Toonami is one of those fixtures of the anime viewing experience that feels sacred, especially to those introduced to classics like Cowboy Bebop through the programming block. In 2014, Space Dandy, a show by Bebop’s creators, premiered with great anticipation, yet recently it was revealed that its director, Shinichiro Watanabe, isn’t sure what to think of the series.
To fully illustrate how big the premiere of Space Dandy felt, the show actually premiered in the US a day BEFORE it premiered in Japan, knowing there was a big audience in the states that loved Watanabe’s work. This was in the early days of “simul-dubbing” when Funimation was banking on providing new episodes of shows as soon as they aired in Japan. To those who experienced Dandy when it aired or at least heard of it through the marketing, it must have seemed like a surefire hit. After all, Watanabe’s name was a big draw to whatever show that he was attached to, and it still is. Plenty would probably light up in excitement at the mere reminder of the show’s existence… and yet, it wasn’t that successful.
Space Who?
It’s safe to say that anime fans don’t always have the clearest metrics of what defines something as “successful,” at least from an outside perspective. Instead, people generally gauge financial success subjectively based on the critical reception, though some will point to Japanese Blu-ray sales as some signifier.
The thing is, Space Dandy was well-received. The reviews were positive, and the initial buzz was promising. Everyone’s friends probably saw at least one ad for it on Adult Swim and found it charming. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who laughed at the ads took the time to watch it, and people might remember it fondly, but they typically have to be reminded it exists first, and that’s the key here.
On January 4, 2023, the 9th Anniversary of the series, Jason DeMarco of Adult Swim and co-creator of Toonami tweeted about the show on the occasion. It wasn’t so much an appraisal, but a confession of astonishment at how the show didn’t become a bigger success. But the most shocking detail shared was how Watanabe thought of it as a mistake.
It’s good to tread carefully here, as the last time anime fans fixated on a beloved creator considering something a “mistake” it resulted in one of the most misunderstood and tiring memes in the community. It’s challenging to know the full extent of what Watanabe means by his words, but it isn’t hard to imagine hearing that something one poured their heart into was a “failure” and believing it.
And Watanabe isn’t the only person to whom Space Dandy can be called their creation, as it was a product of numerous directors who all brought something different to the table. It’s what DeMarco cites as one of the series’ greatest strengths, and he’s right. Not to mention, Watanabe wasn’t the only director of the series, as he collaborated with Shingo Natsume, who would go on to direct One Punch Man a year later.
Despite DeMarco gassing him up, Watanabe wasn’t convinced, and at the end of the day, they are a central creative figure behind the project. If they’re disappointed with it, there’s really no point in trying to dissuade them of that notion. But despite that, Space Dandy happened and whether successful or not, it’s worth praising.
Plenty of works of art were deemed failures and are remembered fondly. In the realm of anime alone, Baccano is considered a classic despite similarly failing in Japan. It’s not a matter of success. The issue is that despite being a failure, people haven’t come back around and given Space Dandy credit for doing things that One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100 would be praised for first.
Just A Dandy Guy… In Space
Back in July, we wrote about Watanabe’s career spanning from Bebop to Samurai Champloo to beyond, all in the service of asking: has he succeeded Cowboy Bebop? The conclusion was that Space Dandy was the “only” work that could be a successor to it, though in retrospect that might have been reaching.
However, it’s worth noting that such a bold claim resulted from an analysis of Cowboy Bebop’s tagline, “the work, which becomes a new genre in itself.” If “Cowboy Bebop” is a genre, then Space Dandy certainly belongs in that category. The two are very different, but that doesn’t have to disqualify Dandy in the slightest.
Bebop was a western in space about lovable bounty hunters that constantly screwed up but found themselves being drawn back to the pasts that colored them. It could be funny, but it had moments of sincerity and grit where the record scratched and viewers were left with some powerful soft-spoken moments. It was Watanabe’s inspired homage to western cinema and an escape from the melodrama of Japanese film.
On the other hand, Space Dandy is a nostalgic sci-fi adventure series about a lovable alien hunter named Dandy and his space-faring pals as they screw up at capturing unidentified species to be registered. The framing of the narrative is similar to Bebop and gives the protagonists a general objective with no definitive end goal. And through this, the story goes somewhere completely different in almost every episode.
A lot of viewers might have gotten a false impression of Space Dandy from the way it was marketed, given that it is remembered through the lens of Adult Swim. As such, some might have expected it to laugh-a-minute kind of comedy, but in truth, it’s more of a slow-burn, with episodes that lingered on the drama of given stories.
These standalone journeys certainly could be funny and in fact, they could be absolutely hilarious, but this was still a Watanabe anime and that means it can (and will) go for the heart. Not only that but the freedom allowed to the individual episode directors resulted in experimentation and wildly different art styles across the show.
Space Dandy was creating a playground of creative vision before the likes of One Punch Man, Mob Psycho, Fate Babylonia, and Chainsaw Man. Dandy saw episodes directed by legends like Masaaki Yuasa (Inu-Oh) and Sayo Yamamoto (Yuri on Ice). The stories went beyond absurdism and ventured into abstract character studies, tackling love and death with unexpected grace.
Shinichiro Watanabe sees Space Dandy as a mistake because, despite all of the hype, it failed to find an audience, much less be retained by those who saw it. But it was far from a narrative or creative failure by any means. If there’s any justice in the world, people will recognize that much, and hopefully one day, Watanabe can see it too.