Nerima Daikon Brothers

In the town of Nerima, the boisterous Hideki and his stoic brother Ichiro run a daikon radish farm along with Mako, their bubbly but vain cousin. The three dream of raising the money needed to build their own concert hall, where their band—Nerima Daikon Brothers—would perform and hopefully rise to stardom. But their farm and Ichiro's host club job aren't raising money fast enough for their liking, leading them to resort to get-rich-quick schemes.

Their plans usually involve tracking down evil-doers and then stealing their ill-gotten gains. Yet, while they usually do put a stop to the villains, they always end the day no richer than before. However, neither these failures nor interference from the policewoman Yukika Karakuri can come between this trio and their dream! With help from gadgets provided by the rental shop owner Nabeshin, the Nerima Daikon Brothers get themselves into and out of all kinds of ridiculous situations through their boisterous singing and comedy.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ichiro Main

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Mako Main

Niina, Ayano Japanese

Hideki Main

Matsuzaki, Shigeru Japanese

Nabeshin ing

Watanabe, Shinichi Japanese

Pandaikon ing

Karakuri, Yukika ing

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Hakushon, Yuukel ing

Yuuki, Hiro Japanese

Korean Pachinko Parlor Owner ing

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Gokutsubushi ing

Sakamoto, Chika Japanese

Miyo ing

Matsuki, Miyu Japanese

Watanabe, Shinichi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Ebina, Yasunori Sound Director

Saitou, Noriaki Episode Director, Key Animation

Matsuura, Johei Episode Director

Reviews

Mar 3, 2014

gedata

Recommended

For lack of a better comparison (never saw Blues Brothers, and I’m not totally well versed in the Blues as a whole) Nerima Daikon Brothers is kinda the closest we’ve ever gotten to an anime version of Elite Beat Agents, except less dancing and more singing. It’s got a rather simple premise, as it takes place in little town called Nerima and follows a goofy trio of that live on a stage in the middle of a daikon field that’s owned a by the leader of the group, a square-jawed daikon farmer named Hideaki. Oh and their mascot, Pandaikon . He along with his cohorts, ... cousin Mako (the clingy gold digger) and Ichiro (doesn’t seem to care about anything, and oh yeah, he works for a sleazy bar) aim to rake in enough cash to build their own stadium and share their music as the “Nerima Daikon Brothers”, get famous, and become the pride of their city. Most episodes plays out in a rather formulaic path, they normally include get rich quick plots that have the Nerima Daikon Brothers run across rather nasty swindler each episode. The Daikon Bros then take it upon themselves to rid the town of this threat (with the help of a rental object from my favorite afro’d director of course) and get try to get the money they need to fulfill their dreams, the latter failing miserably each time.

The fact that the majority of the humor and story of this show is done through song is what sets this title apart from any other formulaic comedy out there. However, if the term “formulaic” hasn’t been used in this review enough for you to notice, the show’s pretty darn repetitive. One thing worth noting too is that even though this is a musical comedy, the show’s got a rather limited pool of tunes, seriously, it’s got like 5, MAX. They also all play at the same given time each episode. There’s the “I’m the villain and here’s my evil plan” song, the “Mako being a vain bitch” song, the “hey Nabeshin, we’re looking pretty screwed, so give as a random Deus ex Machina to kick some jerk’s ass” song and the “hey we’re the Nerima Daikon Brothers and we’re here to wreck your evil plan and get rich at the same time” song. It’s strange, I honestly suspected that a show this repetitive would’ve worn me down to my last nerve by the time it ended, but it never did. I credit that to the fact that it seemed to me that the show knew which parts to keep the same, and what to change each time in order to keep itself from becoming dull. The length of the series also helps since this is probably the only comedy I liked, finished, and was glad their was never anything more made of it. I’m sure that had it taken another cour of my life, the act would’ve gotten old well before the end.

So what is it that the show did right to preserve the routine? The fact that even though the plot structure and tunes played out similarly each and every episode wasn’t enough to take away from the humorous dialogue and occasional pop-culture reference that we’e different each episode (it has it’s running gags, but these don’t feel overplayed at all and I found them rather funny at least). The fact that the song lyrics we’re always different in order to suit the occasion is what really made this a memorable experience. It also helps that not all the episodes essentially boil down to the same rinse-repeat formula. After the first 3rd or so, the show tosses in police babe Widget who adds her own set of unique quirks to the show (including a romance with a Pandaikon of all things) and a new song, which is something I appreciate given the aforementioned lack of tunes.

The last third of the show also puts a stop to the episodic shenanigans in favor of taking a bit more of serious look at what the Daikon Bros are willing to do accomplish their dreams. It’s great to see a comedy take itself a bit seriously without losing sight of what made it fun to begin with, and that’s something Nerima Daikon Brothers got right….for the most part. The actual ending was a bit too random rushed and anticlimatic for my tastes. Weird to comment on a comedy not having a satisfying ending, I know, but given that the show was actually doing a story arc reasonably well beforehand, I think it’s still worth mentioning. That and the fact that the show also shoehorns in some political commentary into it’s humor a bit too. That’s all fine and dandy, but good luck catching that humor if you don’t have a good understanding of the political arena of 2006 Japan.

Last thing I want to bring attention too is the dub/sub comparison. I personally dig the radical script changes (and in Mako’s case, character change since she’s pretty much turned into stereotypical dumb trailer trash in the dub, and it works) Can’t really comment too much on the Japanese version since I never saw much of it, but I’ve seen enough to know that with each versions you get different jokes, which lends the show some rewatchability. I personally preferred watching the dub version since during the end credits, the actors thank you for buying the show. You can’t beat that.

So yeah, it’s a pretty good comedy I’d say. Just don’t marathon it, something tells me that given the nature of the show, this ain’t something you’d want to watch in large doses. Also best to stay away if you don’t like Nabeshin stuff too, or object to having catchy tunes reverberate in your head. Most importantly, stay away if you just so happen to hate fun things.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 1, 2010

Colonelfancy

Mixed Feelings

I really respect Watanabe Shinichi for what he does as far as being an active face and voice in the anime community, advising fans to buy anime DVDs and manga instead of stealing them via torrent and scanalations, but I haven't enjoyed any of his work all the way through. Excel Saga was great, but got old near the end, and I hated Poemy from minute one. Nerima Daikon Brothers is the third Nabashin related work I've seen thus far, and this one is sliightly better, but suffers from the same problems.
The comedy is pretty much what can be expected; an insane ... vault of madness with little rhyme or reason. And it works great at first. I pretty much loved all the parodies featured, even if I'm not native Japan and don't get 98% of the cultural references. The English dub is pretty damn funny, and worth checking out. I think it's Greg Ayers at his best. The songs are enjoyable, until midway through the show, then they begin recycling instrumentals and juggling mildly different lyrics.
And that's precisly the problem with Nabashin's style of humor. Aside from it being foul-mouthed and crude (which i can deal with), the show is seriously repetitious with the jokes it cycles. It became unfunny to me around episode 6 and becomes pretty mediocore from there out. The wackiness gets really predictable and I was lulled into a state of calling which song numbers were going to start before they were even cued. That style of comedy is very sketch-based, which means it's lifespan is not very long. Thankfully, it's only twelve episodes, so I found the fortitude to sit through the remaining four episodes I had on DVD for three years, hoping that the jokes I got tired of would be somewhat refreshed when I back into it. Not really so much.
The characters are pretty vibrant and off-the-wall, my favorite is easily Officer Yukika, who kept the show very enjoyable throught the end. Hideki, Mako, and Ichiro are decent, but become overbearingly annoying on a South Park level, as there's only two jokes between the three of them. The villians are episodic, but the bad guy in the very first episode was just so terrible I found it awesome. Every other villian afterward gets progressively more suggestive and borders on trying too hard to push boundries that it gets sad.
IN CLOSING: What starts out as a really fresh comedy, something that is drastically lacking in anime today, turns into a double entandre-filled, genitalia referencing, one liners and predictable, bland toilet humor that caters to this generation's Family Guy audience. In my book, only Great Teacher Onizuka and Azumanga Daioh have managed insane humor for 26 episodes or more because of clever writing, various characters to write jokes around, and a solid set of scenarios to keep you watching. Watanabe's humor work best in short bursts. For a pioneer who does a great job promoting retail purchases to keep anime a viable revolving door for entertainment, it's a shame that I really don't like his stuff. Fans and followers will love it, I prefer a tad more substance in my comedy and not flash in the pan jokes that garner shock laughter.

STORY: 6
ART: 7
SOUND: 7
CHARACTERS: 6
ENJOYMENT: 4
OVERALL SCORE: 5 out of 10

PROS: A musical comedy is rare these days, pretty good dub,
CONS: Gets old fast, humor is overall really low brow and cheap

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 21, 2018

Seregosa

Not Recommended

Preliminary (4/12 eps)

It's one of those fairly rare anime that I find to be bad enough to drop quickly... Since anime tends to be just 12-24 episodes which can be watched quickly and without having to care much(unlike, say, novels that I also often read and can take days or weeks to finish even if you read several hours a day). Feeling like dropping it in episode one, with that feeling just getting worse until I drop it at episode four... Yeah, that's just plain horrible.

First of all, the art is the only fairly good part of this anime. Not too shabby, especially not for its age. ... The sound is poor, which is an issue in an anime that relies so heavily on singing or "musicals". The characters are all unlikable, the main cast consists of one obnoxious ingrate that spends way too much money, one character that condones this because he's in love with her(which is used against him to steal his money) and who seems to be retarded in more ways than one, the last person of the main cast is a fairly soulless and quiet "pretty boy" that somehow seems to be the most intelligent, but the only reason he's somewhat likable is exactly because he's too bland to be disliked in this type of story, he's got nothing much to offer.

Every episode is full to the brim with bad singing. Seriously, they start singing and dancing every minute because of every small detail imaginable, effectively dragging a very small issue out too long and overdramatizing things. The singing isn't even done well, although I guess that's obvious when you make shoddy half-arsed songs out of everyday dialogue. When I picked this up, I imagined that there'd be 1-2 songs per episode, because that honestly seems to be the maximum possible in 20 minutes. Nah, prepare for 5-10 songs at least. It's honestly dreadful and very annoying after a few episodes whenever they start singing, because it literally brings nothing good to the anime itself. It's not as if their songs are particularly funny or good in other ways, it's just there to be there. This might've been the deciding factor to make me drop it so quickly.

That brings me to the next part, which is comedy. The comedy in this anime is... horrible. It's not good at all. At most I found a few parts to be somewhat amusing, but in the way this show rapid-fires gags every second, it's like one out of a hundred jokes is funny. The rest is just... boring and makes you question the writers sense of humor. Of course a few jokes will hit home when you try a few hundred of them. It's more like they didn't even think about what they were writing and just added every possible thing anyone in the writing team could think of. "Oh, this seems to be slightly amusing, let's add it!". The main component in the comedy here seems to be about how hyperactive they are to start dancing/singing all the time and how they exaggerate small issues to big ones. Oh, and how they blow stuff up at the end of an episode to steal money from "bad people". So, maybe you're the type who thinks it's hilarious when people do that, this could be the anime for you.

To finish thing off, let's talk a little bit about the story. To me, this was the worst part of it all. There's no story at all here and everything is way too chaotic to make sense. Mind you, I came here expecting a story-less gag/slapstick anime. I just didn't expect it to be bad to this extent. Usually you have a fairly interesting setting at least and some basic story to let things make sense. But here you have absolutely nothing and the story is one of the most boring ones I've ever seen. It's episodic and the same thing happens every chapter. They get tricked of their money or something similar and then they blow things up thanks to nabeshins alley store which provides weapons or similar stuff. The setting is just that they're three people with a daikon farm who wants to be famous singers/a famous band and wants to build a dome they can sing in, at least one of them want that while the rest seems to just hop onboard. The comedy routines got old after the first try, sorry, but that's just how it is. This setting isn't good enough to provide proper comedy. Nothing really happens or makes proper sense in this anime. It doesn't help that all the characters are lacking or annoying.

I was fairly disappointed since that afro guy's gag anime tends to be pretty amusing and well done with humor that hits home pretty often. Maybe it's the setting, cast and incessant musicals that prevents him from working his magic here. Or it could just be me who doesn't appreciate a cast like this nor when the cast starts singing badly every few seconds.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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