Space Dandy

Bones Inc.

If you made a drinking game out of Adult Swim’s new anime Space Dandy and drank every time someone said “boobies,” you’d be dead before the first episode concluded. Yes, it’s that kind of cartoon. However, before it’s dismissed as late-night cable vulgarity, it’s worth noting that Shinichiro Watanabe’s (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) latest isn’t that offensive. Sure, Dandy loves to visit the intergalactic version of Hooters—the only slightly less subtly named BooBies—but Dandy’s love of boobies is the show’s biggest crime. Side boobies aside, Dandy’s adventures in hunting down previously undiscovered alien species for reward money—aided by his robot and cat companions—are a fun romp through a colorfully outlandish galaxy seemingly inspired by the nonsensical creativity that’s currently thriving across the Internet. In one episode, the trio attempts to hunt down the infamously delicious Phantom Space Ramen. And within the varieties of space ramen alone, there’s more weird imagination than many animated shows out there. A secondary story of an intergalactic war waged between the Jaicro and the Gogol Empires—the latter of which is after Dandy for unknown nefarious reasons—could build and carry the show through its first season and beyond. Or it could turn out to be all about the boobies.