English Dub Review: Space Dandy ‘The Big Fish is Huge, Baby’ (Season 2 Episode 5)

Spoilers Below

After last week’s song and dance (*buh dum pish*) we start tonight’s adventure with rolling fields of green. The team is on a lake fishing and Dandy just caught himself a carp. QT then shoots Dandy down telling him that it doesn’t count because the hook wasn’t in the fish’s mouth. Dandy retorts that QT is just being picky for no good reason. Dandy let’s the fish go when Meow mentions that they should be out looking for a more lucrative catch. He tells of a legendary alien called a Munagi that only appears every 3,600 years. QT finds the alien is on the registration center’s wanted list and worth 50 million Wulongs.

The  announcer tells that Dandy and the crew headed to planet Kaiyuu, but got stuck in space kelp. Dandy uses the ship’s transporter and beams himself off the ship and straight on top of a mud bubble on top of a natural steam vent. He is rescued by a young alien in a suit that wants to be friends. Dandy asks about the Munagi and the alien says they knows where one is. The alien takes Dandy to their home and after taking off their suit we find it’s a little green haired girl. She takes him to an eldery fisherman, named Ldelise, who tells Dandy to go away. We also get a shot of a bird sitting on a perch.

The girl takes Dandy out on a boat in a large cloud covered ocean. Dandy complains about not catching a bite and the girl dives in and she pulls out an alien but it’s not a Munagi. Night falls as they are back home. We find out the little girl’s name is Erssime. Dandy falls asleep but wakes up in the night to find Ldelise looking out of a giant telescope into space. In the morning Dandy gets an early start on the fishing. He tries a whole bunch of places, even joins in with some of the locals but no luck. Dandy complains the planet is nothing but mud when he comments on a passing bird, noting that he has seen it somewhere. He goes down to the water’s edge with his boat and finds the old man fishing away. A wave comes along and sweeps him into the water. The old man saves him by harpooning his hair and dragging him back. Dandy thanks him but the old man tells Dandy he had long ago seen a great many fools coming to look for the Munagi. They offended it and they all died. Ldelise tells Dandy to stay out of his way.

Later that night Dandy and Erssime are sitting by a fire and the little girl tells Dandy of the legend of the Munagi. She says it lives real deep in the water and doesn’t go for any bait at all. She continues that when there is a blue moon, the Munagi will swim to the surface. Dandy doubts the legend, but Erssime tells that Ldelise has been looking for the Munagi too and that she wants to be as great a fisherman as he is someday.

Dandy goes fishing again and comes across a couple of others fishing as well. They shoot down the legend that Dandy was told and say that Ldelise is crazy and the only one who believes it. In fact, the planet doesn’t even have a moon. Dandy wonders what is the truth when back on the ship QT and Meow say that Dandy has had no contact with them, but then suddenly see that something large is in the direction of the planet they are on.

We then see Dandy spear fishing when he meets a mermaid that leads him down where he meets a large creature that tries to attack him. We come back and find Dandy is dreaming and when he wakes up, Esame is sitting on him saying that the old man is missing. They come outside to a brewing storm and Dandy doubts that Munagi probably aren’t real. Erssime scowls at him and says Ldelise would never tell a lie. Dandy relents and they set out to find Ldelise. They spot the same bird and figure it’s going to lead them to the old man.

Back on the Aloha Oe, QT and Meow are tracking a blue comet that only comes around every 3,600 years. They can’t get the ship unstuck but Meow spots a small duck boat close by in the kelp.

Dandy and Erssime come across the old man out on the water when the blue comet arrives in the sky.  Ldelise tells of the same legend as the seas pick up.  QT and Meow  show up in the duck dingy tracking Dandy. The sea literally opens up and swallows the old man’s bait before a serpent body comes out of the sea. The old man fires arrows at it and is knocked into the water and Erssime rescues him. Dandy grabs the rope and is being pulled through the water screaming the whole time. He ends up in the boat with the other two who grab the rope. QT and Meow show up and join in on the pulling. The natives from earlier show up and every starts pulling as well. As Dandy is getting tired the old man gives him the bow and arrow. The beasts comes out of the water and Dandy shoots the rope arrow, gets tangled in the rope. The Munagi all jump from the planet to the comet as the announcer says that the Munagi had been part of the comet but had jumped to the planet 3,600 years ago. Dandy is thought dead but bubbles out of the ocean and begins fighting with the old man.

A little while later Dandy and the crew are shown right back where they started on a boat in a lake looking for fish again.

Wow, This episode really went off course for the tone of the show. The animation once again stepped back but also went into a bizarre and surreal approach. Between the background and the character design, as well as the story itself, it almost felt like they were trying to make a Miyazaki like approach to this episode. It was very different than anything Dandy has done before in almost every way. Not what you would get out of this type of show.

The story itself was touching with only a few points of the typical Dandy humor. The idea of Dandy meeting this crazy old man who no one believes except a little girl and in the end everyone believes him to join together for the common cause does have a child like film quality to it, again like a Miyazaki film. There is more of the typical Dandy silliness at the beginning and the very end but a majority of the episode felt like a warm filled family movie.

Summing it all up this episode wasn’t a prime example of Space Dandy, but it was so far out of left field it has it’s own quality to it. It seems like they were going for something here, whether it was Studio Ghibli or not, and achieved something on it’s own. The art wasn’t perfect, as surreal as it got, but the story made up for it in spades.