Interview here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/intervi ... -wantanabe

His new work, Space Dandy, is going to be a comedy series. I haven't seen Kids on the Slope yet, but have heard good things about it.

Personally looking forward to checking out both sometime!

I wonder if Yoko Kanno will be collaborating with Watanabe this time?

He gave a pretty good presentation on Space Dandy at Otakon. It looks pretty zany. Not sure if I'll like it, but it definitely looks unique.

They were also promoting it at Japan Expo USA but I didn't go to Minami's panel. It was one of the trailers that was looping at their booth.


Heard on the last day that this display standee was torn down so one got to walk away with it. The show does seem zany and I'll give it a shot. Minami wouldn't say how long it will be.

Well so far all of watanabes stuff has been pretty damn good so I'll certainly be checking this one out.

Fireball wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o480GrsQGmo

looks fine & dandy

Looks like the '80s never ended.

Sailor Star Dust wrote: I haven't seen Kids on the Slope yet, but have heard good things about it.

That has a very period feel, but the A fancies B fancies C fancies D fancies E ... romance plot grew too large a graph for me to keep caring. YMMV.

The love doda....I don't even what was weakest link of Slope but I really liked what drew Watanabe to the manga in the first place:

For Kids on the Slope, I felt the story was about two boys who led lonely lives, but by meeting, they could connect their souls and their feelings about that loneliness. So I wanted to express that message very strongly in the anime version.

Bromance was good, in other words.



Anyway, I'm hype as fuck for Space Dandy. The trailer looks amazing with all that BOOOOONES animation and fabulous art direction, premise is good and in Watanabe We Trust. Dude has plenty talent and knows what he's doing in general.

Watanabe's only made, like, 4 shows. I'm ready for this.

It's a dandy with a duck-tail haircut in space. There is literally no way this can be a bad thing.

Thanks to the YouTube link that Fireball posted, I'm SO watching this shit when it comes out! Hooray for Sci-Fi!

my angus is ready

Holy shit, they got The Misfits for this.
I can't wait.

delispin25 wrote:Holy shit, they got The Misfits for this.
I can't wait.

It's just Funimation using whatever music they like for trailer. They used Lazerhawk for previous PV

Xard wrote:It's just Funimation using whatever music they like for trailer. They used Lazerhawk for previous PV

Aw, too bad. Well, I'm sure the OST will be awesome anyways.

Reminder: Space Dandy will air THIS Saturday @ 11:30pm on Toonami.
be sure to catch it.

New promo:
http://youtu.be/J2Xy1Y-v7aY

Dataprime wrote:Reminder: Space Dandy will air THIS Saturday @ 11:30pm on Toonami.
be sure to catch it.

New promo:
http://youtu.be/J2Xy1Y-v7aY

Oh shit, I didn't realize it aired at 11:30. I thought Toonami didn't start til midnight. Thanks for the reminder!

Space Dandy hype caveat: apparently the show is only "executive directed" by Watanabe, much as the second two Rebuild films were "executive directed" by Anno. I'm a little worried about what this means for the show, at least as far as how it'll stack up against Watanabe's previous works.

Xard, Funimation doesn't typically use licensed music for trailers. I'm guessing these promos were put together by Adult Swim, not Funi (which would explain why they're actually good).

gatotsu911 wrote:Space Dandy hype caveat: apparently the show is only "executive directed" by Watanabe, much as the second two Rebuild films were "executive directed" by Anno. I'm a little worried about what this means for the show, at least as far as how it'll stack up against Watanabe's previous works.

Actually, general point:

You can't really treat Chief Director/Executive Director/however it gets translated this time in uniform fashion. Sometimes Chief Director is essentially *the* director whereas the "Director" is basically assistant director of the series, in other cases chief director is really aloof and only sets very general guidelines. Then again, you can't even trust "director" credit blindly. Different directors impose different degrees of control on episode directors - actually same director can do both of course, being very lax in some cases and excruciatingly nitpicking control freak with some other episode.

Anno is definetly very involved "executive director" with Rebuild who always has the final word on everything and personally writes the script.


As for this anime Watanabe is bound to be more hands off approach with Space Dandy but that doesn't mean he isn't in some sense ultimately "responsible" for the direction of the show. While Watanabe without doubt maintains control over series's general direction and has overseen building foundation of the show you can expect episode to episode variations to be great. This is the point, actually. Space Dandy as a project is designed to be in part massive talent showcase for multitude of gifted people working in the industry. The episode directors, screenwriters etc. will have great degree of creative freedom for their own episodes.

This makes me more excited than anything else because the list of people involved is very fascinating.

Xard wrote:This makes me more excited than anything else because the list of people involved is very fascinating.

This is true. It's a veritable all-star lineup... although I'm not familiar with the actual director director. (do we know who any of the episode directors will be?)

I'm not super familiar with its use in anime but in video games "executive director" often means "big name who provided general direction for the project and gave it their seal of approval". But even though they tend to get all the publicity, the games themselves usually bear the mark (for better or worse) of the real director, and it often translates to a noticeable dilution of the "executive" director's trademark style as a less auteurist director (so as not to come in conflict with the executive) leads the project.

At any rate, I hope Space Dandy will have at least a few key episodes directed by Watanabe personally.

Hopefully I'll remember to check it out this Saturday.