There are a lot of anime based on sports, but the first golf show to make it to region one is a kid's program, Dandoh.  This second volume, like the first, is unlike other sports anime.  It doesn't aim to explain the rules of the sport and show the work involved, it tries to teach fair play and the value of friendship.  Because of this, there's not as much drama or suspense as one would expect.

Series background:

Tadamichi Aoba, or Dandoh as his friends all call him, loves to play baseball.  One afternoon after breaking the principle's bonsai plant, the administrator extolls the virtues of golf to the young kid.  Dandoh isn't that interested in the game until he learns that golf pros can make millions of dollars.  At that moment he decides to become the best golfer in Japan.  He wants the money so that he can locate his mother, who he's never seen.

Along with his two best friends Yuka and Kohei, Dandoh starts practicing even though his father is violently opposed to the boy playing golf.  By a fortunate accident, Dandoh and company bump into Shinjo.  He's was a very gifted golf player who had to quit the game after a car accident, and agrees to coach the trio.  Soon after starting lessons though, Dandoh and his friends are teased by a bully.  In Dandoh's anger, he agrees to enroll in the Kumamoto Junior Championships in order to prove that he has a talented coach.  There's only two weeks until the tournament though, so they trio practices as much as they can.

Dandoh and his friends all place highly in the tournament, and that means that they qualify for the Championship Junior Tournament.

This volume:

In the Juniors, Dandoh runs into the same problem he had in the previous tournament:  people cheating on him and trying to get him disqualified.   Tachi Suon is his rival in this game.  This kid taunts Dandoh by calling him "little brother" and cheats on every hole.  He puts grease on his clubs  to make the ball roll farther and steps on Dandoh's ball while no one is looking.  Even with Tachi's condescending manner though, Dandoh act like they're the best of friends.  He tries to encourage Tachi to do better, but that only makes him cheat even more.  Even though he's had his clubs tampered with and gets some unlucky breaks, Dandoh continues to make some amazing, and incredibly unrealistic, shots.

Competition on the course isn't the only thing Dandoh has to worry about either.  The head of the club where they are playing, Chairman Tasaki, hates Dandoh's father and wants to disqualify the son just for spite.  He sends out a man to spy on Dandoh and find some small rule infraction, just so Dandoh can be thrown out to the tournament.  Watching the young prodigy play though, this spy starts to admire Dandoh's inmate skill and good sportsmanship.  Can he really turn in such a talented player?

I really enjoy sports anime, but this show isn't like that others.  Every other sports based show has the hero persevere through hard work, long practices, and dedication to their sport.  In this show though, Dandoh never practices.  He relies on some mysterious innate, nearly magical, talent.

Another difference is that others sports anime spend a lot of time discussing the rules, strategy and problems associated with the sport, which in turn makes the show worth watching.  Dandoh doesn't really do this.  The show really fails to make the game interesting.  The strategy and tactics that go into golf are glossed over.  They don't define a lot of terms, explain the use of the clubs, or even list a lot of the rules.  I don't play golf, and I was confused in parts.

The worse part thing is that this show isn't grounded in reality as it should be.  This series doesn't even try to be realistic.  There are some really stupid shots that could never be made in real life, no matter how talented a player is.  Dandoh's ball falls off a six foot cliff and into about a foot of water.  Instead of declaring the ball dead, the young boy hits the ball out of the water, up the cliff, over the rough, and onto the green.  Later, a ball lands inches from a tree that's blocking the cup.  Instead of taking two shots to get around the tree, Dahdoh hits the ball vertically up the side of the tree and over it, landing the ball mere inches from the cup.

Even though there are many flaws with this show, it's not all bad.  Dandoh, though he's a flat two dimensional character, is likeable enough and they manage to eek out a little drama over the course of the show.  The program comes across as light entertainment and if you don't think about it too much it can be enjoyable.

Oh yeah, be sure to watch the end of the "next episode" bits.  At the very end of each episode they have a golf ball with a character's face on it and a voice over.  Some of these are so bizarre that they are humorous.

This volume includes the next 8 episodes of the series on two DVDs.  The pair of discs come in a clear single width case with one DVD on each side.

Note:  My copy of the this volume had a defect.  The disc would freeze up just before episode 17.  (You can chapter skip past the error and rewind to see most of the episode.)  I assume that this was an error only in my copy, and I've contacted Bandai for another copy to confirm that.  I'll update this review when the second disc arrives.

Audio:

Viewers have the choice of watching this show in the original Japanese or an English dub, both in stereo.  I alternated between tracks as I watched the show and both sounded good, though I preferred the original soundtrack slightly.  The English actors did a good job and their voices fit the characters well.  There weren't any obnoxious phoney accents either, something that I was glad to hear.  Both tracks were free from distortion and other audio defects.  There are also optional English subtitles, or sign only subs.

Video:

The full frame video also looked good.  The lines were tight and the colors were solid.  The image was a little jerky when it came to pans across static images, but not distractingly so.  Digital defects are very minimal with even aliasing being very minor.  Overall a good looking show.

Extras:

The only extras that are included in this set are clean opening and closings.

Final Thoughts:

This is a show aimed at younger viewers, so you shouldn't expect a typical sports show.  Not nearly as interesting as other sports anime, Dandoh doesn't have much charm or the engaging characters that the genre is noted for.  The story is a little stupid, and a lot of it is unrealistic, but the show isn't all bad.  There are a few amusing moments and some fun exchanges.  This volume would make a good rental.