Nerima Daikon Brothers Review

Shinichiro Watanabe is an interesting anime director. He’s the man responsible for strange, surreal works such as Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi, but he’s probably more memorable for as “Nabeshin”, the nickname that most people know him by and the name of his character in all of his shows. Despite this Mary Sue-ish trait of his, I can proudly say that he is a great director, but I can only say that two of his anime are really great: the aforementioned Excel Saga and the subject of today’s review, Nerima Daikon Brothers.

Yes, he really looks like that.

Nerima Daikon Brothers is a unique anime, even by Nabeshin standards. It has the usual weirdness and surrealism of his best-known work, but it’s also a musical comedy, and I cannot really compare this anime to anything else because of this. If there’s another musical comedy anime out there, please alert me to it, because quite frankly there needs to be more of them if they can be this good.

The show is mostly episodic and each episode follows a very basic formula: the Nerima Daikon Brothers are wronged by the villain of the week in some way, the Bros sing some songs, the Bros defeat the villain with the help of Nabeshin’s rentals, Bros take villain's money in hopes of using it to get out of debt and build a concert dome, and then the Bros lose that money. Rinse and repeat. Despite the predictable formula in every episode, you’ll still find yourself amused and bewildered by the strange things going on in Nerima, such as the aliens, the heat seeking butt plugs, the Inspector Gadget and Michael Jackson parodies, the panda and fishcake fetishes, and the lion-esque Prime Minister. There’s also a lot of sexual humor in the show, with examples such as the phallic nature of daikons and the previously mentioned heat-seeking enema. Those of you who can’t handle lots of sexual humor might want to be cautious about this show because it doesn’t really hold back on the sex jokes.

As for the brothers themselves, they’re not flat characters, but their personalities aren’t too hard to sum up. Hideki is the boisterous old-fashioned leader of the group who drives the group’s dream of having their own concert dome on their daikon farm (a daikon is basically an Asian radish, by the way). He’s also not too bright, and not knowing simple things like the fact that marrying your cousin is legal in Japan really show this. Speaking of the cousin he wants to marry, Mako is the token female of the group from the countryside who wants to be rich and famous at whatever cost. Finally, there’s Ichiro, the soft-spoken moe host who seems to be the voice of reason many times, and even he’s weird with his love for Pandaikon, the group’s pet panda. Later on, a character named Yukika (the Inspector Gadget parody) becomes a regular member on the show, but she’s more of a rival of the Bros. until the end, as she doesn’t really approve of their criminal antics due to being an officer of the law in all.

Now for the main meat and potatoes of the series: the witty and catchy music and lyrics. The show is able to switch between talking and singing without weirding out the viewers too much, provided that the rest of the show doesn’t weird them out, which is important in any musical. You’ll often find yourself singing along with the songs because they are that catchy, and the sing-along option on the DVDs certainly helps. As for the voices delivering the music, the English voice actors do a great job, as do the English writers. Translating Japanese into English and making it make sense to English speakers is one thing, but to top that off with translating a Japanese song without screwing with the actual music is a hefty task. Yes, the lyrics in the English version are significantly different, but they have to be to translate properly, and the writers do a good job of keeping the original spirit of songs intact. If it bothers you, the Japanese voices are should suffice, but you miss out on hearing Greg Ayre’s, Luci Christian’s, and Chris Patton’s great voices.

All in all, NDB is a wonderful little gem. If you’ve liked Nabeshin’s past works, definitely buy this. If not, still give it a look, as it’s probably a more tolerable blend of weird than anything else he’s directed, and because the show is very different from most other anime out there, it’s definitely something to keep in mind if you want something other than the typical moe or harem shows that have been suffocating anime in recent years.