Series: Paniponi Dash V1: Lethal Lesson is tentatively a show about a brilliant teacher that takes her degree from MIT and moves to Japan in order to teach at a run of the mill high school. The catch (you knew there'd be a catch, right?) is that the teacher is an 11 year old girl and while she may indeed be very intelligent, she has all the emotional instability of a female (err, an eleven year old girl) in a class filled with an odd assortment of nutcases. Her name is Rebecca "Becky" Miyamato and she has an American father and Japanese mother (neither of whom is in the first volume of the series) but has long blonde hair with pink highlights, big eyes, and the usual mannerisms expected of a gal her age. Her class is populated by a cheerleader type (Himeko Katagiri), a cold bully (Rei Tachibana), a book worm (Miyako Uehara), the classroom president (Miss Ichijo), and a number of other stereotypes found in anime. The creative concept came from a four framed manga comic in the Gekkan G Fantasy Series as published by Square Enix (hence the multitude of references to their videogames in the show) but the animating of the panel art into an actual anime series required a lot of conceptual manipulation.

The other teachers have small roles and there are a weird assortment of characters that pop up from time to time to lighten the mood or act silly in some way, including an alien ship full of observers that happen to have picked Becky as their primary human to study from afar. Whether or not they have anything to do with her intelligence is unknown from the opener (it may just be why they picked her) but they allow for another genre in anime to be brought in to be examined in a hilarious way; looking much like one of the characters from Adult Swim. Becky's constant companion is a bunny that always seems dismayed about life in general, making the mix of possibilities endless for what happens to the characters.

Okay, so you think the series plot is something easily described in a sentence or two? Well, if that's the case, you'd be wrong since each episode seems to stand (or fall) on its own merits. The ensemble nature of the series is that it pokes fun at a lot of anime conventions of behavior, using pop culture references to things such as movies (the front cover is a tribute to the classic Cameron flick, The Terminator), other anime, videogames, Japanese traditions, and a host of other aspects of life in the Land of the Rising Sun. To some of you xenophiles out there, it sounds like Heaven by now, right? Well, the sheer number of references is so great that I'd be surprised if many of you would catch most of them without the benefit of the AD-Vidnotes that come as an extra for the English language dub. If you've watched the Excel Saga, you'll know what I'm referring to but fans of the VH-1 cable show Pop Up Videos will also understand that they are little text balloons that appear on the screen during many (not all) of the pop culture references the show is addressing at a given time; the emphasis in early shows being on anime and relatively obscure videogames (some of them being 20 years old) by a wide margin. Still, this was one case where the dub worked better for me then the original track since the notes didn't pop up on the original language track.

Paniponi Dash V1: Lethal Lesson was thankfully comprised of five episodes in addition to the nice extras, with each episode taking on a loosely translated catch phrase or proverb (while researching the series, I came across multiple translations for each episode title, all sort of similar but some having markedly different meanings). This time they were 1) Summerwear in the Coldest Season, Winterwear in the Hottest, 2) A Safflower Stands Out In Any Garden, 3) It's Always Harder On The Ones Who Have To Watch, 4) Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch, and 5) It Is A Treasure If It Is Fulfilling. The first episode established the basic characters and situation while additional folks are brought in over time as the other episodes aired. The show was originally released on Japanese television starting on July 3, 2005 and the title of the episodes seemed to fit the moral of the episode (though only to a limited extent). The television screen was almost always full of information (poses from other shows, phrases used in other material, and the blackboard in the background providing a near continuous stream of comments needing translation) and it didn't take me long to figure out that the original program was kind of dry compared to the dub (a rare occasion in anime).

The dynamic of the show was such that only true fans of a myriad of pop culture references will enjoy the show. If you're looking for a plot based series where the characters evolve and fight evil aliens, learn about a secret past, or otherwise follow the standard three part method of story telling, you're going to hate this one but if you liked the craziness of Excel Saga or a handful of similar shows, you'll find this one a lot of fun too. I found myself trying to keep up with the vidnotes only with the assistance of my remote control since they popped up frequently and almost always in groups of three, four, or five. I know that this makes it seem like a lot of work, and some of the obscure references would be way over the head of the younger crowd but there were nods to fan service, ample uses of stills, and in a weird way, it was really pretty cool (so don't listen to the haters out there). I'm going to rate it as Recommended overall but it was admittedly uneven at times and I got the impression that most fans will either love or hate it. Picture: Paniponi Dash V1: Lethal Lesson was presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in a nice anamorphic widescreen offering as shot by director Akiyuki Shinbo. The minimalist anime style used to add movement to the static images of the original manga series wasn't as detailed or extensive as some of the higher budgeted series coming out of Japan but it served the material well in this case. It used a blend of muted colors and static frames in an interesting manner, allowing for the material to parody many other references very nicely. The relative lack of shading and texture gave it a "look" that some of you will appreciate more than others but I had no problems with the visual presentation.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of the original 2.0 Dolby Digital Japanese or a newly mastered 5.1 English language dub. Each of these had two choices in regards to subtitles, a minimal stream or a more extensive stream; with the dub having the benefit of the AD Vidnotes to provide cultural background pop ups for those who want to know more about what was going on (for example, not everyone would know about the references to the Gundam series, the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, and some of the videogames for the Famicom released over here as the first Nintendo machine back in the 1980's). Obviously, there were some liberal translations of the material, especially with the dub, but it worked fairly well and I heavily preferred the dub this time. In terms of the separation of channels and sonic quality, the dub was a lot better (not just louder) and a decent home theatre will bring that out.

Extras: Usually, when a release has five episodes, the extras are fairly lame but that was not the case here with my favorite extra being the AD Vidnotes. They added depth and some amusing anecdotes although I thought letting them linger a moment longer might've allowed me to hold off on pausing the show so much. There were also a couple of television spots for the opening episode from Japan (which is how I found out about the release date on TV), a special opening called Yellow Vacation, a cool reversible cover, a series of clean closings, and a contest that starts next month that provides a number of quotes for fans to answer in hopes of being included in the final volume of the series (I'm not kidding). There were also some trailers and credits as well as a great paper manual that came inside the case that gave a bit of information on the main characters, messages from the Japanese cast, and an interview with the series organizer Kenichi Kanemaki.

Final Thoughts: Paniponi Dash V1: Lethal Lesson is the kind of wacky, weird, and wonderful anime series that fans of movies and pop culture references will enjoy repeatedly. It was light, fluffy, and fun to watch and if later volumes are half as good as this one, they'll be better than a great many competing titles on the market. Kudos to ADV Films for doing such a fine job with this one as the technical expertise they have shown in recent years came into play to make Paniponi Dash V1: Lethal Lesson a must have for obsessive Otaku. The value factor of the DVD was also one of the best releases by the company given the extensive extras and inclusion of a full five episodes, a pleasant surprise for this fan of the home team.

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVD Talk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003, Best Of Anime 2004, and Best of Anime 2005 articles or their regular column Anime Talk.