Were one day forced into competing
To see who'll take the crown
And inherit the town
It's a tough job for every sibling
So the lot of them started campaigning
With the hope of some supporters gaining
Since the people would choose
Not only who would lose
But also the next king to be reigning
They were all being watched at all hours
Everywhere except maybe the showers
They were shown on TV
For the townsfolk to see
As they exercised their super powers
Oh yes, one of the siblings could fly
And another one could multiply
One could summon a chair
As if out of thin air
If her bank account doesn't run dry
And thus each and every single scion
Sought to be someone you could rely on
But life will find a way
It's just another day
In the Castle Town called Dandelion
Joukamachi no Dandelion is a rare series in the sense that it is effectively the anime equivalent of a celebrity variety show. Originally a 4-koma manga, the story follows the royal Sakurada family, consisting of the king and queen as well as their nine children. However despite the tiny country seemingly being a monarchy, the actual decision on which one of the princes and princesses will become the next heir to the throne is done by an entirely democratic process. They have to go campaigning in the streets and make political speeches in order to attract voters and then hopefully win the upcoming election and thus become the next king. To aid this, there is a total of 200 security cameras distributed throughout the town which follow the Sakuradas’ every move and broadcast it immediately on national TV for the population to see. So it’s basically a sitcom in that sense.
To add to that already quite erratic premise, all the Sakurada children also have their own individual super powers for whatever reason, including gravity control, instant learning, teleportation, object creation, mathematical future prediction, self-cloning, manipulation of biological growth, superhuman strength, as well as communication with animals and even inanimate objects. In short, there’s a lot of variety in this anime and it does a surprisingly good job at giving each of the Sakurada siblings a respectable amount of screen time and characterization.
Because of its 4-koma origins, the anime consists of many smaller parts and most of the episodes are divided into two, sometimes even three short stories instead of a single one spanning the entire episode. Despite this however, it still manages to progress the overall election process fairly well throughout the anime. The shorter segments also mean that the large number of main characters still all get a decent amount of storytelling dedicated to them individually, which helps a lot.
I don’t think you can really call anyone a protagonist in this story, but the one who gets the most screen time is Akane. She’s a very typical HanaKana moeblob who is pretty much the spitting image of Onodera Kosaki to me. I have a bit of a problem with her in the sense that she’s so unbelievably shy that sometimes when she gets embarrassed even I’m starting to feel awkward just by watching her, which ticks me off a bit. But either way there are a ton of characters in Dandelion so I’m pretty sure everyone will find at least someone amongst them which they can grow fond of.
Overall, Joukamachi no Dandelion is hardly a masterpiece by any means, but it manages to stand out a bit from your typical slice of life comedy due to its unusually hectic premise and story. If nothing else, I have almost nothing straight-up bad to say about it, which is more than I can say for most anime.
