While I have been really busy, I have been catching up watching Space Dandy. I watched the first part of season 1 earlier this summer and when the second part came out, I had to check it out. Plus, Space Dandy is just good fun to watch before heading off to bed.

First off, I want to talk about some of the expectations of Space Dandy. When the series was announced I had lofty expectations for it. Being a Shinichiro Watanabe title (Cowboy Bebop,  Samurai Champloo, Terror in Resonance and more) it was hard to not expect great things. Personally, I expected a humorous version of Cowboy Bebop with over the top animation.

However, the more I heard about the series, the more I realized it wasn’t that. I wasn’t the only one that had those expectations. I recall listening to an episode of the ANNCast where they covered Space Dandy, and they talked about fans having the same lofty expectations. Maybe it was part of this podcast that my mind was changed without knowing it.

From a story perspective, Space Dandy doesn’t really tell a specific story. All of the episodes are practically stand alone episodes without you having to have previous knowledge outside of the first episode when the characters are introduced. There isn’t much of an over-arching story. I kept thinking there would be something like Cowboy Bebop, where one of the episodes would leave us a nugget for future episodes and maybe a handful of them string together to tell a story with lots of fun filler in between. That isn’t the case. Space Dandy the alien hunter and crew don’t have a long form story to tell, and that isn’t a bad thing unless you expect it.

While Space Dandy may have a lot of standalone episodes, it works out. I was originally a little hesitant after the first part of season 1. I love stories and character development. In Space Dandy the characters are pretty straight forward and not much room for them to evolve over time.

Having said that, Space Dandy is good fun. There may not be a developed story, but the comedy infused into the series makes up for that. Before I started the second half of season one, I rewatched the first half while working and the comedy and stand alone episodes made it for an enjoyable casual watch.

The animation is Space Dandy has a lot of fun experimentation in it. Some episodes you can tell they had more room to explore than others but it works. Space Dandy has a variety of tones and animation styles and techniques to reflect it.

I would suggest checking out Space Dandy at least once since it is a Watanabe title and also for the animation of it. If you saw Space Dandy, what were your thoughts?