Paniponi Dash!

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 just ... happens 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!!

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 mysterious ... aliens 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.

If I could be given a chance to describe Paniponi Dash! In one sentence, I would say it’s a very chaotic and experimental take on the slice-of-life school comedy genre of its time. It mercilessly bombards you with random referential humor. It doesn’t follow a distinct format in delivering its jokes. Whatever Shafts in the creator's minds on what they think is funny, they will insert it regardless if it makes sense to the overall theme of the show or not. In most cases, the show is not even identifiable as a school comedy but a jumble of genres instantly shifting themes from time to ... time.

This review might have some minor spoilers but Paniponi Dash! the story is not the main focus of the show so you won't be losing much on the experience.

First of all, we need to discuss the show's story. To summarize Paniponi Dash! It's all about Rebecca’s daily struggles in managing her main class while at the same time confronting bizarre forces lurking in the corner as the story goes on. The only twist the story has to offer to differentiate it from the rest of other slice-of-life school comedy is that Rebecca is an 11-year old genius that graduated top university in America. After Graduation, she flew to Japan to become a high school teacher. . In my opinion, she is better off doing things that might benefit the human race with her self-proclaimed superior intelligence, than doing a profession she literally has no passion for. That alone for me as an initial story doesn’t impress me or appeal to me even if it’s just a comedy show.

But wait! There’s more! Not being satisfied for being just a plain old-school comedy. The show also has the audacity to add some sci-fi and paranormal stuff in the mix. It is revealed in the first minute of the show intro that Rebecca's intellectual potential has caught the eyes of these weird-looking mushroom head aliens and decided to monitors her every action 24/7. Does this show bother to explore an interesting story as to why Rebecca is special or explore the origin story of why is a genius in the first place? The short answer is no. It was never mentioned again in the next 26 episodes and the aliens only serve as trouble makers to do more weird shenanigans to Rebecca Life thus feeding the show with random SciFi and paranormal humor. The show even bothers to show the alien daily lives in a comedic fashion that serves no real purpose aside from Gag Filler. And that’s what will you expect in Paniponi Dash Main Story. The spoiler ends here.

The main heart and blood of this series is comedy. I usually put the comedy in a separate section when I made reviews for school comedy. But for Paniponi Dash! case, I will be talking about both the comedic elements and the characters side by side to explain my points on what I found funny and not funny in this show.

Let’s start with the characters first. I have an issue when a show has far too many characters and not a single one stands out or makes an everlasting impression on me. In your standard school comedy you might get 3 to 5 characters sometimes more than 10 but Paniponi Dash! has like 20+ plus regular characters and some other extras along the way. And not a single one gets a fair amount of characterization, fails to retain their sparks in a few episodes, or worst a few minutes of screen time. Taking into account the show bother to highlight some of them but don’t have the dedication to make the audience feel invested in them.

For a school comedy, characters don’t really need to be complex or written with layers of personality but they need to have some additional identity aside from their core punchlines. If you are going to use them for more than 1 to 3 episodes at least add a little bit of character. The only character I see that changes a little bit is Rebecca's interaction with her students and that's about it. Characters in this show are defined by their surface-level traits, not personality but particular physical traits that define their one-liner joke. For example, there is a character defined as looking bland and boring, another one describes having a shiny forehead while there is a girl describe for her hairstyle, not joking. Kind of an offensive joke trait if you ask me. And sadly, they never improve upon the status the show gave them. And we spotted the first problem of the show, the characters feel irrelevant. The show never invents new gag to make the characters funny, they continue repeating the joke over and over again in every single episode. It gets boring really fast. Sure, the first 1 or 3 joke getting repeating is ok, but abusively repeating it from episode 1 is pretty overkill.

Another thing I want to highlight is referential humor. I really don’t think this show nailed what makes those references funny in the first place. Instead of making a creative satire of the source material, they just added it there without any meaningful context thus a cheap knock-off parodies. I can forgive if the reference is in small amounts since a lot of school comedy does the same tactic but in Paniponi Dash! it is a constant barrage minute by minute that even the most hardcore of hardcore otakus might find overwhelming. Referential Humor occupies the majority of its episode runs.

For Visual complaints, not so much except for CGI NPC's is just an uncanny valley for me. Sure it's intentional for comedic purposes and it was already done before by other shows. But for me, 2D NPC's has some charm on it on not alienating its setting and characters. And that’s sums up my negative gripe with the show comedy.

Now after bursting the weight in my chest, let's move on to the interesting and funny part of the show that made me believe it’s not a total dumpster fire.

When it comes to jokes and humor that are not related to any outside media source, the show is funny for me. Simple conversations about daily living and personal interests are very engaging to watch. Added with some very enjoyable soundtracks between the comedy and the relaxing moments, the show has a good ambiance in setting the mood. Too bad this good trait of the show is overshadowed by the creator’s ambitious nature in making the show as explosives and chaotic as possible.

When it comes to creativity and animation, I give this show a pass. I can appreciate the sure amount of passion and effort place in the visual presentation of this anime. Combining 2D animation with real-life still images with eye-pleasing color choices. Even on complicated sequences like SciFi machinery and fast-paced action, the animation is very fluent and consistent which some other referential comedies failed to replicate. Studio Shaft also improves upon the art style of the source material making an extra plus in my book.

Final Thoughts

It is obvious by this point Paniponi Dash! sole purpose is delivering a different approach to the ever-developing boom of the cute girls doing cute things sub-genre. It's quite an experimental series since this is the time when Shaft is still trying new things to spice up the visual experience. I admit because of this experimentation the anime visually made an identity for itself at the time. Thought because of this trial and error pace took a toll on the character writing and possible potential the show can produce.

To me, the show can be a potentially good slice of life series since it has the elements. A relatable setting, relaxing atmospheric soundtrack, and probable likable characters if they were flesh enough. But that’s just me wanting the show to be more than just a wacky flavor of the seasoned comedy.

I can’t really blame the show if it decided to focus on the comedy elements since the plot itself is a joke. But it also works against its since the gag is so random and trivial, it gets less impact as the show continues. If the series lasted long enough before the comedic magic grew stale, I would find this show memorable and recommendable but it's 26-episode series that repeats its joke. It gets less and less engaging over time for having a lack of direction to its characters. I’ve lost interest around episode 7 when nothing is actually changing. I found it bad because of that.

When it comes to referential comedy, it’s always a hit or miss to me. But when it does hit, it’s pretty enjoyable. I like when they pay tribute and homage to very classic anime like Gunbuster and other mecha shows but that is not enough to keep my attention.

The very thing that I acknowledge and happy that Ponopani Dash! anime existing is that it gave way for better adaptations of series Shaft created with similar style and cinematic approach. They improve upon the same concept with Hidamari Sketch which one of the best Slice of Life School Comedy the studio ever made and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei that perfected the comedic formula. Especially the usage of the same visual style in the Monogatari franchise. Thus establishing Shaft Animation style as a whole.

Final Scoring:

Characters Mediocre (4/10) Comment: Characters define by 1 line jokes and appearance. Need fleshing out to become memorable.

Story Mediocre (4/10) Comment: There isn't any plot, what you read in the synopsis is basically what you get in the entire show. Comedy is a hit or miss.

Music Good (7/10) Comment: Have a very good set of soundtracks ranging from calm to wacky. In my opinion, OP 2 is the best song "Roulette☆Roulette by by Momotsuki Gakuen Ichinen C Gumi". Very fun to listen to from time to time.

Art Good (7/10) Comment: Experimental and Consistent. It's a pass.

Enjoyment (6/10) Above Average Comment: There are times the show is very fun. There are times it's very boring. Since this is a referential humor-heavy show that is also very dated now from the time I write this review this 2021. Not all folks will enjoy it. I am already familiar with the culture and seen quite a lot of old media references. because I have no problem with most references and get some giggles for it.

Overall (4.9 or 5/10) Ok or Meh School Comedy Series Comment: I am saying it now. The only thing that interests me to watch Paniponi Dash! that serves as a stepping stone in improving Shaft's later works. The premise and appeal alone of this show are not enough for me to actually continue finishing it. To me, I only recommend this anime if they are looking for a wacky comedy made in the early '00s. Other than that they are even better off watching newer comedy shows if they want referential humor they can relate to. To me, this anime is a relic of the past that nobody is obligated to or a must-watch. But if you want to travel back in time to see what is Shaft is all about in 2005, go ahead and try it.

And Always Thanks for Reading

Pani Poni Dash is easily one of the best comedy anime I've ever watched. The background story is interesting but the "genius girl" thing has been done before. However, Pani Poni Dash takes an approach much different from other schoolkids anime like School Rumble and even Azumanga Daioh.

Pani Poni Dash is chock full of fun parodies, cameos, and tidbits. You'd better have your finger over the pause button to read all the footnotes and references in Pani Poni Dash. The plot is very loose but present enough to give the anime a framework to works its humor off.

The art in Pani Poni Dash ... is very colorful, cheerful, bright, and humorous. Of the many things Pani Poni Dash parodies is the anime art, and the parody is visible in every episode. Pani Poni Dash does chibi perfectly, perhaps the best chibi I've ever seen in anime. Besides that, the normal art is very well done and slightly softer than conventional anime.

The music in Pani Poni Dash is very good. There are many songs as OPs and EDs. Great episode scoring and sound effects. I've grown to like all 3 OPs and the 2nd ED.

Character development in Pani Poni Dash is unique, which is saying a lot in the schoolgirl-comedy genre. Rebecca Miyamoto is the perfect balance of kawaii, attitude, sternness, and little-girl... ness. The anime explores different character archetypes in the various students of Peach Moon High School, resulting in a uniquely balanced cast of personalities. It even parodies overkilled character types such as "magical girl" with Behoimi, and plain, underdeveloped characters like Kurumi.

In conclusion, Pani Poni Dash is a definite download for anyone who likes comedy anime. The anime gets off to a great start but kinda winds down near the last five episodes. It's definitely an anime I can watch over and over again.

Before I begin, let me get something off of my chest. This show is very similar to another, somewhat famous, anime by the name of Azumanga Daioh. It\'s about a series of seemingly unrelated events in a school environment that happen to a small group of girls in a class. Heck, the show even has a strange, talking, anthropomorphic cat. Now that I have that connection out of the way, I hope to never mention it again in the remainder of this review.

Pani Poni Dash is a fully functional comedy anime that will make you laugh at times, but it is far from perfect. ... The characters all have fun personalities (there\'s even one that has no \"individual\" personality) that bounce off of each other very well, and the child-teacher is a fun, if clichéd, bonus. One of my favorite parts is the incompetent cast of aliens that is watching over the entire school stage in a bid for research, and basically makes a mockery of military protocol. They also have a depressed, almost Emo, rabbit that makes a scene even funnier when juxtaposed with all of the other characters. There are a few problems, of course. Some of the running gags get old very fast. This is especially true of Miyako\'s large forehead visualization. Okay! She has a large forehead. I got that the first three-hundred times. You don\'t have to keep reminding me, thanks. If you can get past those, then you will probably enjoy Paniponi Dash\'s slapstick comedy.

The animation is pretty good too. It\'s a fair mixture of basic anime and \"chibi\" anime. The colors are a little too bright for my tastes, but are just right for an anime in of this type in this happy-go-lucky school setting. Sometimes, though, the animators try to slide in bits of fan service. While I am all for fan-service, it just seems very out of place. You\'re watching this anime to laugh at stupid situations, not to get turned on (at least, you shouldn\'t be). Also, I\'m not a loli fan.

As for the sound... meh, I have no complaints. I watched it in the original Japanese, and all of the characters had voices that matched their personalities. Rebecca-sensei\'s voice is irritating at times, but it is just a necessary evil. The music is also a resounding \"meh.\" It was functional. It wasn\'t a resounding musical score, consisting of several brass and string ensembles, conducted by a world-class musical genius, but it got the job done.

All in all, Pani Poni Dash is a fun anime that I recommend to some but not all. If you are a fan of comedies, go ahead and check out Pani Poni Dash. You will laugh and enjoy it.

"Rebecca Miyamoto. Born of an American father and a Japanese mother. Graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the youngest graduate in the school's history. She then returned to Japan to become a highschool teacher. However, she was only ten years old at the time."

The success of a little manga-turned-anime you might have heard of called Azumanga Daioh spawned a long chain of imitators, eventually developing into the slice-of-life sub-genre that many of us know colloquially as the "cute girls doing cute things" genre. Pani Poni Dash is one of those shows, and that, coupled with the quote above, ought to be all I really ... need to say about the plot for you to know exactly what this show is like... notice I said ought to be. The show's creators decided that putting a new hat on an old face wasn't enough for them, and the end result defies concise classification, so I won't even try. What's really important is that this show is intended as a comedy, which is one of the most subjective genres in existence. As a consequence, it can be extremely difficult to give such shows an honest and fair critique. The approach I'll take for this review will be to look at what the show tries to achieve, how it attempts to make its audience laugh, and whether those moments "work".

I hinted that this show was rather unique, and that's partially due to the visuals. Production studio SHAFT and director Akiyuki Shinbo are known for blending standard animation with stop-motion photograpy, numerous art shifts, simpler color choices when they're effective... what I'm trying to say is that the look of the show is memorable, and this especially applies to the opening and ending themes. At its most basic the animation doesn't really impress and the moe character designs are pretty generic, but it always gets the job done, and when the show decides to try out a different animation style they consistently up the ante. The show also makes interesting use of the foreground, which adds an extra degree of expressiveness. If I have one bone to pick, it's that the extras are very, very ugly. Considering the extras in each classroom have different designs and they're all ugly, I can only assume it's intentional for... whatever reason. Overall, though, this show looks mostly fine. I've heard some people say that SHAFT's odd visuals are their way of saving money, and there may be a grain of truth to that, but it still leaves a definite impression.

The soundtrack is about what you'd expect from a slice-of-life anime: relaxed or quirky when it needs to be, a bit repetitive but never really jarring. This is in part because there are several episodes during which we're taken out of the typical classroom setting and into several more outlandish scenarios, and in each case the music adapts suitably. It's not particularly memorable music, but it's mostly fine and I guess that's all I have to say about it. "About what you'd expect" and "mostly fine" are also what I'd use to describe the Japanese cast, which is pretty much comprised of typical soft moe-girl voices. Never bad, but they don't impress either. The dub, on the other hand, was handled by the now-infamous ADR director Steven Foster. For those not familiar with his work, Foster has a tendency to take excessive liberties with the material he's given. This includes inserting profanity or mean-spirited comments in odd places, along with an uncomfortable combination of overacting and underacting. All his usual stuff is here, and in particular the voice acting in this show comes off as both high-pitched and wooden. There are several good voice actresses here, so I'm inclined to blame that on Foster. Still, it doesn't really detract from the show, and in a roundabout way it actually sort of matches.

So, even though Pani Poni Dash! is technically a highschool comedy, the show's situational humor has remarkably little to do with actual highschool. Its scenarios range from searching for a lost cowlick to fighting off alien mushroom spores to an archaeological dig to a battle against a giant comet in space, the list goes on. That's just the stuff that happens episode by episode; even the supposed "everyday life" at the school is filled to the brim with hidden rooms, weird animals, and some things I can't even identify, and there's almost always something happening in the background. There's a camera crew that seems to be recording the show (they obviously have no idea what they're doing) and a group of aliens who seem to be monitoring Rebecca and her students from orbit. This show makes enough references to stump even the most hardcore of otaku at least once or twice. The writers put so much effort into filling the school with weird and interesting ideas, in fact, that they completely forget to give any of them punchlines. Those are kind of important, guys.

The biggest problem with the situational humor here is that the writers make the common mistake of assuming that "weird" or "random" automatically equate to "funny", without anything clever or relevant to hold the joke together. This isn't high-class humor, but if it's handled with a good timing it can still work. The problem? Pani Poni Dash! has no restraint. It essentially fails as a comedy for the same reason that Hellsing TV fails as a horror: it can't set up its audience's expectations properly. It's one thing to hit us with something random and out-of-the-blue at the last moment we'd expect it, quite another to shove that kind of thing in our face all the time without ever letting us build up a sense of normalcy. Once the weirdness stops being unexpected, it's not fun anymore. A good portion of the stuff that happens we're expected to laugh at it because it's there and it's weird, and that's pretty much it. When the punchline to a good portion of the jokes is "I don't get it", you know you have a problem. The show will make references simply to make the audience say "wow, that sure is a reference you just made". I mentioned that the show makes frequent art shifts, which are handled competently from a technical standpoint, but the writers never do anything witty with them. If you're going to switch to an RPG-esque visual style, why not make it an episode about videogames? It's not that hard to justify these things.

Even if they don't handle their situational comedy well, some shows get by on good character-based humor, but that's not the case here either. Like many other shows of its ilk, Pani Poni Dash! basically revolves around the antics of a group of schoolgirls, with the added "gimmick" of a kid-teacher who tries with varying levels of success to act like an adult but still shows her childish side. Then there are the students, ranging from Himeko, a hyperactive girl with a hair problem and a verbal tic (maho), to Ichijou, the class representative who constantly straddles the line between evil mastermind and... Osaka, if we're making Azumanga Daioh comparisons. But that's just a tiny portion of the cast, especially if you bring in the students and teachers from other classrooms. With such diversity, this show should have the potential for a wealth of character-based comedy. But then the series completely blows the most important element of character-based comedy: making the characters likable and believable. There's not much character to like, seeing as a good portion of them are essentially comprised of one or two jokes, like the clumsy girl and the cosplay girl. Seeing Becky's rabbit Mesousa fail to pick up an object because he doesn't have fingers gets old really fast. There's also big, muscular, masculine-looking girl named Zula, and a cat who claims he's God, haunts vending machines, and happens to be another Azumanga Daioh reference. Once again, the joke is that they exist and that's it. This kind of half-assed, repetitive writing does not good humor make.

The show never gets its characters to play off of each other in any clever ways, either, often resulting in a reliance on out-of-character moments just to force out a joke. For example, there was one episode where everyone suddenly decided to take advantage of a girl for being "too nice", even the ones who aren't usually smart or mean enough to do such a thing. Worse still, some of the characters can be terribly jarring. Your mileage may vary, but it's hard to find Rebecca's "cuteness" endearing when she's so bitterly cynical all the time, and an eventual look into her backstory reveals that she was incredibly introverted and distant when she went to college, which make her occasional lapses into an innocent child less plausible, not moreso. As a result, most of the time she just comes off as a precocious brat. That's to say nothing about Himeko and her goddamn Maho, which can become positively unbearable. The reason I said the English dub didn't really detract from the experience is because there's really nothing to detract from--the characters already act so unnatural (and in many cases mean-spirited) that it can be hard to tell where the show ends and Foster begins.

Pani Poni Dash! is ultimately a series of missed opportunities. The few (and I mean very few) moments where this show genuinely managed to make me chuckle were when the show took a simple but neat idea and then followed it through to a weird-but-logical conclusion. It's not hard stuff, which makes the show's failure to pull it off all the more frustrating. This series does everything it can to get the audience's attention while failing to do anything to deserve it. It's immature, is what I'm getting at, and loud and obnoxious to boot. Just to clarify, I do not hate this show. At first I hated it, but as I neared the end all my rage had more or less burned out. That's not to say this show is an acquired taste, if anything it's an acquired immunity. By the time I finished, I didn't even care enough to hate this show, it had just become boring, which is the one thing I never thought this attention-seeking brat of a show would become.

This isn't anywhere close to the worst I've seen in an anime; I know there are some people out there who will enjoy this, and it should be easy to tell from the first episode or two whether you're one of those people. Despite that, I can't bring myself to recommend this show in any capacity, not even on a "give it a chance if it's put in front of you" level. What it comes down to is this: all of the shtick in Pani Poni Dash! I've seen done better in other anime, some of which can't even be considered good. That more than anything should speak for where I stand with this series.

I only ever give a perfect review to an anime that truly shines in what it does and manages to appease my tastes in every way imaginable. Pani Poni Dash is no exception and is the first anime that I ever felt truly earned a perfect score from me as I could not find a single flaw about it.

Now, before you just continue scrolling to other reviews of this anime, fearing that I might just be some overly joyful fan of the anime that is not giving it any negative opinion because I am distracted, I want you to read all of what I ... have to say first.

Anyway, if you seek random comedy, absurd story and a cast of characters that give off a different vibe, Pani Poni Dash falls perfectly under this category. In fact, I think it defines these categories quite well.

Until Azumanga Daioh, we believed that a single anime could not change the comedic nature of the high school setting. This one certainly had enough comedic undertones, story and great character development to stand out from the rest; and very impressive animation for its time that looks very well done and extremely detailed in high definition.

But, Pani Poni Dash literally did just this: they saw Azumanga Daioh and decided to take the comedic approach up. Not by a one scale, or two scales, but FOUR scales higher from what this cult followed high school anime introduced. In fact, it is credited as introducing a new genre into the anime comedy scene as more anime shortly after began copying its style.

This includes humor that falls under animation nods; such as floating text, absurd weather conditions, making the school look like a recording set and adding in an even more hilarious set of random, anthropomorphic characters. I will not spoil what they are as it will be more funny when you see them for yourself.

The characters themselves will give off a vibe that, at the first episode, will trick you into thinking this anime is just about to follow the path of trying to copy the zaniness of Azumanga Daioh. Then, out of the blue, the humor steps it up the next episode and it quickly, but progressively, enters into its core style as it continues.

This anime aims at offering as much content as it can provide. This includes literally changing the end credits every single time an episode is over; not the song, but the animation nods in the credits themselves. Granted, they will each have a theme, but the theme is not just a continuous loop until the next; it changes it up every time you see it. And, at some points, the end credits change entirely; even the song. And then, they will humorously go back to the previous theme.

The character introductions are literally the shortest you will ever see in an anime, because this anime starts right away without undergoing any short character introduction phase that consumes some of its time up. It introduces them in a very unique way that, for its time, was probably not done yet by any other anime. And it was because of this that it increased my enjoyment of the anime as it never leaves out of its absurd story for even a second to do something else.

Well, actually, there is no central story; this anime is nothing but digression! You will see the characters do one thing, and the next they will be off on a new adventure of some sorts. Also, this anime carefully pays attention to the background as, well the main cast are talking, sometimes you will see other characters doing the most ridiculously random things in the background! If you have an easiness for being ticked funny by light comedy tidbits, this anime will be the best prescription for making there is not a dull moment.

In some episodes, it does become a tad dull, but ever so rarely. And the randomness can get a bit out of hand, but if you enjoy Japanese culture a lot, this anime is the pure king of references. If you can read Japanese, the background is absolutely cluttered with references. And, sometimes, whenever the camera pans onto the other character and returns to where it panned before, the text will CHANGE in the background; for absolutely no reason! And when it pans back, that text will change, too.

Pani Poni Dash also makes heavy use of animation in everything it does. Not detail-wise, but fluidity. Some comedy aspects will either have lots of unnecessary fluidity or extreme detail; or even transform into a video game! Though it will mostly retain its core style for the whole run so do not worry if you are concerned for it changing it up too often.

Now, this review may feel a bit overboard and, to some, maybe this anime deserves a lower score. But, this anime aided every single aspect I enjoy in an anime: randomness, comedy, references, animation fluidity, detail and even wrapping this up into the core story sometimes where they will reference a former event in a latter episode.

So, this review is solely dedicated to those that enjoy these aspects in anime. It is truly rare that I actually find a single anime, just one, that did it all. And it is still the first anime where, after only watching a few episodes, I felt obligated to buy the DVD right away and support whomever made it.

And, whenever I re-watch this anime, it is so random in every aspect that I might not even remember most of what it does and a lot of it will actually feel like a new experience again. I will, most likely, recognize some scenes here and there, but for the most part, the randomness will feel genuine enough to make it feel new at least a few more times over.

Pani Poni Dash is not at all a well known anime and is very underrated. It manages to not only have good original voices, but even the dub sounds really good. This anime is just the very definition of what happens when you have a group of friends that just decided to make an anime; this is it.

My only negative opinion about this anime would be that it did not have more episodes, but thankfully it did not fall under the tedious twelve, either; a path that most good anime unfortunately take either because they can not write a long enough story or because of budget cuts.

So, if you are into comedy, and believe that Azumanga Daioh was the only anime that changed the way high school comedy worked in a major way, then Pani Poni Dash is the right anime to completely make you rethink that statement and fully quench your thirst for anime comedy. In fact, it might fill you up a bit too much and you might have to take a break every now and then so that you can get filed up again and again! Either way, this anime will do more than sate.

Pani Poni Dash can be best described as Azumanga Daoih as done by Shaft. A comedy about a bunch of cute teenage girls doing dumb stuff. This was one of the first anime made by Akiyuki Shinbo's start up studio, only their second after Moonphase, and his style is as prevalent as ever. Quick cuts, otaku references, bizarre imagery, dynamic camera angles, shifting art styles and the usual unsettling fascination with the pre-pubescent female form. I've always rather liked his style (well, apart from the pedophilia, but whatever) because it makes scenes far more interesting to watch than bland talking heads. If anything, Shinbo ... has probably toned down his weirdness in recent years. Pani Poni Dash is probably the most visually eccentric of any of his works (bar possibly Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei). There's never not something happening on screen. Most of it is sheer non-sequitur strangeness and I was struggling to find some sort of connecting thread between what Shinbo was trying to do with this. It did eventually click though.

You see, there is no plot or driving force to Pani Poni Dash. It is ostensibly about Rebecca Miyamoto, child genius, becoming a teacher and trying to gain the respect of her students. But rarely were the on-screen events of any real interest. What the real 'story' was about was the Shaftyness of the directing breaking the fourth wall, laughing at its existence as an anime. Frequently the camera would zoom out to reveal the characters were all on a set. Big fluffy microphones would occasionally drop down into view. Stage hands would walk across the camera. Visual metaphors would be drawn attention to by the characters. A giant hand descended from nowhere to turn the world around to indicate the passing of time, only for some aliens to notice this giant hand and desperately trying to convince his captain of what he had just seen. Those aliens were reoccurring characters and I liked them a lot. Their mission was supposed to be monitoring Rebecca, but what they acted as was viewers of this television production, commenting on their inability to follow the plot or choosing their favourite characters.

There are loads of other little tricks like this pulled to poke fun as its existence as an anime, and I'm not going to go through them all, but I would like to mention this final one. Sometimes when the girls were talking, they would pose in some sort of sexy position, their curves amplified, even though it had nothing to do with whatever nonsense they happened to be saying at the time. It was a perfect example of "what these characters are saying is of no importance, they're only here to give you eyecandy". With the boom of 'cute girls doing cute things' anime that occurred just after Pani Poni Dash, it was rather funny to see Shaft mocking the pointlessness of them before they even existed.

The problem with Pani Poni Dash is it really only has this one trick, and it doesn't develop. It's a problem I have with a lot of early Shaft anime, from SZS to Maria Holic. There's no development of the jokes. They're just one-trick ponies. It may be a brilliant trick, but it still gets old when you keep repeating it. The other problem I had with early Shaft stuff is the visual fuckery has nothing to do with the actual story. I get that the visuals being disconnected in Pani Poni Dash is kind of the point, but the story the visuals tell don't develop either. This is the main reason why I love new-age Shaft with Arakawa and Madoka Magica. Their crazy visuals actually serve to enhance the story itself and develop along with the story.

There's no development of anything in Pani Poni Dash. Going back to the Azumanga comparisons again, what made Azumanga click so well is because the characters and the jokes built up over time. Azumanga's big thing is reoccurring jokes, but these jokes develop as the series goes on, playing on your perceptions of how the joke is supposed to go. I consider Azumanga's final episode to be one of the best endings of all time, because you really feel like you've lived their high school lives with each of the characters and watched them develop. Pani Poni has none of that whatsoever. The characters are either shouty irritants or people whose actions have no bearing on sentient thought. They aren't the focus of the anime, the fourth wall destruction through the visuals is, but that doesn't develop over time either. It stagnates incredibly quickly.

Pani Poni is genuinely funny and entertaining, but it has absolutely no right being 26 episodes long. I don't think it has any right being even 13 episodes long. By extending the length of the series far beyond its jokes sell-by date, it cheapens and damages the things it actually did well. The more I watched, the more my enthusiasm for the series was sapped out of me. In fact, I dropped it after 14 episodes. Call me an unproffesional reviewer with no patience who can't review of anything if they don't consume every single part of it, but fuck you. I had gotten everything I wanted from Pani Poni Dash after 6 episodes. I saw no indication that it was going to improve. Watching anymore would have only damaged my opinion of it. I'm not going to continue doing something I don't like simply because it's not considered a 'proper review'. I'm not getting paid for this. So, for what it's worth, my review of the first 14 episodes. Funny stuff, but gets stale very quickly.

Now I might be risking a little doing such a review on this but this anime gets a lot of good reviews and is liked and well reviewed by a lot of people in the anime community so I have taken it upon myself and after seeing the highest low score giving by Vivisection, I thought I would have a go and tell you my thoughts of this anime so lets get in to it.

Story (2/10)
As an eternal optimist, I really wanted to like this show; random humour and the otaku nod to fans usually have me lapping up any serving of amusing antics. My ... kind nature was instead bitch-slapped into submission by one of the biggest heaps of god-awful unfunny trash I have seen in a long time. Even before the closing credits of the first episode rolled, I anticipated a humongous disappointment. It wasn’t until six episodes in, with no shining moments of redemption, that I realised quite how bad this show was going to be. Praying for the finale to finally arrive, I found it an uphill struggle via an impossible incline to get to the end of Paniponi Dash!. The episodic nature was hard work, and consistent repetition of mildly amusing jokes soon killed off any humour that may have lingered.

Parodies only work if you’ve seen the target subject matter, and much of the show’s shtick is based on bizarre Japanese shows and culture that only a native or an infatuated weeaboo will recognise. From the blatantly obvious that may raise a smile (Indiana Jones and Super Mario Brothers) to the little-known (poking fun at an insurance company called Aifu..?), nothing is sacred in the eyes of the writers. Some puns are understandable, and can be funny as a result, but the entertainment was killed for me as I struggled to keep up with the never ending nuggets of information about the current joke. I never thought I’d say this, but it was too fast and too much all at once....

One of the things that really irked me about Paniponi Dash! was a lack of situational background. The adorable Becky just arrives at the Peach Moon Academy, but there is no build-up or explanation to how she actually got the job. Seeing an eleven-year-old-girl being interviewed to be a high school teacher could have been very amusing, but the script writers chose to ignore this amongst other prime opportunities. This kind of omission just gives the whole show a flailing and deficient feel: like running the wrong way up an escalator, the legs are pumping furiously, but it essentially is going nowhere, fast.

Maybe it was because I didn’t “get” the obscure Japanese satire used, or maybe it’s because the entire show feels like recycled trash that I’ve seen before but in a successfully humorous show. Either way, I am glad to have finally expunged this woeful offering from my watching list.

Art (6/10)
Fulfilling their reputation for quality, SHAFT deliver a slightly above average offering that encompasses multiple visual styles. The cutesy girls are satisfactorily drawn, but the real outstanding animation comes from the varied appearance designed to complement the episode subjects. Switching the setting to a retro computer game, or paying tribute to Patlabor in one of the opening sketches, the artwork has some solid moments. Sadly, like many interesting gemstones, there are a multitude of imperfections; in what I can only describe as visual rape, there are scenes that need to be paused to read subtitles, footnotes, and a deluge of extra character information that flashes past at warp speed.

Sound (8/10)
One of the only things I looked forward to in Paniponi Dash! was the surprisingly amazing kick-ass soundtrack. Seamlessly blending together numerous contrasting musical genres, from a swinging sixties style opening to a tuneful magical girl spoof, the whole audio medley works extremely well. A polished seiyuu cast also perform admirably, giving depth to a tender young Becky and an excitable charm to the hyperactive Himeko.

Characters (2/10)
Along with the story, I find characters are extremely important in overall enjoyment of an anime. Consistent with a dreadful script, the imperfect characters feel as if they are designed to disappoint. Part of the problem stems from an unrelenting recurrence of stereotyped jokes for each girl, resulting in the initial humour dying on its ass before the show’s midpoint. Underage teacher Rebecca is either being a bolshie tearaway, or an annoyingly tearful brat and her flip-flop personality results in her being jarring rather than lovable.

The rest of the class consists of a handful of forgettable characters that will definitely appeal to some, but feel like the result of too much spoofing for others. The shy moe, an aggressive tsundere... originality means nothing in Paniponi Dash!, and I struggled to find anything likable about a translucent supporting cast. Of the wide-ranging personalities featured in the show, the relationship between the abused bunny Mesousa and a peculiar god-cat who lives in a vending machine was bizarrely the most believable. For something with so much potential, this felt like a complete waste of what could have been a priceless sister sorority.

Overall (3/10)
I know there is a huge section of the anime community who love Paniponi Dash!, but it just didn’t excite or interest me. A host of two-dimensional characters and hit-and-miss puns made 26 episodes drag out over 4 weeks, and with no urge to pick it up each time, it quickly became a visual chore. Someone made an interesting comment that summed up the entire series for me: this is reverse plagiarism. You feel like you’ve seen much of the content before in more recent shows, such as Lucky Star or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but the newer offerings do it with certain indulgent aplomb.

This is a super funny anime. I love all of the characters quirks. Himeko is really funny the way she says maho all the time. Alien captain is awesome too especially when he tests his subordinates with the wiggly stick thingy. It's basically a high school comedy with a bunch of random stuff thrown in. It's really good and you'll probably have to watch it several times to catch all the on screen jokes and parodies that you'll miss.

Pani Poni Dash is by far one of my favorite animes, because of the random things that just seem to happen to every single character of the story. Its a very good watch anime if your not in the greatest of moods, and need a good laugh. By the end of the first episode I can guarantee you will be laughing so hard your troubles will be behind you.

Storyline: (good)
The best way I can explain the storyline is in one word, Progressive. Meaning that its a progression with the school year, a well development of character progression through out the story line. Other ... then that there is no real story line that ties all the random episodes together, but because of the random one liners I was laughing to hard to care that I was missing a story plot.

Artwork: (great)
If you have seen Azumanga Diaoh and like the artwork seen in that anime, then you should be happy to know its very similar artwork in Pani Poni Dash.

Enjoyment: (outstanding)
I have to admit between my family and I we often will go off on tangents when we talk to each other, and a lot of the little random one liners from this anime tend to find there way into the jokes among us. So I hope you take my advice and on a rainy day sit down and watch this anime! You wont be disappointed!

The show has the most random things in it. In my opinion it the funnest and weirdest anime ever.Noting makes scenes only the weirdest people can understand it, like my best friend Claire and I.So if you like random animes with 10 year old high school teachers, demented evil and sadistic students ,and a cat that calls himself god I highly recommend this anime.Enjoy ^-^

Ill get something out of the way right now. This show is weird. Its a comedy show through and through, but it goes about it in a zany odd style. So if you're not down for some weirdness then just stop reading right here, because this show is not for you.

Anywho, that said, I loved PaniPoni Dash! Its mix of colorful characters and strange gags never got old for me, and I enjoyed myself until the end. Now, lets address all the rating criteria.

Story: Its weird. And it doesnt always make the most sense, which is fine given that it lends itself perfectly to the ... show. But because of its craziness I had to give it a somewhat low score (since it doesnt make a whole lot of sense).

Art: PaniPoni Dash uses a rather distinct art style. It suits the show well and makes the characters even more recognizable. The animation is fluid and well done, so I have nothing but praise in this department.

Sound: The intros are all very nice tunes accompanied by some very surreal visuals. Overall I liked the intros a lot. The ending themes were also nicely varied. As a side note whereas most anime use different opening themes at logical points or in some order PaniPoni Dash kind of jumps around to whichever opening they felt like using that episode. But it keeps them from getting stale, and further to that end they have various versions of some of the openings sung by different characters of the show.

Character: The high point of PaniPoni Dash. Full of weird and distinct characters that keep things interesting. Each one is quite different from the others and you're sure to have a favorite.

Enjoyment: Quite high. PaniPoni Dash!keeps the weirdness coming bringing along with it the humor. Theres rarely a dull moment (although the segments with the aliens were a little dry).

Overall: Id give it an eight overall. Quite good. Worth watching if you like comedy and can stand some craziness in the process.

Pani Poni Dash! : One special anime with one hell of an interesting and funny setting.
Simply all it is about is that Rebecca Miyamoto ( still a child, small and a genius) starts working as a teacher for some quite individual students. It means that they all are kinda strange even Rebecca herself.
Everyone has their own funny traits and that is what is keeping the anime moving forward. Because there is actually no real plot going on. It is all about crazy, random stuff which is all mostly a parody to older animes and series. Even the characters are a parody themselves for the stereo-types.

All ... the characters in the anime are very lovely and well made. Everyone has their role and is playing it just fantastic and funny. There are quite a lot of characters which are all individual so I will just mention some of the main cast.

Rebecca: Like above mentioned, a genius who is trying to act like an adult but just ending up to get scared and teased by her students.
Rei: A money loving and imp girl who can be really a devilish if she wants to be. She can cook!
Himeko: She is a crazy girl who is always saying "maho" and bringing up a pretty lively atmosphere. Ahoge.
Ichijou: She is resembling the most mysterious character in the anime. All her actions are unpredictable but also pretty funny and blunt.
Kurumi: Being depressed most of the time for her plain attitude with no special traits at all. Well, that's about it because she is just too plain.
Miyako: If study-bug is a word to describe her then it is but she is all for the aggressive parts responsible. Like getting mad easily.
Sayaka: So she is the nice girl. Always helping and being friendly. You can't complain about her at all.
Mesousa: Well, he is something very special. He is a bunny, a talking bunny who has just a very, very sad life...that is about it...lol

Now the music and how the anime is made. Music is fun. The openings are switching around but the first one is really great. And quite creative made. For the endings, cute, cute enough! Fun to see.
The anime is drawn simple but it is anyway focusing on the funny scenes and parodies. And all the characters look cute enough too.

So in the end I want to say that is Pani Poni Dash! is a league of its own. The anime is a parody of other animes, that is true but it has its very own charme which you will start to like from the very beginning. Every character has been made with lots of love and the anime is be really funny and entertaining! It is all funny.
Something that might be of a problem is that most of the parody references are maybe a little bit hard to understand. It might be not letting you get every joke but you can still enjoy the anime without the knowledge. Every episode has a whole bunch of things to look up if you want to get every kind of reference and all the meanings.
But enough now, the anime is great, funny and lovely. I was kinda sad after it was over because I wanted to see even more. So if you like an anime with lots of references and fun then you should watch it. It is also kinda a lost jewel. maho~

What's it ?
Tags: school, comedy, parody.

Long long ago, I was looking for something positive, funny, sweet, instructive, in a genre of school stories, which could diversify my gray evening. Pani Poni Dash is more than suitable for this description. It was an incredibly abstract, bright and colorful, the background music is exactly suited to the video, a diverse and interesting characters. Pani Poni Dash seems simple at first, the usual comedy about the relationship of teachers and students, but later discovered the hidden facets of the plot. We can see that each character has its strengths and weaknesses. We will look for associations with already ... seen anime, will try to unravel all the parodies, will try to predict the development of the plot, but ... it will be impossible. Imagine the volatile mix of Lucky Star (it was created at a later date, but absorbed a lot from here), Alice in Wonderland, Star Wars and the tales of the magical creatures of Japan. Ready ? A good shake and drink. Logical thinking brain is better not to use.
However, after watching the reality may seem not so colorful.

Please keep in mind, for the majority this review is going to biased due my tastes; you've read my Excel Saga review, you'll know I don't particularly like over-the-top humour/parody.

STORY: So. This really has no linear plot line. You'll be fine watching this, if you want something that's ridiculous, light-hearted and colourful. You know, a lot of hyperactive characters, monsters randomly falling from the sky, and a crap attempt at trying to insert some fan service in, /subtly/. Oh, and you know, random references from other anime, manga, and things outside of that. Instantly, we know that there has to be some sort of relation ... to the Negima series (same director), when we're introduced to a class full of whack-job students, taught by a child prodigy who is younger than the students. Notice anything else similar to another anime? So then, I'll move onto the art part.

ART: Moon Phase. Once again directed by the same director. Notice those scenes out of both series, and Negima, where the setting is a cross-section cut view of a building or room? You can even tell by the colours used. I know that the colours were what attracted me to this anime, which is weird. I really don't like the character designs in this, they all look kind of chubby. As expected from the same director as Moon Phase and Negima, animation is lovely and smooth, although more smooth in the opening sequences. Again, with PPD!, Moon Phase and Negima!?, their openings and ending tend to be artistic and experimental.

SOUND: The music was alright. Nothing much to expand on that though.

CHARACTER: Aaaah.. Nothing like an anime where almost all the characters tick you off. Only Rebecca and Rei didn't annoy me; Rei didn't annoy me because of her serious nature and that she's voiced by Shmion's seiyuu. The most annoying being Himeko, her personality, behaviour her seiyuu and how she uses 'Maho' and 'Omega'.

What was really off-putting, was throughout the series, because I was watching it subbed, there were a lot of notes about the different references from anime, manga and such. It was so hard to actually keep up with both the notes and subs, and I ended up not being able to read all of the notes or the subs in time. Then further into the series, the fan subbers stopped putting the notes in the actual episodes, but made a separate .pdf for them. You really need the patience for this anime, not just because of the notes/subs, but with it in general.

I'm a huge fan of Shinbou..and Pani Poni Dash! is just one of those animes that will make you laugh when you least expect it and in a way that doesn't even make sense.

I give it 2 thumbs up, but it's really "to each his own". If you like an anime with a plot, and which makes you think..You probably won't like Pani Poni Dash. Pani Poni Dash! Has a vague yet simple story, which will probably turn anyone off who is into a nice "serious" anime.

In fact there's not really any "serious" parts in the anime, it's all cleverly done parodies and memes. ... So if you're looking for hardcore character development,..there's not a whole lot of that either =P

It has a pattern that's seen a lot in Shinbou's productions. Such as; School full of light hearted/semi disfunctional girls, and very few men. But, they always seem to play it off in a way that's not too cliché. (In my opinion) And always flows very well with the theme.

Although the pattern has been seen before, there's elements to Pani Poni Dash that is definitely unique, and makes it worth watching.

But if you're not too familar with Shinbou's productions, I'd recommend taking breaks between episodes, as you may have a seizure.

Just kidding =)

And I hope you found this review hepful, as it was my first^^

This is actually really odd piece of work. It revolves around a small girl that is a child prodigy that is being watched by aliens. The show feels a lot like School Rumble, Lucky Star, and Azumanga Daioh. It’s all over the place and hard to understand and yet it is fun and energetic. The story really doesn’t have much of a plot and even makes itself seem like a low budget TV show. The only thing that really keeps the show interesting is the characters. Many things don’t seem to actually blend in together.

Rebecca is a really odd girl, supposed to be smart ... but they never show that she is. She may seem smarter then most of the characters there but that isn’t much to be proud of. She’s a loudmouth, smart ass little girl that really cares more about herself then most of her students feelings. She is pretty much like a whiny little brat though she does she have a little bit of good traits and yet she might be the only lovable character in the show. I’m really not all that sure about the other characters because they seem to all blend into each other. I don’t even get how the cat is considered God too. It just seems really strange.

My favorite character is Rebecca’s rabbit actually. It’s a really strange mutant bunny that walks around is almost always depressed. To me, that’s the best character in this moe induced world.

The opening reminds me of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and some of the old spy shows in how the whole thing seems to be old colorations and somewhat grainy sometimes. The artwork in the actual show is down right crazy sometimes. It’s very bright and sometimes even too bright. It’s somewhat hard to watch because the style jumps from rather good to somewhat decent quality especially when the characters squash and stretch.

The music is alright, mostly the sappy slice of life stuff we normally get and has a feeling of Azumanga almost while still being its own. I’m not sure why every character seems to have a ‘hair-lo’ as some people call it, like its stage lighting. Another thing that feels strange is times when the whole show becomes a video game or stage in itself, and the characters talk about it, breaking the 4th wall to bring the watcher in more.

PaniPoni Dash!

Welcome to…. One of the best anime ever! Seriously, it’s a super comedy, think comedy from anime and then square it = super comedy. PaniPoni Dash! Is an anime filled, totally loaded, with references. If you thought Lucky Star had a lot of references to anime, PaniPoni Dash! goes one step further, or like several; every single episode has references to mangaka artists, seiyuu, music artists, historic figures, other anime, manga/anime magazines, Indiana Jones, Star Strek, Kamen Rider:…… yeah, a lot of references; I don’t think there is a 5 minute period where something doesn’t get referenced, so this anime is almost like ... a test, how well do you know your Japanese culture? I can’t even say otaku things, because it’s a lot lot lot more than just otaku things. (Also, not necessary to know everything, it’s still ridiculously funny)

So what’s PaniPoni Dash! about? Uhm, nothing and yet everything at the same time. It’s about Miyamoto Rebecca, an 11 year old girl who has already graduated from the prestigious M.I.T. at the age of 10 and has gone to Japan to teach…. High school kids? Yeah, that’s what she does and there are 3 aliens who monitor and watch everything she does at all times, they just sit in space and play games or make up the bulk of Star Trek references and other things like that. See what I mean, everything, yet nothing.

Rebecca, or as her class calls her, Becky, teaches class 1-C of the Peach Moon Institution. Her class consists of Ichijou, who is the class representative, almost always expressionless and does things because she “feels” like it, she’s also capable of quite literally ignoring all the laws the world consists of, if she wants to do something, she will.

We have Katagiri Himeko, she has an ahoge (piece of hair that sticks up), it has magical powers and is always moving around, she loves to say “Maho” (super cute) and is love with Becky (platonic of course).

Momose Kurumi; you know how in anime there is always that one girl who’s super smart, super pretty, best in class, best in everything, right? Well Kurumi is not that girl; in-fact she’s 100% average. She’s so average that everyone in the class calls her plain, which leads to her getting depressed at having no presence.

Uehara Miyako, the girl with the HUGE forhead, seriously, her entire focus as a character is her forehead, sometimes the only thing you’ll see is her glasses frame and this shining, unbelievably large forehead that will reflect the scenes around her.
Serizawa Akane, the super cosplayer; she’s one of the funniest characters in PaniPoni Dash! Always trying to trick the girls by cosplaying, but almost always getting seen through the disguise, I always laugh when I see her.

I can’t forget about the rabbit Mesousa, he can’t hold anything, he’s ignored by everyone, he seems to always run into Kami-sama (A cat) and just like Momose Kurumi, he has no presence at all. He’s crying often and is very sad and even though it sounds really bad, it’s one of the funniest things in all of PaniPoni Dash! Laugh out loud funny at the way he’s treated, honestly, it’s so good.

Yes, there is a huge cast of characters and there are even more supports too, it’s filled to the brim with personalities and people, making PaniPoni Dash! impossible to be boring because the way PaniPoni works is each episode is encompassed by nonsense and many characters make it worth watching. Can’t even forget about the seiyuu involved, an intense and outstanding job utilizing much talent; I really don’t think it’s possible to call PPD a boring anime, nope, just not possible.

Art style; for what PaniPoni Dash! does, it’s very good. Soft, colorful, smooth lines and very very very, I mean absolutely adorable and very cute. All the girls are super cute, especially Becky, star of the show. The neat thing about PPD is that, aside from its “standard” or “normal” art style, the massive amount of references to other anime and things means you experience a ton, almost literally a ton, of different art styles. Super realistic, mega cute, out of this world crazy; PPD is as much fun to look at as it is to actually watch.

Sound/Music: Unbelievably unbelievable. The sound effects, the music, the BGM, everything and I do mean everything, is perfect. There are so many sound design aspects to PPD that it makes my head hurt thinking about it. There is so much going on within PPD, all the crazy antics, scenes and things that the sound aspect is huge. Don’t just think that the references only work on the drawn art aspect either; prepare to listen closely to the music because even within that variable, there are references to other things, such as music from Rocky!

PPD! is an anime that from the get go, you can tell everyone had a lot of fun working on. The references, the art, the way the seiyuu conduct themselves; the zany world we’re thrown into, it’s all just a whole big bag of good fun. Not much makes sense, most references will fly right over your head, but it doesn’t stop PPD! being one of the best put together anime I have ever seen. It’s incredibly funny, it’s really cute, it’s super good and most definitely worth watching.

So, I dropped this at episode 7. Clearly I won't have a full perspective on this anime. But it's a continuous story of randomness so that doesn't really matter. It's not about a narrative.

I really wanted to like this anime. I'm a fan of studio Shaft, and a fan of wacky comedy anime (Nichijou is my favourite anime, and I'm also a fan of Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan and Osomatsu-san), but PaniPoni Dash just didn't do it for me.

The story is mostly done in episode 1. Rebecca "Becky" Miyamoto is a genius 10 year old from abroad who becomes a Japanese high school teacher. It's ... a pretty good premise, and the characters interact with her well. I can't really speak on development of the story. Some characters gradually change their attitude towards Becky as it goes on, but that's just their sympathy towards her childish side. There's also the side-story of these robot alien things watching the events at this school (with particular focus on the character Ichijou) but nothing's really come of that yet, so it's just a side gag. My bad for dropping it, I guess.

Obviously we don't watch these anime for a "story". So, it's best to talk about the character comedy. In a word, it's weird. It's very weird, bizarre. Hard to comprehend, and full of Japanese references that fly past me. Sometimes it does make me laugh, but most of the jokes are a miss. Crazy stuff just happens out of nowhere. Unlike Nichijou where extremes are found in mundane events, PaniPoni dash is about extreme things happening in what should be a mundane setting, often as a result of unexplained and bizarre characters, or just not explained at all.

The characters are probably why I haven't gotten into this anime. Basically, there are too many of them. They all have a set personality trope and have the same kind of interactions with each other, but from what I've seen we don't get to know them. They're just all their to do their own thing. Becky is the best one because she is multi-faceted. The rest are set in stone. Which I actually don't mind if it's done well, like in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. There are like 4 classes and each have their own set of students. Becky's class are by far most important, but the others are given a good amount of screen time too. The hijinks they all get into are quite predictable, but there's also the problem of being too many things happening to care about anything. There are cutaways from the events of students in one class to the events in another that do feel a little jarring to me. I'm unable to remember the names of them and all that happens is nothing but a bizarre thing that aims to make you laugh. And fails, usually. They lack depth, and this is not made up for by strong enough comedy. Ichijou is a character that I like but has too much power to just do anything. It makes her completely un-relatable, even though she's one of the strongest comedy elements. The characters are actually not as wacky as you might expect. Most of the eccentric personalities here are more annoying than funny. Another character I care for, though, is the bunny mascot. So seeing it suffer all the time is tough.

The art is mostly quite simple. It works for the anime, though I'm not a huge fan of the colour palette. Then the anime kicks it up to extremes and has really experimental stuff. I enjoy this element of the anime; it does set up some pretty good visual humour.

The soundtrack isn't really memorable. I remember there being a song I like but I can't fully remember it. The Opening songs are very good though. I especially like the 2nd one, it's always a real blast. The ending themes are solid too, perhaps the first one is a bit weak though. The voice acting (Japanese) is also very solid. Some seiyuu's I know and like are here, the usual Shaft anime suspects with Chiwa Saito, Ai Nonaka and Yui Horie all in major roles. There was also the blessing of a minor character voiced by Tomokazu Sugita. Someone familiar with Japanese voice actors will appreciate the voices in this anime.

Overall, though there are clear redeeming qualities to this anime and I encourage anyone to watch this anime if they think it looks good, my personal enjoyment could not hold up my experience watching. The jokes and situations fell flat a lot of the time, and I couldn't find much attachment to this large cast of characters. Give it a try, but I don't accept the notion that a fan of wacky comedy anime will certainly like this anime.