Recap

A breakdown forces the crew to head to Meow’s homeworld, where he reunites with his family.

Zigg’s Thoughts

The further into Space Dandy we get, the more and more I’m growing to love its unconventional week-to-week narrative style. With no need to pay any heed to an overarching plot, we can hop freely from style to style and genre to genre, and we only need to tell a story that can be resolved in 22 minutes. That’s perfect for this week, a delightful little tale which is equal parts funny, clever and surprisingly wistful. And even in a show with no coherent story, it still manages some character development. Not bad huh?

The genre fusion which makes this one spring to life is the mashing of Space Dandy‘s interstellar hijinks with a much more traditional Japanese narrative – the return to the old hometown. There’s no attempt to hide the fact that Betelgeuse is basically Space Japan, and the juxtaposition of so many time honoured archetypes onto alien cat people is funny in a wry, knowing sort of way. The entire episode is suffused with wonderful details, like Meow’s Lamborghini Countach bedroom poster , or his dads completely inexplicable scruffy trucker beard. What makes this aspect work though is that it’s not just a cheap spoof, but actually a pretty loving homage to this kind of tale. Meow’s family might be lampooned, but it’s only ever gently and their warm friendliness is never mocked. You can see it a mile off, but Meow’s moment in the sun with his Dad is a great payoff to this chunk of the story, and the whole thing is smothered in the hazy feel of nostalgia anime is so good at capturing. It’s a delightful change down from hyperactive galactic antics to a more homely style of comedy.

Of course though, that goofy comedy is still there, it’s just better integrated into the setting. The Groundhog Day loop is another plot device older than the hills, but it works here because they don’t push it as the major point of the story too hard. Furthermore, it meshes really well thematically with Meow’s frustration over the crawling pace of life at home. It’s not exactly played seriously either – the narrator interjecting himself into the narrative because the cast is too stupid to figure it out is a great moment, and their subsequent attempts to destroy a humble calender give some great physical comedy. By roping Meow’s dad in to solve the problem they tie the plotlines together and cap them neatly, which is good writing and a satisfying way out of the problem.

In the end, we get a happy ending and a rare down-to-earth closing moment on Space Dandy, and it’s all the better for it. The show has shown it has the chops to handle all sorts of different stories, and its eagerness to jump around and experiment makes me excited to see what’s coming up next.

Random Observations

• There’s some wonderful animation in this episode, with particularly keen lighting and backgrounds. The more rural, recognisably ‘human’ visual style really helps ground the show and give it the homely feel it needs.
• I love that Meow has a real name and an alternate nickname that are both also just dumb cat noises
• Pretty odd that they’d go for ‘server’ and not ‘hostess’ as is commonly used. The show hasn’t exactly been shy about sleaziness up to this point.
• Meow’s ridiculously dressed brother comes dangerously close to stealing every scene he’s in despite not having a single line of dialogue.