In a nutshell: another fifteen minutes of lame content
for $15.
The Show:
I wasn't really impressed with the first volume of Panda-Z,
but the second volume is actually a bit worse. The limited novelty
that the first volume had has worn off by this point, and the short stories
still fall flat.
Panda-Z is a short show. Each episode is five minutes long.
The opening credits eat up a minute and a half, and the closing animation
takes up another half a minute. That leaves only three minutes for
each show. On top of that, there are only five episodes on the disc.
Yep you read that right, only five shows, at three minutes of content each
gives an insanely short 15 minutes of content.
If that wasn't bad enough, what content there is isn't entertaining.
Panda-Z doesn't have a plot, and there is no thread linking the episodes.
It is supposed to be a parody of anime I think, but it falls far from being
either funny or witty. The show involves a panda, Pan-Taron, who sometimes
fights in a giant panda robot, and sometimes not. In the episode
Payphone Pan-Taron and his friends are having a picnic, and Denwan,
a robot with a phone on his head, keeps getting calls for the picnickers.
When a villain shows up, Pan-taron wants to use the phone, but Denwan won't
let him unless he forks over some cash first because...get ready for this...he's
a payphone! The fact that they revealed the punch line, and an idiotic
one at that, in the title is makes you wonder why you wasted 3 minutes
of your life watching.
The show was made with the lowest possible quality too. The animation
is some of the worst that I've seen in a long time. If I said the
animation was cheap, you'd probably think it was much better than it actually
was. This show looks like it was done on someone's Mac with PD software.
Not only are there simple figures and sparse backgrounds with no shading,
but there is hardly any movement. One episode hold a static image
for a full 30-seconds with the only change being the colors as the sun
goes down. Yeah, that's really exciting.
In order to save even more money there aren't any voice actors.
Yep, it's silent. The only sound is an irritatingly repetitive rock
soundtrack with a few sound effects. The whole production is chintzy
beyond belief. I am astounded that someone actually released this.
The DVD:
Audio/Video:
The widescreen image is fine with no real problems. There certainly
aren't any compression artifacts since they only have to fit 25 minutes
worth of video on the disc. The stereo soundtrack is fine to, for
what it's worth. There are no spoken parts, just Japanese intertitles
with optional English translations.
Extras:
There is a minute and a half 3D animation clip that plays like a regular
episode without the credits.
Final Thoughts:
For the life of me I can't image who would find this show amusing.
Very young children wouldn't be able to read the dialog, and anyone older
than 5 would find the humor dull and predictable. Maybe it's supposed to
be a 'so bad it's good' show, but I can't imagine even a group of drunk
college students laughing at time. Add to that the fact that there
is only 15 minutes worth of content on the disc, and you've got a disc
you should avoid. Skip it!
Buy: