Mar 15, 2021
Pani Poni Dash is an excellent comedy that is a perfect match for Shaft. Its heavy use of non-sequitor humour and fast pace with constantly changing scenes fits well with shafts animation style allows them to go full out when animating it.
Content wise, there is essentially no overarching plot. Episodes may refer to each other, but actions do not have consequences and wierd things constantly happen that are reversed or never brought up later. The lack of plot structure is actually pani poni’s greatest strength as it allows it to have ridiculous events with no lasting consequences on the world or the
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characters such as becoming a mech pilot to fight a giant delinquent for one episode. The stories told are often vehicles for comedy and are not important in their own right, despite some being extremely heartwarming and serious. Pani Poni dash always straddles the line between serious and comedy and plays jump rope with it with great results.
Comedy wise, the main comedy is non sequitor humour and gags. This works very well in animation as there is almost always some sort of visual gag happening on screen demanding your attention. There is no respite to the jokes. However, you should have some tolerance for referential humour. This is probably the only part of Pani Poni dash I did not really like. There is a ridiculous amount of references in it, from popular anime, to kids anime you've probably never watched and even random video games and japanese culutural references. I personally did not find all of them that funny( among the ones I understood) and I think it would be hard to truly have the context needed to truly understand the references unless you were literally in japan and had been brought up in japan while it was airing. In a way, it shows its age.
Visuals are where this show really stands. Even among Shaft's works, which I consider to have great animation, Pani Poni dash is a level above. It may very well be my favorite work animation wise. The entire world looks almost like a dream with things popping in and out randomly. Characters will appear as animals, dolls and the classroom never looks the same. As I said before, the non-sequitor humour allows for shaft to constantly create interesting and weird things. In addition, Pani Poni dash is very fast paced with scenes flowing into the next at a rapid pace. One second, the characters are in Japan on an abandonded island, and the next they are across the world in Brazil dancing in a fair. The lack of structure and a need to adhere to a strict plot gives shaft the opportunity to go full out and show everything they've got. You will find some of their best shots in this show and you will definitely find their most interesting shots in it.
Lastly, lets talk about Characters. Pani Poni Dash is a very character driven show as the humour comes from the character interactions. This is a bit controversial subject as objectively speaking, there are a ridiculous amount of characters. In the first episode alone they introduce like 10-15 characters that will reappear in future episodes. The main cast consists of about 6 or 7 characters but many others return for a couple of episodes to almost every episode. This can make it a bit hard to keep track of characters visually. However, after a couple episodes, I did not find it very hard to keep track of them. This is because characters have unique personalities that are explored through the episodes, and often have gimicks like certain actions, or sayings. For examples, there is a character who says "Maho" a lot and "Thats omega-awesome" and such. Another character often says, Something-Something-"of the year". These gimicks are repeated throughout the show which reinforces them in your mind and really differentiates the characters. They all have very different personalities and after a couple of episodes I really appreciated them. I can also say that there was not a single character I disliked or thought was boring.
Overall, Pani Poni Dash, is a great character focused comedy with a lot of humour and a surprising amount of heartwarming moments. My only advice would be to give it a couple episodes to get to know the characters before judging the show, and to not try to hard to understand eveyrything. There are gonna be references and jokes you won't get due to not having the context, and if you focus on them you'll never get through an episode. Just wait a couple seconds and there will undoubtedly be another joke to laught at. Also, be ready to screenshot a lot. There are some seriously beautiful and creative visual shots. Oh and the OP's are great. OP 3 > OP 2 > OP 1 imo.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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