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Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Strike Up The Dandy
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 902 Location: Southern California |
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It is always depressing to find out that Space Dandy is a giant commercial flop in Japan, in terms of disc sales and merchandising. Yes, some may argue this show is aimed towards Western fans and never deemed to excel in Japanese market to begin with, but consider great sales number of Cowboy Bebop's recent BD boxes, I really think this show would done well, but unfortunately, not only this show ranks really low in any kind of official or unofficial Japanese poll, the disc sales...ughhhh...
Space dandy is certainly a great anime experiment. Did it succeed? Artistically, yes! Commercially, not sure... |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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It was maybe misplaced for a time, but it's definitely not lost. Plus I think the majority of people seek out that piece just for the rotoscope driving scenes and tend to forget about Bobby's struggles as a youth.
That's pretty much the only way, it didn't catch on in Japan and all of the revenue will have to come via FUNi/AS unless fans go through the effort of buying the Japanese discs where their money/voice will be louder. I don't particularly know how BONES keeps managing to make originals when they falling flat on their face, even their adaptations are causing them trouble. Also between Dandy and Zank doing really poor, I wonder if Watanabe will be kept away from blowing massive budgets on failures for the time being, both of these shows looked fantastic, which means they were stupid expensive. I probably liked the Lovers are Trendy, Baby, but only the subdued and quiet bits before the boyfriend shows up. Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Sun Oct 05, 2014 11:27 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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Well, Space Dandy is almost nothing like Cowboy Bebop, both visually and narratively. Bebop's visuals are dingy and gritty, and Dandy's are garish and bombastic. Narratively, Bebop is mostly a serious story, while Dandy is a comedy with extremely dumb humor. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Good article, but you are giving way too much credit to episode directors and you seem to ignore the fellows who did the storyboarding. I have seen other works by Masahiro Mukai and they are all fairly generic. The reason why his episodes were so good is that he was working off storyboards done by two really talented directors, Goro Taniguchi ( he also storyboarded Wacky Races episode, safe to say that his comedic timing shows through storyboards ) and Kotaro Tamura. Taniguchi is already well known, but Tamura is young talent who did fantastic job with Noragami. He really is a guy to keep an eye on, I am happy that Bones promoted him to a full director. Same goes for Satoshi Saga, fairly generic director but he had Fumihiko Takayama ( a veteran whose Space Dandy work was first in 11 years, I think ) backing him. The opening and ending sequence of that episode heavily resembled Takayama's style. I might add that animators weren't mentioned at all. A bunch of really young ones like Keiichiro Watanabe, Norfumi Kugai and BahiJD got to perfect their own animation and find their own style, hell even Gosei Oda noticeably improved at the end of the show. While the veterans like Yutaka Nakamura got to experiment and try out new techniques.
Not really, ZnT looked good mostly due to cinematography ( fairly unrelated to budget ), but there very few pieces of animation that stood out, that is why I think they didn't lose that much money on that project. |
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Marzan
 Posts: 518 |
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It's a massive artistic success, specially the 2nd cour, were almost every episode was a visual treat. It's a shame that a show like this has flopped saleswise in a world were Infinite Stratos sells tens of thousands of copies. Sigh.
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Keichitsu0305
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Visually speaking, Space Dandy was the most outrageous anime I've seen since Redline and Kemonozune. Story wise, each episode was a hit or miss due to comedy or drama and, in some cases, I would prefer Funimation's English dub over the Japanese dub. Like the opening narration of "Lovers Are Trendy, Baby" was hilarious.
I highly doubt BONES will give Space Dandy a film since the DVD/BD sales have been so poor (season 2 might even be worse since sequels to more popular shows came out in the Summer 2014 season). But, 1st volume sales aren't a great indicator of long term success. For drama, my favorites are "I'm Never Remembering You, Baby" and "A Merry Companion Is a Wagon in Space, Baby" and for visuals, Masaaki Yuasa's "Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Baby". Here's some merch from CDJapan (which ships to the U.S); there's even a Dandy figure. |
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bobob101
 Posts: 201 |
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My own personal favorite Dandy was the episode with the one and only Ton Jravolta. I love the music in this episode so much, from the rappish ending theme too the swinging music with all the wacky aliens dancing.
This show really is a who's who of the Anime Industry. I would highly recommend this show to people who might not like anime, but want to learn more about the animation process in general. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4533 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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My favourite episode was "The Transfer Student is Dandy, Baby" because Sobakasu/Freckles was probably the cutest cutie on the show ass far as I am concerned (see what I did there?). She starts off with the "3 3" eyes, but blossoms as the episode progresses.
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4157 |
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Depressing for some but I just don't like Watanabe's work, baby. I've already been burned three times so what's the incentive to try a fourth? Baby? |
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Thatguy3331
 Posts: 1799 |
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As much as I would LOVE to see a space dandy movie, I doubt it'll happen, but who knows. Years later Trigun got a movie due to western interest and that wasn't popular in japan at all.
As far as the show itself I really enjoyed it but I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, especially since it was more weird than funny to me (although there were a few episodes that made me lose my shit especially in season 2). I consider it comically passive in that I don't really recall any forced jokes just stuff that went along with the narrative, but that can be a bit subjective.Still I loved how weird this show was and it was the only thing that kept me up for toonami. If I had to pick a single favorite aside from the "a world with no sadness baby" it would probably be slow and steady wins the race baby or sometimes you can't live with dying baby, since comedic wise, those were the ones I remember laughing the most through out. (though the "season 2 premiere came pretty close) |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4533 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Another episode I really loved was "Lovers are Dandy, Baby" because it thematically reminded me very much of one of my favourite Patlabor episodes, "Our Karuizawa" (the one where section chiefs Gotoh and Nagumo were stuck together in a love hotel during a storm).
Narratively, the episodes weren't that similar, since Dandy and Scarlet went to all sorts of different places, but the discomfort and tension between a man and a woman who know each other very well professionally but not really all that much socially forced to be intimate (in the literal, not-an-euphenism-for-sex sense) with one another because of circumstances was palpable in a very similar way. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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Well, I don't think there's any connection between Bebop and Dandy other than Watanabe. I don't think it strange at all that the Cowbow Bebop BDs can do well in Japan and Space Dandy flops. Remember, a ton of other anime do pretty poorly in JP home video sales too. If I were making a choice in shelling out a few hundred dollars for one freaking show, I would definitely choose Bebop over Dandy too. That is not to say Space Dandy is terrible, but only its place in terms of collector's priorities is pretty low. 2 ep per volume, ~5,000 yen each = 65,000 yen. That's $592. Space Dandy may be artistically neat, but there's no freaking way I'm spending that much on it. |
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Cyclone1993
 Posts: 947 |
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Ahh Space Dandy...
I'm a huge BONES fan so I was definitely going to watch this, despite the fact that it is a comedy, which I'm not typically fond of... And boy am I glad that I did. The series was a visual treat! You can practically feel the fun, and the freedom that the animators had on the show in nearly every scene. It got to be an animators playground, and the show is all the better for it. Sure some episodes are misses for sure, I wasn't fond of Plants are Living Things Too, Baby, or The Big Fish is Huge, Baby. But those are only two out of an entire 26 episode series, and there were definitely some gems out there. I really liked Sometimes you can't live with dying baby, Even Vacuums fall in love baby, I can't be the only one baby, The Transfer Student is Dandy baby, Rock and Roll Dandy Baby, and An Other Dimensional Tale Baby But nearly every episode was a blast due to its weirdness, and off the wall nature. Heck, even one episode I didn't like at first A World With No Sadness Baby was enjoyable to watch the second time, and might be one of my favorite episodes of the show. I'm definitely going to miss the series. I'm really surprised that Funimation hasn't already released the first half yet, I figured they would have done it during the 12 week break they had. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase it or not, but after thinking about it, I definitely want to own the series. It doesn't always make sense, but it is always fun, and entertainment can ask for no more. As for a movie, there is a possibility, if they aim it at a Western audience again, because I believe the viewing numbers were quite good from what I understand. But as of right now? Who knows? |
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Marzan
Posts: 518 |
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That Patlabor episode is absolutely memorable. Gotoh was so close, yet so far too. Back to Space Dandy, I can see that it's getting a UK release at the end of November, so I think the American version cannot be far off. Let's back this baby as much as we can. |
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srlracing
 Posts: 87 |
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My two favorite episodes are episodes that slowed and grounded Dandy a bit with A Merry Companion Is a Wagon in Space, Baby and A World with No Sadness, Baby. They were both tender stories that successfully had me connecting with their likable one-off female leads.
The other episodes that stood out to me were any of the episodes that just totally went off the rails visually like The Big Fish is Huge, Baby, I'm Never Remembering You, Baby, and Plants Are Living Things Too, Baby. As a fan of animation as a medium these were all prime examples of why I love animation. |
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