Space Dandy (anime)

"A flare for the dramatic, a love for the ladies, and a sweet head of hair. That's the Dandy way!" — Toonami promo.

Space Dandy (スペース☆ダンディ Supēsu Dandi) is a sci-fi comedy series by Shinichirō Watanabe, the creator of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. The show features a character named Dandy and a crew aboard a spaceship named Aloha Oe and is currently finished airing its first season, with a second season airing in July 20, 2014 on the Dub. A manga adaptation is currently running in Young Gangan magazine since December 20, 2013.

Plot

The story revolves around Dandy, a human alien-hunter. His job is to seek out new aliens never seen before, and receives a reward whenever he finds a new species. Dandy's mission is to find those new species faster than anyone else as he travels the galaxy and he travels with the bucket-of-bolts robot QT and the dimwit alien Meow he picked up. Along the way, Dandy comes into contact with new planets and their inhabitants.

Episodes

See also: List of Space Dandy Episodes

Season 1

• Live with the Flow, Baby
• The Search for the Phantom Space Ramen, Baby
• Occasionally Even the Deceiver Is Deceived, Baby
• Sometimes You Can't Live with Dying, Baby
• A Merry Companion Is a Wagon in Space, Baby
• The War of the Undies and Vests, Baby
• A Race in Space Is Dangerous, Baby
• The Lonely Pooch Planet, Baby
• Plants Are Living Things, Too, Baby
• There's Always Tomorrow, Baby
• I'm Never Remembering You, Baby
• Nobody Knows the Chameleon Alien, Baby
• Even a Vacuum Cleaner Can Love, Baby

Media

Space Dandy - Promotional Video

Licencing

The anime has been licensed by FUNimation Entertainment in North America, Madman Entertainment in Australia and by Anime Limited in the United Kingdom. The series premiered in the United States before Japan on January 4, 2014 at 11:30pm on Adult Swim. The series began airing in Japan on Tokyo MX at 11:00pm on January 5, 2014, followed by TV OsakaTV Aichi, BS Fuji and AT-X. The series is also simulcasted in South East Asia at the same time as Japan on Animax Asia.

Trivia

• Space Dandy holds the distinction of being the first (and so far, only) Shinichiro Watanabe-directed anime to actually be dubbed by FUNimation.

• Every alien shown in the series is conceptualized by a different artist. This was Shinichiro Watanabe's intention, in order to ensure that each alien really is alien.

• The show has its own alphabet that is shown on various signs and viewscreens. It can be decyphered into Japanese, English and Engrish.

• The show may be set in the same universe as Cowboy Bebop as it uses the currency "Woolongs", and the fridge with a bluish ooze seen in "The Lonely Pooch Planet, Baby" closely resembles the one Spike Spiegel ejected from the Bebop in the episode "Toys in the Attic".  However, these may simply be easter eggs rather than canonical indications of a shared continuity.

• Space Dandy airs in English on Adult Swim before the Japanese version, which is highly irregular for a Japanese show. The only episode to air in Japan before the English dub was the season one finale.