Dandy’s latest information on unregistered aliens has taken him to a planet called Eden. Unfortunately, Eden no longer exists, having blown up thousands of years ago, and all that remains is its moon. On this moon a war that has been raging for the last ten thousand years is still continuing, although both sides of it are now only down to one man. Neither of them can remember what the war was even about, only that it’s between those that only wear underwear, and those that only wear vests.
Dandy and Meow realize that these two are the last surviving members of their species and thus could make them a fortune as unregistered aliens, however they have to get them to stop fighting in order to take them to the registration office, which might not be so easy.
After episode 5’s heartwarming story, episode 6 is kind of a let-down, being mostly just absurdly ridiculous. The whole affair was incredibly Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy-esque, although certainly not the first (and definitely not the last) time I’ve thought so. You could possibly glean some social commentary from here if you really wanted, about how all wars are pretty senseless and ridiculous anyway and mostly fought by people who can’t quite remember the exact reason they’re supposed to hate the other side to begin with, but I felt like the overall joke was pretty flimsy, and the story about these aliens never really went anywhere.
But it wasn’t just that – this episode was overall just really lacklustre compared to previous ones aesthetically as well. You can see a little of it in the screenshots I’ve taken – but the backgrounds were really bland. A lot of them don’t even look finished, and I’m honestly wondering if it was intentional or if this episode ran into some budget problems along the way. Most of the backgrounds are incredibly sketchy and look like something from the storyboarding stage.
However, it wasn’t all bad, and the episode is even worth watching for the ending alone, where Dandy’s apparent mad surfing skills are called upon for a bout of galactic star surfing (how exactly he managed to breathe we’ll just ignore I suppose.) It’s been a while since one of these lovely animation sequences, and this one was really a lot of fun to watch. It even got another nifty insert song! It was a much better way to end the episode than just have Dandy die again, which was what I expected.
Out of 5,
Episode 7
It’s SPACE RACE time, a much celebrated event in which contestants must navigate their space ships through 9 different, gimmicky gates around a course. This doesn’t seem to be something Dandy is interested in usually, but one of the contestants is the fan-favourite pretty-boy Prince. After Prince steals Dandy’s thunder at the Boobies restaurant, Dandy would do anything to show him up. Even with the comparatively clunky and ill-suited Aloha Oe, Dandy luckily has a lot of beginner’s luck on his side. However, Prince is not used to losing, and Doctor Gel is still on Dandy’s tail.
This is more like the Space Dandy I know and love – ridiculous, flashy mayhem that’s a lot of fun to watch. Unlike the previous episode, there didn’t seem to be any noticeable deficiencies in either the animation or the backgrounds. On top of that, it was another episode that featured a high concentration of different kinds of aliens and those are always fun due to how imaginative and silly the designs can get. And then there’s Prince, who is one of the few other human characters in the show yet drawn in a style vastly different to any of the others. He literally looks like he belongs in either an old Gundam anime or some kind of brightly coloured childrens card game thing. Had I seen a screenshot of him, I wouldn’t have even guessed he was from Space Dandy. So far, the other human characters have been recurring, so it’d be nice if he appears at least one more time (especially considering his…shall we say, change in attitude towards Dandy at the end). Speaking of recurring characters, I’m really starting to wonder if the Boobies girl is ever going to play a bigger role. The opening and alot of the shows key images seem to give that impression. As for Dr. Gel and his lackey; they’re becoming goofier villains every time they appear, and are now more Team Rocket-esque than anything remotely threatening…which does make them somewhat more sympathetic, at least.
The episode was definitely fun, but, like the previous one, it seemed to end rather abruptly with no real resolution. I don’t necessarily want to spoil exactly what happens but…well, it sure was Space Dandy.
Out of 5,
Moeronpan 