Wandaba Style

Summary: >

Mix Juice is four member girl group wanting to make it big. Each has a very different approach to music. There's a nursery song singer, an enka (traditional Japanese styled music) singer, a folk singer, and a rock singer. Manger Hanagata's plan is to make them into the next big pop idol group, but it isn't going well.

Meanwhile young Dr. Tsukumo is determined to prove that the moon landing was a farce, and wants to be the first to truly put people on the moon. He's not having much success either. Hanagata has an idea. His pop group will do ANYTHING it takes to get into show business, so he enlists them as astronauts in Dr. Tsukumo's plot. It's pretty hard to get better publicity than being the first pop idol group to preform on the moon. The problem is that they actually have to get there, and Dr. Tsukumo's "environmentally friendly" methods are prone to failure at the last moment.

Thoughts: >

By the second episode I had the feeling this one wasn't going anywhere. And it never does. The characters are bad for a lot of reasons. They're shallow and not the sort I could get attached to, but on top of that I found them annoying! Possibly the best point in this anime, ejecting annoying girls into space; isn't realized either because you still have to watch them!

Plot? Hmm.. the girls make repeated attempts at flying to the moon, but keep failing. It mostly repeats this over and over. There's an attempt at a plot twist later on but by then I had ceased to care. What I wanted out of Wandaba Style was silly fun. What does is silly... but not fun. Within the first few episodes I got a handful of laughs, but it already felt like I was trudging through it.

I almost feel bad when a good dub is put to a bad anime, but dub performances were quite good. Which is a strange contrast to the disappointing Japanese cast, so I'd go with the dub. Despite expectations the music might salvage this one, this also became a letdown. Even though the girls have such diverse musical backgrounds, their (ONE) song is just a generic pop tune which isn't even that good.

Best to avoid this one. The wacky concept seems like it should easily carry the show, but fails. With weak annoying characters, no real plot and lacking effective comedy, it quickly becomes a chore to watch.

Screen Caps: >