Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Post-bebop.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 11, 2015

What hath Cowboy Bebop: The Complete Series wrought? Or perhaps more appropriately, what has anime icon Shinichiro Watanabe, the creative mastermind who helped give the world the beloved Spike Spiegel and his ragtag assemblage of cohorts, wrought? Much as with Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo: Complete Series, another one of Watanabe’s most notable directorial efforts, Space Dandy is a kaleidoscopic hodgepodge of styles, ideas and madcap characters. If the anime doesn’t quite rise to the level of Watanabe’s most inspired efforts, it’s still a manic and often quite funny enterprise, one that traffics in completely silly humor a lot of the time as it explores a premise that is generally fairly reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop. The titular Space Dandy is a somewhat more frenetic “cousin” of sorts to Cowboy Bebop’s Spike, and indeed like Spike, Dandy spends his time cavorting through space, acting in style if not in actual job title much like a bounty hunter, rounding up various alien miscreants. If Spike’s quest was based on a kind of law and order premise, Dandy’s treks are more “zoological” in method, as he attempts to ferret out “strange new worlds” (and/or beings). Along the way, he’s helped by his hopelessly out of date robot QT, a rotund little R2 D2- esque fellow who may in fact remind some folks of that “clever nu nu” that used to haunt Teletubbies episodes. Also on hand in the catlike Meow, a creature whose actual name Dandy and QT find unpronounceable. This “odd triple” (so to speak) careens through an often bizarre and even nonsensical set of escapades in the opening season’s episodes, without much continuity even within any given episode, let alone across the series as a whole.

The series begins with a patently silly monologue by Dandy where he berates guys who focus only on women’s bosoms, making the point that “down below” is “where the action is,” so to speak. He then completely subverts his own hypothesis by taking QT to the local Boobies (a kind of interstellar Hooters). Dandy is on a quest to visit every Boobies in every nook and cranny of the known universe, if only to “sample” various alien breasts (the show rather insouciantly refers to Boobies as a breastaurant).

It’s at this particular Boobies that Dandy and QT run into Meow, initially mistaking the hapless white creature for a wanted alien. That at least sets up the focal trio, who then go on to maraud through a sometimes overtly surreal set of adventures that finds the series simply shifting in both design aesthetic, point of view and even basic plot points at the veritable drop of a hat (or, in Dandy’s case, pompadour). The show is relentlessly manic in much the same way Cowboy Bebop was, simply going full throttle without much use for traditional narrative structure or “character arcs.”

There are various through lines, though they’re not attended to in a traditional way. One of the overriding trajectories actually has Dandy as the target of a hunter of sorts, in this case the nefarious Doctor Gel. It’s indicative of how unusually Space Dandy unspools its information that the cosmic war which brings Gel into contact (or at least hopeful contact) with Dandy is simply tossed out as a throwaway line at one point, seemingly no less or no more important than a bunch of other data that either a character or the narrator spews with reckless abandon as the series cartwheels from idea to idea.

There is very little depth or substance in Space Dandy, despite occasional fleeting efforts to invest various characters with a bit of back story or relatively more traditional character motivation. Instead, this anime exists as a carnival of sorts, a series of “booths” where various genres and concepts are sent up with hilarity, only to be forsaken once the next set of entertainment options comes down the pike. The result is often breathless, and this is one series where the viewer is best advised to simply go with the flow, not worrying about whether or not things make sense (typically they don’t) or even whether a character’s supposed demise is anything other than a passing chimera.

Much as Cowboy Bebop played with genre conventions and anime tropes, serving up a completely distinctive casserole of seemingly incompatible ingredients, Space Dandy evinces the same general insouciant savoir faire in simply delivering a huge, overstuffed meal that is cobbled together from the unlikeliest menu items imaginable. Dandy’s dunderheaded but ultimately pretty sweet take on his surroundings gives the series at least a putative grounding in something approaching accessibility, and the supporting cast, both heroes and villains, are typically colorful and incredibly distinctive. This is one anime that is “far out” in virtually every sense.

Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Space Dandy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is often an incredibly bright and colorful production, one which exploits both stunning primaries and a whole range of secondary tones that make the series almost like a psychedelic hallucination come alive at times (not that there's anything wrong with that). Character designs are very distinctive, with sharp, consistent line detail and great attention paid to things like Dandy's big pile of hair. One of the most fascinating things about the series is the wide variability in design aesthetic, something which can be seen by perusing the screenshots accompanying this review. Characters "morph" both within episodes and especially between them, and it's notable that even with these shifting looks, the audience is never at a loss to define "who's who." Aside from some transitory banding in some lighter gradients, this is a problem free presentation which should easily delight the series' fans and make it an unexpected pleasure for newcomers to the show.

Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Space Dandy features a much publicized new English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and the original Japanese language track in Dolby TrueHD 2.0. This is one case where even original language purists may want to opt for the dub, for not only does the surround activity markedly up the show's already frenetic ambience, the voice work in the English language version seems to be more manically in tune with the series' own approach. The Japanese language version, while perfectly enjoyable, seems weirdly restrained when thrust up against the more hyperbolic English version. In any event, fidelity is top notch, and the English version offers consistent immersion and some boisterous LFE. There are no problems of any kind to address in this review.

Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Episode 1 Commentary features Zach Bolton, Alison Viktorin, Joel McDonald and Ian Sinclair.


• Episode 10 Commentary features Joel McDonald, David Wald and Marcus Stimac.

Disc Two:

• Dandy Guy in Space (1080p; 34:38) is an overview of the series featuring interviews with various FUNimation folks.


• Volume 1 Teaser Trailer (1080p; 2:02)


• Promotional Video 1 (1080p; 1:12)


• Promotional Video 2 (1080p; 1:30)


• Commercials (1080p; 00:49)


• Blu-ray and DVD Commercials (1080p; 00:34)


• Textless Opening Song (1080p; 1:33)


• Textless Closing Song (1080p; 1:32)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:33)

Space Dandy: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Space Dandy pretty much had me at the get go, with a bright, colorful, chaotic presentation that just kind of bypassed the rational brain and went to whatever childlike cerebral center is stimulated by vivid colors, lots of activities, and nonsensical happenings. Don't expect any earth (or other planet) shattering developments in this show. Instead, simply sit back, take a deep breath, and enjoy one of the most bizarre anime roller coaster rides in recent memory. Technical merits are very strong, the supplemental package is enjoyable, and Space Dandy comes Highly recommended.