Anime Review
Pani Poni Dash! Vol 1
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Synopsis
Pani Poni Dash is about an eleven-year-old MIT graduate, Becky Miyamoto who becomes the teacher of a Japanese high school homeroom class. The class is filled with crazy characters, six girls in particular. The show follows their crazy antics in class and interacting with the other homeroom classes.
Characters
All of the girls in the class have distinctly different personalities. While this setup has been seen before in many other series, this one stands out from the rest. The sheer wackiness and off-the-wall antics of these characters make you want to see more of them. They aren’t just ‘the smart one,’ ‘the shy one,’ or ‘the sporty one.’ They’re ‘the one whose forehead becomes increasingly large and shiny with each episode,’ ‘the one who acts like a ghost incarnate and enjoys putting her classmates in grave danger,’ and, in a parody on the genre itself, ‘the girl with no defining personality traits whatsoever, who, upon recognition of that fact, falls into a deep depression.’ Becky’s character (the eleven-year-old girl who becomes their teacher) fluctuates between a crybaby little kid, an iron-fisted slave driver of a teacher, and a mature adult who treats her students as equals. The fact that she wasn’t constricted to one defining personality trait is very refreshing.
Animation
The animation for this show is surprisingly clean and a pleasure to watch. Even the general color scheme of the animation seems to reflect the fun, goofy nature of the show. And as far as general quality, the animators of Pani Poni Dash! don’t ever seem to hold back or cut corners. The most notable aspect of the animation, though, is the amount of little gags strewn about each episode. Whenever there is a chalkboard in the background, it has something different written on it in each new shot. There are several scenes that break the fourth wall by stepping back from the characters to show they are on a movie set, or that the rain they were just walking in was produced by a fireman’s hose off camera.
Plot
From the first volume at least, Pani Poni Dash! seems to be a series where each episode can be viewed on it’s own, with no overarching plotline to connect them all. There are short interactions between some characters that build with each episode, and may reference back to previous episode, but there is no main plot event that any of the episodes are working towards. The series does a great job of keeping viewers interested by jam-packing a ton of bizarre events into each episode, leaving you wanting to see what crazy adventure these girls will get into next time.
English Dubbing
Hilary Haag (Chrono Crusade) plays the part of Becky, in what I found to be an entertaining English interpretation. She definitely keeps the little kid voice of the original Japanese intact, but also has the ability to yell and throw tantrums as that little kid, making Becky’s character seem, for the most part, very convincing. The other girls seem to have also been appropriately cast, although I was a little disappointed with Ichijo’s interpretation. In the Japanese version, she seemed creepy and mysterious, delivering dry, deadpan comments with such conviction that I laughed almost every time she spoke. In the English version, however, she seemed aloof at times, and her creepiness seemed forced, making her come across as being just plain weird.
Another character that I thought got a little lost in translation was the Lord Cat. He was another character who, in the original version, had a voice that convinced you he really was as creepy as he seemed. The English version, however, has more of a Phil Hartman, used car salesman type and didn’t have quite the same effect on me. (Although he was still pretty creepy in his own way.) I would like to say that if you want even a chance of catching all the randomly placed pieces of text around the screen throughout an episode without hitting the pause button every 15 seconds, dubbing is the way to go.
Overall
I thought this was a fun show all around. While it’s fun to watch alone, I’d definitely recommend rounding up your goofiest group of friends for this one. For those learning the Japanese language, there are a lot of fun play-on-words, puns, and fun with kana to be seen all over this series, as well as tons of references to Japanese traditional and pop culture. In general, the fast pace and comedic style of this show will keep all fans entertained. At times, the sheer randomness of things in this show will definitely leave you asking “..what?” but hopefully you’ll be laughing while you say it.
