The end of episode 13 showed us the standard “Tsudzuku”, or “to be continued”. You’d better keep your words, Space Dandy!
But still, what a ride, what a ride. Space Dandy is a series that was totally worth it, and even the final three episodes pushed all of the right buttons with me. Again, vastly different stories, again everything comes together in every episode, and again we get to see lots of hilarity and artistic licenses being pushed.
I read the comments that you all posted for my previous entry on this series, and it just goes to show that you can’t please everyone. I was criticized for criticizing Kill la Kill for expecting something it is not, and at the same time I was criticized with Space Dandy for enjoying it for exactly what it advertised to be: a very silly series. Ultimately, this shows that things just boil down to one thing: did you enjoy it. And different people really look for totally different things in a series.
One big example is that I find storylines to be overrated. Sure, a good storyline is amazing to have and all, but I don’t find it the most important aspect of a series: it’s just one of a collection of equally important ingredients, and I’m much more interested in whether it works in combination with everything else. Sure, it can make or break a series, but there are plenty of gray areas inbetween: a series like Space Dandy has no clear cut storyline other than what happens in the individual episodes; but that works wonderfully. Although I do have to be honest here: episode 13 did not really feel like the ending of the series. It was just another episode, and even though it was a very good one, I do feel like the creators missed an opportunity to give closure. Again: you’d better have that second season actually planned in order to make up for this…
This really reminded me of why I originally became such a big fan of anime: Space Dandy gets it for me. It takes the viewer across a fantastic ride full of creativity and charming characters, great music, stories that stretch the concept that the setting originally started with, and animation that gets used at exactly the right times. What I mean by that is that the animation is used to make the characters expressive. When characters talk, they talk with expression. During the action scenes, you can feel the characters move. Too often I just see this done wrong, even with equally big budgets. Too often I just see animation way too focused at looking crisp (I also hate the practice of highlighting animation flaws using only screenshots; I mean, come on people, use your head), or animation that is too busy at looking flashy, rather than focusing at movement.
Episode 12 for some strange reason made me laugh the hardest out of the entire series. Episode 11 meanwhile was just the most surreal one of the series. The creators really did something very special here, because with this they added even more episodes to the growing list of stand-out episodes in this series. There are so many that make this worth watching. Episode thirteen was a bit of a step down, but still very adorable for what it was.
I’m not sure whether I’m going to write a review for this series, because I also again want to be able to cover the new season. I’m also doubting whether I should still use ratings. I originally used them for my own administration: to catalog which ones I prefer over others in an easy way. However I noticed that people on the internet for some reason take these ratings way too seriously. I’ve seen so many people get their panties in a twist because I rated something one point too low, or gave an “unfair” potential rating. I mean really guys: they’re only numbers.
Second season was already confirmed for Summer. Space Dandy is supposed to be split-cour.
I think you have a point about good writing. I think presentation and style are equally important, which is why enjoyed Kill la Kill so much (that, and the characters were fun). It’s also why I don’t like Mushishi. Sure the stories are good I guess, but I don’t like how it is presented. Dandy had the opposite problem, I loved that every episode had a totally different feel, and made the individual episodes stand out more than those in Mushishi. But some of those stories were REALLY bad, and as a whole the characters don’t make up for its lack of story (again, the same problem with Mushishi for me).
Think of Space Dandy this way: Watanabe writes out the basic designs and framework for the main characters down to their likes and dislikes. He then gathers up the talented directors and writers he knows and basically says “Make me a 25 minute movie with the characters.” You are getting 13 parallel stories instead of 1 13 episode story.
FYI: Some people have found hints and put together and interesting theory that there may ACTUALLY be an overarching story that has something to do with why it is 13 parallel stories with a seeming ‘reset’ button.
One of the said hints is in the library episode when the book writes down Gel’s research and you see a tree branch diagram on the final page.
@psgels I think the biggest issue is that of lot of these so-called anime ‘fans’ are only actually ‘fans’ of one particular thing not anime as whole (which includes harems, story of the week, slice of life, action, deep thought, etc) When a show is outside of that special area that they like they bash it and anyone who likes it because they feel compelled to.
This show said exactly what it would be from the get-go and stuck with, it wasn’t like SF that had no idea what it wanted to be and left some of us like what the hell? To still be complaining about lack of overall story at this point is beyond rediculous and you should just ignore those people.
“Is that your final Dandy?”
I’m really glad we’re getting more Space Dandy this summer! It was quite a fun first half and I liked seeing how each director/writer team used the characters and setting.
I really enjoyed the last ep. It reminded me of some of the more dramatic Samurai Champloo episodes (such as the one where Jin falls for the woman who is being sold to a brothel to cover her husband’s gambling debt)
Preach it psgels!
I also followed your recommendation on Attack on the Titan. Damn good series and the soundtrack was amazing. Another manga to follow.
I bursted into tears during ep 13 of Space Dandy. QT has been my all-time favorite character for a long time now and when he got hurt, my poor little heart just couldn’t take it anymore. It was a very Tachikoma moment. These pure little darlings just want to set it right in the world and others just keep messing it up!
You are a loser.
I feel that Space Dandy could use less bashing from the crowds – to be honest; for me – it is one of those animes that I look forward to for it’s easygoing nature.