The second volume of Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat contains more wacky fun as Princess Dejiko journeys on with her friends trying to make everyone on Di Gi Charat happy.  This juvenile comedy adventure show is aimed at younger audiences, but older viewers just might find themselves enjoying it too.

Having introduced all of the main characters in the first volume, this set of shows focuses more on relating the groups adventures and hold together much better.  While the show is still a series of short 6 minute shows, in this volume the four shows that make up an episode all tell the same story.  This helps the show out a lot, since they can add a little more plot and continuity to the stories.

The first episode finds Princess Dejiko and her pals dressing up in costumes and stealing from the rich to give to the poor Robin Hood style.  Deji Devil and Piyoko get really irratated at this.   They can't understand why someone would steal something and not keep it, so they get into the theft racket to show Dejiko how it's done.

Next the group sets off to sea to help a poor fisherman and his family.  It seems that the area is all fished out, so Dejiko (dressed as a pirate) and her friends set sail to find out what happened to the fish or, failing that, discover some treasure.

When Deji Devil tells Piyoko that he can't pay her allowance in the third show, she gets mad.  To placate her Deji enters Piyoko in a race, with the 1st prize being a year's supply of whatever the winner wants.  Of course Dejiko and friends enter too.  There are several races to qualify for the big one, and each one is more outlandish, than the last.

This series has started to grow on me.  I thought this volume held up much better than the previous one.  While the mini-episode format made sure that things would move along at a fast pace, the fact that the had some continuity between mini-episodes made for some longer stories and the chance for more humor.  I found myself laughing at this DVD much more than the first one.  Though it still isn't a laugh a minute show, some of the strange and silly situations were quite amusing.  The most entertaining segment being the pig race near the end of the disc.  I found that one quite funny.

Like the first volume, this DVD retails for $29.95, but only has the equivalent of 3 half hour shows on it. (Actually 12 mini-episodes which run about 6 minutes each.) With the price of mainstream movies on DVD falling, you could easily get two other DVDs for the price of this one. I don't mind anime carrying a premium price (well, I can understand it at least) but I think $30 for 85 minutes of shows is pretty steep. They should have included at least another 30 minutes of programming, if not another hour.

Audio:

I watched half of this in the original Japanese (2.0,) and half with the English track (5.1.) Both soundtracks are similar in quality. They were both clean and didn't have any hiss or distortion. Neither soundtrack really used the soundstage very much. I preferred the Japanese track to the English a bit. It was hard to understand what Gema was saying because of his strange voice in the English track, but the main reason I disliked the dub was because they added an extra syllables on the ends of every sentence. Each person has a unique sound that they add, and it got old really fast. "Wow, that was fun-nyo. What do you want to do next-nyo?" While they do it in the Japanese track too, it's not as noticeable.

Video:

The video was presented with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and it looked pretty good. The colors were very bright and vivid and the image was sharp. There was a little aliasing, but it wasn't significant.

Extras:

Included with the DVD is a sticker sheet with stickers of Puchiko and Piyoko. On the DVD itself there are a good number of extras too. First off is an interview with the Japanese voice cast who mainly talk about how they feel about their characters.  It was a fluff piece, but fun to watch.  Voice actress Hilary Haag who plays Puchiko has a commentary over her second favorite episode.  She started out doing a commentary on her favorite show, but ran out of things to say, so she fell back to her next favorite show.  Hilary gave it a good try, but she really didn't have much to say.  She made some funny comments ("Can you feel the tension?  You can cut it with a knife.") but most of the time she just explains what's happening on screen.  Since the show is only 6 minutes long, it's worth listening to.

There was also a production sketch reel that lasted 5-minutes, in addition to a clean opening and closing. There were also previews to Knights of the Zodiac, Kaleido Star, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Wedding Peach, Azumanga Daioh, and Nuku Nuku TV.

Final Thoughts:

This series is a great kids show.  If you are looking for a lot of deep meaning or sophisticated humor, you should probably try elsewhere, but younger viewers will love the fast pace, bright colors and silly situations.  This second volume worked better than the first one now that the character introductions are over.  A fun disc for young children and those that like silly humor.  Although I wish they had included at least four more mini-episodes on this disc, it is still Recommended.