Nerima Daikon Brothers (おろしたてミュージカル 練馬大根ブラザーズ) is a Japanese manga and anime comedy series that follows the adventures of two brothers (and their cousin) Hideki, Ichiro, and Mako who form the band, "Nerima Daikon Brothers." The show uses a musical comedy format, with the characters often breaking out in song to show their emotions or go through a montage scene. The melodies of the songs are sometimes recycled episode after episode with different lyrics substituted for the particular situation. The musical comedy format is rare in Japanese animation and the show's style is heavily influenced by musicals such as The Blues Brothers and Kollywood musicals such as Muthu. The show was originally licensed by ADV for $124,800 and the first volume was released on DVD in December 2006. In 2008, the show became one of the ADV titles transferred to Funimation Entertainment.

Plot

The trio lives on a stage constructed in Hideki's daikon patch in the Nerima ward of Tokyo. They dream of building a concert dome on the site and performing their musical act to sold-out crowds. They must avoid both an overzealous policewoman who has caught on to their money-making schemes and the desires of powerful people who want to take over the daikon field. The characters are aided in their adventures by the show's director, Shinichi Watanabe, who injects himself (in the form of his Nabeshin character from Excel Saga) into the story as a rental shop owner. The show parodies many famous people and institutions in Japan including Junichiro Koizumi and his political followers; Michael Jackson; the fortune teller Kazuko Hosoki, Star Wars, Host club entertainers among many others. Until recently, anime television series did not make overt jokes about the current news topics like homosexual love, consumer credit, or the success of Korean artists in Japan such as Bae Yong-joon. Nerima Daikon Brothers features overt sexual gags such as in the first episode where a male casting director fondles Ichiro's crotch as he sits there and moans.

Characters

Main cast

Main antagonists

Nabeo Donabesawa Donabenabe Yūkel Hakushon Prime Minister Oizumi

Guest characters

The show's producers used both veteran and up-in-coming voice actors to fill in the guest roles for each weekly episode who were usually the characters who swindled the Brothers out of money. This type of casting has been used in other recent productions by Yoshio Urasawa, the series script writer and series coordinator. Roles are listed by episode number.

Political references

The final episode of the series contains many references and criticisms of politics of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. The episode begins with the cliffhanger from episode 11 where Prime Minister "Oizumi" loudly proclaimed "I will privatize Nerima!" (私は練馬を民営化します!) from the National Diet Building (which is propelled by jet engines high above the city.) Shortly thereafter troops, tanks, aircraft, and even ships begin swarming the (inland) ward forcing the city to privatize. Later he uses a bad pun on the word privatize (民営化): Everyone in agreement will experience the pleasant feeling of a good mood! (皆で ええ感じに いい気分で 快感を味わう) This pun mirror's Koizumi's catch-phrase From public to private (官から民へ) in his goal of privatizing the Japanese postal system. The episode also plays heavily on the Koizumi's "lion" theme. His face is caricatured with a lion nose and lion whiskers. Koizumi gained the nickname because of his lion-like mane of hair. Koizumi and his party have embraced the nickname. Koizumi himself pens an e-mail column called "Lion Heart." His party also produced and marketed a lion-character with Koizumi's face called "Shishiro". The episode features Koizumi's supporters dressed in lion costumes, very similar to Shishiro, who go after the Brothers. In addition, this episode makes reference to several happenings of the 2005 general election. Koizumi called the election after bills to privatize Japan Post were voted down in the upper house. In order to defeat those who had voted against the measure, Koizumi employed "a star-studded cast of female candidates..., now ubiquitously referred to in the national media as Koizumi's assassins (shikoku), [whose] mission [was] to take out the prime minister's political enemies in the old boys' network that long held sway over the LDP." Koizumi had also instructed one of the candidates "to pitch herself to voters as 'the Madonna of reform'." Finally there is the term, "Koizumi children", the "83 new LDP Diet members... [who are] basically a cult of personality, these rookies need a manual to know what to say to the media, and applauded ecstatically during the prime minister's 26 Sep policy speech. These things are heavily referenced in the final episode. Oizumi is flanked by a cast of female Diet members who repeat every word he says. He calls Yūkel and Donabe his "children." And when he needs assistance in taking the daikon field he sends his "assassins", dressed in lion suits, to beat up the hold-outs.

Broadcast and release information

Manga

A manga version was published in Jive's Monthly Comic Rush and was published monthly from December 2005 until May 2006 according to the publisher's website. The manga was drawn by Takamitsu Kondō and conceived by Aniplex and Studio Hibari.

Anime

The series that aired from 2006, 9 January until 2006, 27 March and was originally broadcast of the TV Tokyo system. Various other regional broadcast systems around Japan re-broadcast the show. Because the 30-minute show contains risqué humor it was broadcast at the 1:30 time slot in Tokyo. A live-action music video was produced with the three main voice actors performing the introduction song "Ma Ji Ya Ba" for which a single was released. A two DVD set of the show has been released. A full soundtrack CD of the show's songs is currently being produced. Originally there were 13 episode planned, however, there was only a 12-week slot open for the show on TV Tokyo. The 13th episode was mentioned at the 2006 Tokyo Animation Fair. It was supposed to feature a young venture company president as the target character who tried to acquire the daikon field. (This is reference to Takafumi Horie and his company Livedoor which was in the news with a recent stock scandal.)

Episode titles and ratings

The show was lauded at first for its novelty as a musical anime and gags on taboo topics. However, the ratings began to dive as the series got repetitive due to the reuse of songs in every episode and the quality of the animation declining.

Theme songs

The song debuted on the Oricon rating system at 44. Shigeru Matsuzaki last made the charts in 1978 with "The Ballad of the Lie". The Oricon press release for the song mentions that this is likely the first time that an artist has been made an appearance in the top fifty with a gap of 30 years between songs. ADV's dub includes English versions of the opening and closing themes as well as all songs in every episode. The only exception is the Prime Minister's theme in the final episodes, which was embedded in the Music and Effects track and could not be dubbed. The OP and ED themes are performed in English by Greg Ayres, Christopher Patton and Luci Christian.

Notes and references