Pani Poni Dash!

Ranivus★ 8

Pani Poni Dash is a very light hearted and hilarious slice of life comedy thats fun for the whole family to enjoy. Don't worry about that middle finger on the first episode since thats the only vulgar thing in the whole show. This style has beend done a million times over and I believe Pani Poni Dash is one of the reasons why this style of genre keeps being made over and over. Story: (Fair) The story is pretty simplistic but follows the basic of a classic comedic sitcom (issues that can be solved in under 30 minutes). The story evolves a classroom whose teacher justhappens to be a 11-year old (age varies by episode) loli super genius from MIT. How or why she is even teaching a class of high school girls is pretty irrelevant. Rather the story and issues involved herein don't involve normal everyday issues that people can relate to. Instead, they tend to take the wacky and outrageous approach, while plugging as many parodies, one shot gags, sight jokes, and pop culture references in one show as they can. Once you watch this show you can tell its style has influenced a large amount of situational comedy anime that you watch today. Some of the situations I couldn't get into simply because it was just TOO Japanese (you'll understand when you start watching). Art: (Good) The art style switches between the common form of detailed and simplistic styles and they're all placed in the right spots worthy of laughing. Theres so many sight gags and one shots in almost every scene you'll be actively looking allover the screen trying to see the next joke. The art works for a large majority of the time. It doesn't feel like one style is being over used over the others. Theres even times where some rather cute fanservice is involved. This show definitely did it's homework when it came to visual hilarity. The art even stays pretty truthful to its manga counterpart. Huge props for Hekiru Hikawa and making this stuff up, especially the animals. Sound: (Great) The sound is pure comedy. But then again its hard to screw up on the sound music and voice acting these days. But with so many things happining in every episode that its hard not to give this show a high score in the sound department since they parody everything from 8-bit Nintendo songs to dragon quest references, along with the random Japanese authentic sounds. Its so great its almost too much but one cant help but laugh through the whole thing or at the very least get hyped up from all the different parody songs they have. On top of that, the op and ed theme songs are one of my favorites i've laid my ears on. My personal fav's are the last two op theme songs. They definitely get you in the mood to watching an episode of Pani Poni dash. Of course they use the seiyu's to sing their own theme songs and as you would expect they sing them pretty well. Characters: (Outstanding) The shows bread and butter are by far the cast of characters that make up class 1-C. They're all rehashes of cliche' characters but they have their own twist to make themselves one of a kind in the Pani Poni universe. For example, a loli genius... school teacher? A smart type... with a large and shiny forehead? A shy quiet... masochist? Sure they sound lame but put them together and you get a pretty good cast of sitcom characters. Even the supporting cast is just as hilarious as they spit out pop culture onomatopoeias like adding "dot com" or "of the year" or "omega" to their sentences. The voice overs do their job very well especially Becky, Himeko, and Mesousa. Oh god Mesousa, there will not be another animal character as cute (and pathetic) as Mesousa. Its such a perfect style for a comedy thats not used often. Also, on a side note, the dubbed version is just as good as its Japanese counterpart if you ever take the chance to watch the dub. On top of that, you would never notice that the voice of Himeko also does the voice for Rukia Kuchiki. Enjoyment: (Very Good) I loved all the characters in this show, even the cooked salamander and pig-looking guy. Some of the jokes wont reach some audiences since it's very Japanese in its joke telling. Thats my only gripe is that if you're not really knowledgeable about Japanese culture or your anime references aren't up to date, you might want to wait on watching this show. But if your hip and cool like me (joking of course), this show will be a laugh riot!! Side note: Some of the best parts of the episode happen after the credits!!

Skadi★ 7

As far as spastic, random comedies go Pani Poni Dash! would be pretty high on anyone’s list. Frankly, I am a little bit surprised that it is only scored on the lists of a mere 3,000 MAL users. At its best, PPD is a hilarious parody with references from Gundam to Star Trek and Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, a good many of its jokes and humor will be lost of all but the most informed otaku's. Pani Poni Dash follows the exploits of Rebecca Miyamoto, an 11 year old child prodigy who becomes a high school teacher and her freshman class and the mysteriousaliens observe her from orbit. The comedy that follows is silly, random and a bit predictable. The story is pretty much nonexistent as this anime is really about just being funny. The episodes unfold in a fairly episodic fashion with little character growth and development. At the end everything remains pretty much exactly the way it was when the series started. Thus we discover what the main problem is with this show. It just requires a level of understanding of Japanese culture, history, anime, and pop culture that will be beyond the vast majority of people who try to watch this. The version I saw had a lot of notes explaining the various references but can you really say something is funny if you have to have the joke explained to you? That’s not to say that it’s not uproariously funny a great many times, but there were probably just as many head-scratching ones as well. Another significant problem is the characters. Number one being there are just too damn many of them! I didn’t count but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were 40 of them. And while the majority of the anime revolved around only 6 or 7 of them the sheer number of supporting characters took too much away from them. While most people will find several of them to really love, all of them fall into standard archetypes and are almost completely one-dimensional. As I mentioned previously there is little to nothing in terms of character growth. Everyone is static and unchanging, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing it does make the show feel a bit repetitive as it reaches the end. If I had to pick one character from the show I found Ichijou, the bizarre class rep of 1-C to be hands down the best and funniest of all. What’s not to love about someone who creates the "Ichijou Festival" and keeps her little sister in her shirt? Yeah, that will make sense when you watch it. The art and animation are really good though a bit quirky. I think that fits the tone of substance of this show quite well. A lot of the humor is derived from the artwork and you’re likely to find something different every time you watch it. There is a bit of sensory overload in the amount of information presented to you visually. Strong voice performances add to an excellent soundtrack. I really found myself drawn to the music and the various OP/EN themes and animations were a great treat. Pani Poni Dash offers a lot to like for lovers of comedy. However because of the heavy amount of obscure or dated references (for a non-Japanese native), I can’t really give this more than a good rating. There is a lot to love about it and I would still recommend this show to anyone who likes parody anime. For the truly hardcore anime fans out there, I would consider this a must watch.