Episode 25: Dandy’s Day in Court, Baby

I want to point out that the final episode airs in Japan on the 24th prior to airing in the U.S and this was this same thing that happened with the end of the first arc of Space Dandy.  I am curious to see what the reaction is for the finale for that very reason– Japanese dub vs. English dub.

Ah yes! This is what I’m talking about, finally we’ve got one episode left and this episodic series decides to pull one heck of a cliffhanger here! Remember those Gogol Empire goons from Episode 2?  Well they’re back and from what was shown in the preview it looks like quite a few people from the other universes will turn up here!  This had to be one of the most loosely animated episodes of Space Dandy yet, as there were a bunch of tight angle shots, and zoom-ins that pull the viewer into the crowd here–  akin to 12 Angry Men.

 This was definitely a very enticing choice for Watanabe to pick Atsushi Takahashi as the episode director here.  This is a guy who has helmed two anime productions, Ao No Exorcist the Movie and Rideback.  These weren’t even that good, and yet he’s got tons of really good episode director spots with anime broadcast series.  Varied in his repertoire and now he’s doing an episode about a trial with introduction sequences similar to that of Law and Order.  Kemenozume, Monster and Paranoia Agent were some of the most acclaimed anime in the horror genre.  It would have been very interesting to see this guy be the director for the zombie episode back in the first half as it probably would have been a lot darker than what was shown.

As for the writer Dai Sato, this guy’s one of the leads on Space Dandy, one that’s got at least three episodes of the show under his belt, and he’s told some pretty unique and solid stories from ramen to QT’s interest in love and coffee to a court room scenario!  Guy Reginald is murdered by a baseball that is attracted to pionium energy that as we learn here Dandy doesn’t have DNA but vast amounts of pionium!  The story is finally unravelling and Dandy is at the center of it all in such a big way!

This might not have been one of the best tales of Dandy but it was one of the best in character designs– Boobies waitress Rose Reginald, and the giant prosecutor, to every jury member were vastly different!  There were a large number of still shots in this episode and I am sure that Watanabe is saving his budget for the finale.

You can very much tell how this is a Dandy episode, and social media reflects this series greatly– Meow’s checking in moments, Golgol street view, the rock and roll episode with Johnny, and now Hiroshi’s twitter page revealed so much about the case of Guy Reginald. This was one tale that quickly turned heads quite often, Dandy originally accused of murder and Rose Reginald wanting the insurance money were just slight details in making an entire court room scene more intriguing.  It wasn’t until what had been unveiled by Meow of Hiroshi and Jack’s twitter pages that transitions this story into a murder mystery.

By the end of it all the structure of the case poses just more questions about who Dandy really is this was largely reflected by his absence of dialogue and his unnatural nature to nap in the middle of the trial.  Develop a balance of witty and slapstick comedy, engage the viewer with unique techniques in animation, create a varied soundtrack these are just a few of the elements that have made this anime in my book one of the best!

Has anyone noticed that as we’ve progressed through this second half that Dandy has gotten either more depressed and/or serious?  Perhaps he is coming to the realization that he knows about the pionium energy inside of him and it would be funny if Dandy is so rare, he ends up getting registered by the very end!   This would make sense in bringing everything full circle– multiple Dandy’s engaging in various adventures and as the narrator explained the pionium energy that had been scattered all across galaxies.

With the end of this amazing science-fiction comedy series in sight, one has to wonder if Watanabe would [and this is probably wishful thinking on my part] be able keep his words from his interview last year at Otakon 2013:

“For all these designers, I only ask one thing of them: draw an alien nobody’s ever dreamed of. So all these designers I’ve recruited for the show, they’ve all given me very different designs. In fact, we already have over 100 for aliens. If this series becomes popular, we can have at least 100 episodes! But if this show isn’t popular, then uh – we’re only scheduled for 13 episodes, so we’re counting on your support.”

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 9/10

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