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That isn’t to say the back half is bad, because it’s still Space Dandy. I like these characters and the presentation is strong enough for me to keep sticking around seeing the next director take a stab at it, but I do think there are limitations on how much I really want to see from that. Considering how much of a collaborative effort Space Dandy was to produce it amazes me that I was fine with it doing more than what it sets out to do. Tons of artists were attached to this, some of whom are names a Toonami viewer may have heard before, such as Masaaki Yuasa, Sayo Yamamoto, and Shingo Natsume. However, I feel like the back half loses me with the rotating episode director concept because the next thirteen episodes have many different art style changes that felt disjointed at a certain point. For example, episode eighteen “The Big Fish is Huge, Baby.” I didn’t remember what the episode was about before watching it again and even after seeing it, it left my mind almost instantly once it ended, because it’s just not memorable outside of the art direction. Plus, going from the light-hearted parody of High School Musical in episode seventeen’s “The Transfer Student is Dandy, Baby” to the far less goofy tone in episode eighteen, where the episode is more focused on building up the atmosphere and getting to its final moment was jarring to say the least.
I’m going to bring up the penultimate episode, episode twenty five, “Dandy’s Day in Court, Baby” because it is easily the weakest episode. It is light on laughs and doesn’t feel like it accomplishes much outside of setting everything up for the final episode. The whole episode on its own is fine enough; I don’t mind a courtroom comedy, but they clearly didn’t write with humor in mind, instead being more of an investigative “whodunit” type of episode. To put it simply, this episode didn’t need to exist in this form and is easily the worst out of all of them. They could’ve had a more entertaining episode fill this slot while still setting things up for the finale. I think it could have been easy to have Dandy failing and capturing an alien somewhere and the Gogol Empire capturing him.
I do think a lot of Space Dandy’s appeal was the method it was delivered through, airing once a week on TV is much prefered rather than watching it on Blu-ray or binging it on a streaming service. This is mostly because of how episodic this series is, so it feels more suited to watching just one episode, then taking a break for a week and waiting for the next one. Maybe that’s one reason why it didn’t achieve the same status as Cowboy Bebop, as while Bebop was an episodic show, it had its own continuity and story it wanted to tell. You can binge-watch Bebop and not feel like it’s throwing a lot at the viewer. Space Dandy is not like that at all, and binge watching it feels like it throws a lot of concepts and ideas at you without space to breathe.
In the wake of Space Dandy, tons of shows similar to it have come out, like Konosuba and the first season of One Punch Man, but where they differ is those shows still have a following despite their long gaps between installments. As much as I have criticized Dandy season two’s approach of letting the artist dictate the direction of the episode, I don’t think there were any that were that bad. In fact there were quite a few that were very good. Obviously, episode fourteen comes to mind, but I also liked episode twenty, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Dandy, Baby.” This one is about Dandy forming a band and it is as hilarious as it sounds. I don’t want to ruin how it ends but trust me it’s both funny and an earworm.
Episode twenty-two, “We’re All Fools, So Let’s All Dance, Baby” is also a highlight. This episode is all about the crew of the Aloha Oe joining a dancing competition to capture a rare alien. It’s one of the standouts because the art style compliments the goofiness of the episode itself and is also another laugh out loud episode with some great moments, especially the final act, while having amazing animation.
Lastly, I also really liked episode twenty-three, “Lovers Are Trendy, Baby”. A whole episode dedicated to pairing up Scarlet, an inspector at the Registration Center, and Dandy. It’s an odd pairing but it works. They have enough on-screen chemistry that they bounce off each other. I do wish that Space Dandy had more singular episodes focusing on other characters like Scarlet as a whole, because I like her character and feel like they could’ve had her in more episodes with Dandy. I get that the overall focus should be spent on Space Dandy himself, since he is the star of his show, but more episodes with the other characters could go along way with growing them further past being a punchline for a joke.
It’s sad to me that Space Dandy never achieved that recognizability in the western anime world like Watanabe’s previous works, because Space Dandy is a great show on its own terms and one that’ll be stuck in your head for a while after watching it. Whatever the reason may be to explain why it hasn’t stuck around, it’s beyond me, but to me I’ll always associate it with Toonami’s best year. When I said 2014 felt like a celebration, it felt like it, with every show that aired feeling like a big get for the block, even if they were old shows. Nowadays, that isn’t the case. The block just announces lineups, with perhaps the potential that they make topical promos for them. Maybe that’s just me, but it’s how I felt and it’s something that I’ve written about previously. To me, nothing will ever top 2014 just for the sheer amount of quality and quantity of under the radar shows the block managed to air. I’d make the case that outside of being the test bed for simuldubs, Space Dandy was also the show to convince Adult Swim to invest into producing its own anime originals, due to the impossibility of getting another broadcast world premiere, so producing and making their own originals for the block would be the better investment in the long run. Plus, it generates buzz for your network if you can produce these original projects, and even better, if they all review well and are genuine hits outside of the audience you already have. We obviously can have a whole separate conversation on that, but to bring it back to Dandy, the show remains one of my favorite shows Toonami has ever aired. It also felt like a particular end for Adult Swim, at least for a while. This would remain the last new Watanabe series to premiere on Adult Swim, with subsequent Watanabe works airing elsewhere. Of course, the upcoming Lazarus will be airing in just a few weeks, so we’ll see how that turns out in due time. In any case, I find that Space Dandy is the peak of Watanabe and a show that I will never forget.
