Space Dandy - The Show that Launched a Thousand Screencaps

I managed to catch the first episode of Space Dandy last night at my weekly anime sojourn.

What.

Can I say.

About Space Dandy?

Much like previous works from its creator, Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo), this show is trendy.  And when I say 'trendy', I don't mean, "of, or in accordance with, the latest fashion trends".  No, when I say 'trendy', I guess I'm saying that this show knows what it wants to be and accomplishes that very well.  With Cowboy Bebop, it was a jazz/blues space western.  With Samurai Champloo it was a hip-hop retelling of feudal Japanese history.

And Space Dandy...well, Space Dandy is a disco inferno comedy that serves as both space odyssey and parody with apparent antagonists Satan and the villain from Planet of the Apes.

I wasn't joking about Satan and the ape, by the way.

Nailed it!

So anyways, how was Space Dandy?  It was everything I expected it to be and more.

It takes a real friend to laugh at you while you're drowning.

This show was a colorful acid trip through ridiculous pretense and occasional fourth-wall-breaking commentary, with a colorful array of characters (a space hero whose incompetence is rivaled only by the style at which he achieves it, a perverted cat-creature whose real name can only be articulated as a set of squiggly lines, and a criminally adorable robot), gorgeous visuals, and a really smooth animation style that you wouldn't see in your ordinary B-show.

What I'm trying to say is that Space Dandy is a trippy A-show that tries to be a B-show, which is part of what makes it an A-show.

What I love about Space Dandy is the how it serves as its own parody without constantly breaking the fourth wall.  It uses tropes from different anime but presents them in such a way that it shows just how ridiculous those things can be.  Like the arbitrary 'manly-tears-in-the-opening' trend.

Needless to say, I will be keeping up with this show on a weekly basis and I have high, high hopes for this one.  If you haven't watched it, you should.  You can catch it in English on Toonami, with Hulu, and I think on Amazon Instant Video.  As for the Japanese.  Well...that's not hard if you know where to look.

You stay classy, Space Dandy