This is just a simple story about a Dandy and his dog
Last week on Space Dandy, Dandy entered a space-race where he accidentally time-traveled and became some sort of space-age Buddha billions of years in the future.
Summary of Space Dandy Episode 8:
- As Dandy and his crew visit a planet called Machinia, they discover a dog who Dandy names Pup. After playing with Pup, Dandy finds a way to communicate with her, but through that, finds out that she doesn’t have long to live. After her death, Dandy builds a rocket-coffin to send her remains to the Great Beyond. Before that, two tiny robotic beings named “Graviton” and “Gravitino” escape Pup’s body and board Dandy’s ship. After Dandy accidentally kills both Graviton and Gravitino, it is discovered that they are the only reason the planet Machinia is held together. Because of that, the planet starts to fall apart into a black hole. QT then activates the warp drive of the Aloha Oe, and the crew escapes.
My Take:
- Settle in; we’re going on a feel-trip. Not only does this episode look bleak, it’s also all about death. There’s a reason that comedy shows don’t try to tackle the concept and sadness of death very often, and I have to admit that when it became obvious that this episode was going to be about that subject, I had my doubts.
Wait… the end? But we just met you…
- Fortunately, this episode treated death in a surprisingly mature and touching way. Even though the new character, a dog Dandy promptly names “Pup”, only gets a few minutes of screentime, it doesn’t make her death any less sad. I think that it’s more sad for me since I am a massive dog lover, and the very idea of a dog that can “talk” is a dream I’ve wanted to see realized since I was very young. I legitimately thought that Pup would become part of the crew since Dandy could actually communicate with her. It is kind of a shame that she had to go. Surprisingly, I wouldn’t call it a wasted opportunity since her death really brought out the sympathetic nature of Dandy, and to a lesser extent, Meow.
- Even though the setting was bleak and the contents were morbid, the plot was very well constructed. There’s even a scene near the beginning where Dr. Gel attempts to locate Dandy, but in the process accidentally blows up everything around him and gets fired from the Gogol Empire. Even though it’s said that he’s fired, that doesn’t stop him from perusing Dandy, which does lead to a fairly comical way for him to meet his untimely end (again). Dr. Gel has some good scenes when he’s included in the show, and his pursuit of Dandy is still a mystery. I only hope that it’s explained why the Gogol empire wants Dandy, but saying that it’ll never be explained seems like an unfortunate possibility.
Well, maybe you shouldn’t have been a jerk to her then
- After Pup’s death a little over halfway through the episode, the crew still had to deal with the two robots named Graviton and Gravitino, who apparently kept the amalgamation of junk that made up the planet Machinia. Through an inability to communicate with the crew, Dandy accidentally killed both of the beings, which caused the planet they’re on to fall into a black hole, and that last scene reminded me heavily of the ending to episode 6, “The War of the Undies and Vests, Baby”, where Dandy had to space-surf off of the moon he was on. Repetitive? Maybe, but that didn’t make it any less entertaining to me.
- Side note: I like episodes like this one where Dandy develops his character. I also like the episodes where Dandy does stupid stuff to make us laugh. But I actually enjoy these more serious episodes more.
- Side note 2: Dr. Gel died again at the end of the episode. Then, for the preview of the next episode, Dr. Gel even acknowledges that he dies in most episodes. That’s actually pretty clever.
So artificial life will be able to sense smells in the future. That’s good to know
- “The Lonely Pooch Planet, Baby” is a sad episode, there’s no doubting that. But that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. In fact, this episode and “A Merry Companion Is a Wagon in Space, Baby” (which was episode 5) are two of my favorite episodes in the series so far. I won’t say that every episode in this anime should be extremely serious, but they do seem to be the best ones in my humble opinion.
