesn't help that Dandy is so completely opposite of Spike as a character, and so anyone who was looking at Space Dandy as "the next Cowboy Bebop" was going to be inclined to compare the two, and be disappointed. Spike was cool and clever and misunderstood. Dandy is dumb and shallow. Spike is really great at what he does but always comes up empty handed because the world just sucks like that, and I think there's a pretty large audience of people that can relate to that. Dandy... gets what he deserves, sure, but he also often scrapes by on luck despite being an idiot, which can hit a nerve with nerds or other people that feel down on their luck and look at shows like this as an escape.

I was one of the people for whom Space Dandy flopped because of Dandy as a character. I can't say it's because I thought of him as a "bully" per-se, but he's definitely unlikable. And while I don't personally think an unlikable protagonist makes a show unwatchable (lots of people do), none of the other characters in Space Dandy were endearing enough to make up for it. To me, Cowboy Bebop was very much a "come for the action, stay for the feels" kind of show. Space Dandy not only failed on that deeper layer, but the action/comedy wasn't consistently good enough to make up for it, either.

You can’t really compare Dandy with Bebop, because while they do share some superficial traits (space, a small crew of colorful characters, etc), they’re two different animals. They’re not out to accomplish the same aims. But people are always waiting for “the next Cowboy Bebop”, and I’ve found that not only leads to disappointment, but it’s forcing a limitation on the industry from an audience’s perspective.

I love Bebop dearly, it’s still my favorite anime of all time after decades as an anime fan. But you know what else I love? Anime that are nothing like Bebop. Space Dandy has its own merits and it’s own faults that have nothing to do with Bebop, and I doubt even more Bebop would live up to its own impossible standard at this point.

Garforian wrote:

I mean samurai champloo is another very different beast from watanabe but we're not making those comparisons.

We definitely were while that show was airing, for better or for worse.

The comparing it to Bebop is rather not right to me, I mean Bebop was a darker show than Dandy. Dandy just seems too silly at times.

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