Nerima Daikon Brothers

I actually analyzed this series for a University paper (yeah, you read that right...) Directed by the infamous Nabeshin, this is exactly what one should expect from him, with a twist. This is the first ever anime musical comedy. While fans of the typical Nabeshin screwball comedy will love it's off the wall flavour, it was also the pioneer of a new subgenre. Unfortunately...the pioneer was drunk off his ass and ran his covered wagon into many a ditch. Story: The show does have a basic plot that tie all of the events together. Hideki, Ichiro and their cousinMako have big dreams of building a concert dome on their daikon field in the suburb of Nerima, where they will perform for sold out crowds of adoring fans. The problem? The brothers and cousin are perpetually broke due to freak acts of nature, evil corperations, and Mako's horrible spending habits. The plot, believe it or not, can be heavily paralleled with 'The Blues Brothers' and the main characters even dress similarly to Jake and Elwood Blues. In all actuality though, the series is actually a scathing political commentary on Japan in the year 2005. Nobody is safe from Nabeshin's satire. Issues dealt with within the series include privatization of land, the Japanese health care system, partner abuse, police corruption, sexual harassment, homosexuality, the horrors of the music industry, the Korean Wave and gambling, to name a few. Some political and social figures are even spoofed. The Prime Minister, Michael Jackson, and Johnny and Associates are all satirized. The political commentary was very clever, but is now unfortunately outdated, and fairly irrelevant to American viewers. Art: It's...Nabeshin. So expect a lot of eye poping, over the top visuals, and for stuff to literally come out of nowhere. The laws of physics do not apply. This is far from the fluid animation of animes like Fullmetal Alchemist, or with the detailed scenery of Le Chevalier D'Eon. It's zany, cartoony, and it fits. Scenes and visuals are routinely recycled along with musical numbers, which gets slightly grating. Charicatures of real people are often diformed and discoloured (Michael Jackson's counterpart 'Yukel Hakushon' has purple hair, yellow skin and a detachable nose.) There are also plenty of visual references and puns, though with quite a few of them you need a basic knowledge of Japanese, which the English language team tried to adapt, sometimes ineffectively. Sound: Hideki's Japanese voice is perfect for the lead singer of a blues band. The Japanese crew has a much better balance than the English crew, but the dub still manages to convey all the humour of their Japanese counterparts. One main complaint the fandom has is Mako's Southern Belle accent (she speaks in Osakan dialect in Japanese). It can get fairly annoying after prolongued viewing. Another complaint is that the songs, while pretty good, and catchy, get repeated from episode to episode, with different lyrics. Remember what I said earlier about the pioneer for this genre drunkly driving the covered wagon? Well...this is probably a mistake future anime musicals can learn from. Character: If you knew them in real life, you'd probably want them institutionalized. Since this is an anime comedy however, all disorders can be forgiven for the rule of funny. Hideki wants to marry his cousin Mako, who repeatedly lies to him about how the Japanese constitution bans first cousins from marrying (it doesn't) while Mako herself is in love with Ichiro. Ichiro in turn loves a panda found in the daikon field. A female police officer Yukika 'inspector gadget' also falls in love with the panda, but is torn between her love of the fuzzy panda and the fishcakes found in ramen. And that...that's just the main love tri...octa...love plot. Characters have a lot of negative traits, though most of these are played for humour. What makes them more sympathetic though is that they are constantly being ripped off and stolen from by larger corperations, clearly making the Brothers underdogs. The one problem is in the later part of the series, the writers try to create drama and tear jerking situations in a Nabeshin comedy, creating mood whiplash at times. It's hard to genuinly feel sorry for someone who was just involved in a high speed chase on a unicycle. Enjoyment: I loved this anime for it's political satire and clever pop culture references. The musical aspect too to an extent, but once songs started to be repetedly recycled, it got kind of old, even annoying. My personal problem was that this series tried to do too much. It tried to be a scathing commentary on the times, a pop culture riddled comedy, a screwball random comedy and a musical. While it was still a fun anime, it just felt like the show could not decide what it wanted to be. At any rate, anyone interested in a social commentary on Japanese life might want to have a peek at this, but keep the internet on hand so you can understand all the references. Warnings: Nudity (some sexual positions are displayed in the art in Ichiro's Host Club) foul language, bestiality, cousin-love, mind rape (it's Nabeshin) sex based humour and racism against Koreans. Also, cue a pink Darth Vader just for added wtf-value.

For lack of a better comparison (never saw Blues Brothers, and I’m not totally well versed in the Blues as a whole) Nerima Daikon Brothers is kinda the closest we’ve ever gotten to an anime version of Elite Beat Agents, except less dancing and more singing. It’s got a rather simple premise, as it takes place in little town called Nerima and follows a goofy trio of that live on a stage in the middle of a daikon field that’s owned a by the leader of the group, a square-jawed daikon farmer named Hideaki. Oh and their mascot, Pandaikon . He along with his cohorts,cousin Mako (the clingy gold digger) and Ichiro (doesn’t seem to care about anything, and oh yeah, he works for a sleazy bar) aim to rake in enough cash to build their own stadium and share their music as the “Nerima Daikon Brothers”, get famous, and become the pride of their city. Most episodes plays out in a rather formulaic path, they normally include get rich quick plots that have the Nerima Daikon Brothers run across rather nasty swindler each episode. The Daikon Bros then take it upon themselves to rid the town of this threat (with the help of a rental object from my favorite afro’d director of course) and get try to get the money they need to fulfill their dreams, the latter failing miserably each time. The fact that the majority of the humor and story of this show is done through song is what sets this title apart from any other formulaic comedy out there. However, if the term “formulaic” hasn’t been used in this review enough for you to notice, the show’s pretty darn repetitive. One thing worth noting too is that even though this is a musical comedy, the show’s got a rather limited pool of tunes, seriously, it’s got like 5, MAX. They also all play at the same given time each episode. There’s the “I’m the villain and here’s my evil plan” song, the “Mako being a vain bitch” song, the “hey Nabeshin, we’re looking pretty screwed, so give as a random Deus ex Machina to kick some jerk’s ass” song and the “hey we’re the Nerima Daikon Brothers and we’re here to wreck your evil plan and get rich at the same time” song. It’s strange, I honestly suspected that a show this repetitive would’ve worn me down to my last nerve by the time it ended, but it never did. I credit that to the fact that it seemed to me that the show knew which parts to keep the same, and what to change each time in order to keep itself from becoming dull. The length of the series also helps since this is probably the only comedy I liked, finished, and was glad their was never anything more made of it. I’m sure that had it taken another cour of my life, the act would’ve gotten old well before the end. So what is it that the show did right to preserve the routine? The fact that even though the plot structure and tunes played out similarly each and every episode wasn’t enough to take away from the humorous dialogue and occasional pop-culture reference that we’e different each episode (it has it’s running gags, but these don’t feel overplayed at all and I found them rather funny at least). The fact that the song lyrics we’re always different in order to suit the occasion is what really made this a memorable experience. It also helps that not all the episodes essentially boil down to the same rinse-repeat formula. After the first 3rd or so, the show tosses in police babe Widget who adds her own set of unique quirks to the show (including a romance with a Pandaikon of all things) and a new song, which is something I appreciate given the aforementioned lack of tunes. The last third of the show also puts a stop to the episodic shenanigans in favor of taking a bit more of serious look at what the Daikon Bros are willing to do accomplish their dreams. It’s great to see a comedy take itself a bit seriously without losing sight of what made it fun to begin with, and that’s something Nerima Daikon Brothers got right….for the most part. The actual ending was a bit too random rushed and anticlimatic for my tastes. Weird to comment on a comedy not having a satisfying ending, I know, but given that the show was actually doing a story arc reasonably well beforehand, I think it’s still worth mentioning. That and the fact that the show also shoehorns in some political commentary into it’s humor a bit too. That’s all fine and dandy, but good luck catching that humor if you don’t have a good understanding of the political arena of 2006 Japan. Last thing I want to bring attention too is the dub/sub comparison. I personally dig the radical script changes (and in Mako’s case, character change since she’s pretty much turned into stereotypical dumb trailer trash in the dub, and it works) Can’t really comment too much on the Japanese version since I never saw much of it, but I’ve seen enough to know that with each versions you get different jokes, which lends the show some rewatchability. I personally preferred watching the dub version since during the end credits, the actors thank you for buying the show. You can’t beat that. So yeah, it’s a pretty good comedy I’d say. Just don’t marathon it, something tells me that given the nature of the show, this ain’t something you’d want to watch in large doses. Also best to stay away if you don’t like Nabeshin stuff too, or object to having catchy tunes reverberate in your head. Most importantly, stay away if you just so happen to hate fun things.

The show is really stupidly silly. But unlike Puni Puni Poemy and Excel Saga, this one has a story that he sticks to. I like the story because its heart wrenching but because of the black comedy, it doesn’t make me want to cry. I wanted to keep watching because of the characters and how they interact with each other, and to see if they ever would make their dream come true. They had me laughing from the start even if some of the jokes were a little gross. The animation is not really all that wonderful, but it works with the fact that thisis a comedy and not a normal show. The characters at times lose all proportion, turn chibi, stretch out strange or have their arms and legs move strange but it all works. When we get down to the music, It’s wonderful! Sometimes then they have a show that is all about the music, they will either fail or like this one, rock out! I loved ever song even if I won’t look for most of them on a CD. There really wasn’t much background music, it was all in the front and they never really made it feel like it should be put in the back! All in all, great show and I would like to see more of this then the other style he does.

I really respect Watanabe Shinichi for what he does as far as being an active face and voice in the anime community, advising fans to buy anime DVDs and manga instead of stealing them via torrent download and scanalations, but I haven't enjoyed any of his work all the way through. Excel Saga was great, but got old near the end, and I hated Poemy from minute one. Nerima Daikon Brothers is the third Nabashin related work I've seen thus far, and this one is sliightly better, but suffers from the same problems. The comedy is pretty much what can be expected; an insanevault of madness with little rhyme or reason. And it works great at first. I pretty much loved all the parodies featured, even if I'm not native Japan and don't get 98% of the cultural references. The English dub is pretty damn funny, and worth checking out. I think it's Greg Ayers at his best. The songs are enjoyable, until midway through the show, then they begin recycling instrumentals and juggling mildly different lyrics. And that's precisly the problem with Nabashin's style of humor. Aside from it being foul-mouthed and crude (which i can deal with), the show is seriously repetitious with the jokes it cycles. It became unfunny to me around episode 6 and becomes pretty mediocore from there out. The wackiness gets really predictable and I was lulled into a state of calling which song numbers were going to start before they were even cued. That style of comedy is very sketch-based, which means it's lifespan is not very long. Thankfully, it's only twelve episodes, so I found the fortitude to sit through the remaining four episodes I had on DVD for three years, hoping that the jokes I got tired of would be somewhat refreshed when I back into it. Not really so much. The characters are pretty vibrant and off-the-wall, my favorite is easily Officer Yukika, who kept the show very enjoyable throught the end. Hideki, Mako, and Ichiro are decent, but become overbearingly annoying on a South Park level, as there's only two jokes between the three of them. The villians are episodic, but the bad guy in the very first episode was just so terrible I found it awesome. Every other villian afterward gets progressively more suggestive and borders on trying too hard to push boundries that it gets sad. IN CLOSING: What starts out as a really fresh comedy, something that is drastically lacking in anime today, turns into a double entandre-filled, genitalia referencing, one liners and predictable, bland toilet humor that caters to this generation's Family Guy audience. In my book, only Great Teacher Onizuka and Azumanga Daioh have managed insane humor for 26 episodes or more because of clever writing, various characters to write jokes around, and a solid set of scenarios to keep you watching. Watanabe's humor work best in short bursts. For a pioneer who does a great job promoting retail purchases to keep anime a viable revolving door for entertainment, it's a shame that I really don't like his stuff. Fans and followers will love it, I prefer a tad more substance in my comedy and not flash in the pan jokes that garner shock laughter. STORY: 6 ART: 7 SOUND: 7 CHARACTERS: 6 ENJOYMENT: 4 OVERALL SCORE: 5 out of 10 PROS: A musical comedy is rare these days, pretty good dub, CONS: Gets old fast, humor is overall really low brow and cheap