Space Dandy

This series was bought to my attention by my dad and honestly, I'm surprised I didn't hear about this one before! It caused a lot of hype before airing since it comes from the creator of the well-received Cowboy Bepop. Given the international success of Cowboy Bepop, each episode of Space Dandy was aired in America a few hours before the Japanese release. This raises expectations greatly, after all only popular anime is released internationally!
The premise of the series is that the suave looking but entirely incompetent Space Dandy is an alien bounty hunter who hunts down new and rare aliens with his out-dated and often sarcastic robot QT and the lazy, free-loading alien Meow. The plot, however, is non-existent.
There is no development from episode to episode, in fact, after every episode the show resets. Main characters die? Reset. Stuck in a time loop? Reset. Turn into zombies? Reset. This means there's no tension or drama because there's never the risk of any consequences. I found this incredibly infuriating, I kept thinking I'd accidentally skipped an episode! I like development and more importantly, I want closure! It's lazy writing really. So in reality, there is no plot. There is only comedy. As such, your enjoyment of the show hinges on whether you share a sense of humor with the producers. The simplistic and vulgar jokes definitely match the sense of humor of a juvenile boy. The biggest joke in the series is Space Dandy's love of 'Boobies', the restaurant which is clearly parody of Hooters. That's probably the only constant thing in this series!
Moving on, the characters in Space Dandy are a motley crew of personalities. Space Dandy himself does not amuse me, his cocky play-boy antics bore me and I quickly found his incompetence boring and predictable. The other members of his crew are a lot more pleasing. QT is a super cute robot whose incredibly human reactions never cease to amuse me. Despite being an AI, QT is often the most level headed of the lot! Finally Meow, the feline looking alien who joins the team in the first episode, his role varies a lot depending on the context but he is often abused for the shows comedy. Name-calling from Space Dandy and being eaten by an alien, Meows life isn't an easy one. However I love the fact that he spends most his time living like a typical teenager constantly on his phone posting photos, a messy bedroom and his complete apathy to most things in life. It just makes me laugh to see a lazy teenager in the body of a cat-like alien!
Given the fact that the English dubbed aired before the Japanese, I think it's necessary to comment upon it. I often dislike English dubs because the voice actors either sound expressionless or like they're trying to hard. I believe it's because the directors aim is to mimic the Japanese version rather than create a convincing English one. With Space Dandy however, the English dub is not just an after thought, and I think that has encouraged them a bit more. Of course, this show calls for over the top voicing and although that sounds easy enough, it's surprising how difficult it actually is! Nonetheless, all the voices in Space Dandy are top-notch, I particularly love QT's English voice, I know that it's highly edited, but it just sounds so perfect. I switched between dub and sub whilst watching the series and I honestly can't pick one over the other! There is just one thing I'd say the Japanese dub has done better than the English: the dramatic narrator. The English dub is just lacking a bit of energy to successfully pull off the comical drama that's in the original Japanese.
I watched the series turning a blind eye to the sexism but I can't not mention it in my review! The Boobies restaurant in the first place is obviously degrading to women, but Space Dandy's attitude to any females he encounters is offensive! I particularly liked the line 'You're not an adult, adult women have breasts!' (don't quote me on that) because of course the only qualification for being an adult is breasts.
In the end, I think this show has a pretty niche audience. You have to have the sense of humor of a child, no interest in the plot and the ability to ignore sexism. Given those criteria it's a great show! The animation is bright and colourful, the characters are bubbly and fun and some of the jokes are actually quite clever (in their own simplistic way). And personally I did enjoy it, I'd rather some plot over a few gags any day, but it definitely made me laugh! However, I feel like the specifications are a bit too specific for Space Dandy to warrant a very high rating. Will I be watching season 2 when it's aired in July? Who knows, but I don't think that the 13 episodes of Space Dandy were a waste of my time. What did you think?

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