Sunabôzu

The Desert Punk, the Demon of the Desert, the Kanto Desert's Number One Mercenary, Sunabozu is the pint-sized protagonist of this series. Desert Punk is the "hero" only because he's the lead character. Chasing after women and money are his entire life and he intends to get both through being the best mercenary, do-any-job handyman in post-apocalyptic Japan.

The character is unique in that he will become obsessed with something at the drop of that hat, but that characteristic is not the standard deus ex machina that writers usually use it as. He'll obsess over a gun, get the gun, and lose the gun and it won't have to do much with the plot. Obsessing over jobs gets him nearly killed several times, such as obsessing over destroying a tank so much that he attacks with with nothing but a knife after several failed attempts.

Anatomical and gross out humor are very common in the series, but funny. I expanded my vocabulary for slang for breasts by watching this, even noting a "Tits McGee" reference from Anchorman.

If you like your heroes callous and immature, yet still adventurous and exciting, this is the series for you. Harder edged than Lupin III, but softer than Hellsing. I know that's a weird location, but that's where the tone of the series lands. Orphans are sold and toilets are blown up, but hey...

that's life in the Kanto Desert.

Desert Punk revolves around the titular mercenary, who will do anything (for a price) so he can to get by in the harsh post-apocalyptic Kanto desert.

The art is well done, there aren't many grand vistas in the desert so for what they provided, the art team made the scenery interesting. The animation is really nothing to write home about, not terrible not fantastic.

One of the strongest features of the show is definitely it's strong cast of supporting characters, all of whom contribute to the plot and have interesting/entertaining interactions with each other. The main character, with Desert Punk, is notable for being just an all around selfish asshole, sculpted by the unforgiving desert, with literally no redemptive qualities.

DP draws similarities to Lupin III, of whom I am a fan of, in that they are operatives with unmatched talent. This is when the show shines, Desert Punk in action. Watching him execute his plans and use his wits is when I found myself enjoying the show the most. However, there is a good amount of fluff that you have to wade through to get to these parts.

The plot was well paced on a whole. Starting with a few one offs to introduce the characters, the overarching story that appears in the later half of the series is well put together, making use of callbacks to previous one offs and such.

I didn't much care for the frankly obnoxious sidekick character, too much of a Determinator. DP's over the top obsession with boobs (to a very close to rape-y extent) was something that I was willing to overlook until it was dragged out to the extent that it was and made it off putting. Otherwise, the visuals are acceptable and the story shines brightly when it gets serious but is bogged down by the aforementioned fluff, and DP is a interesting take on what a protagonist is (ie. insane and cruel to the weak).

This show is pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it.

Plot - From episode 1 to around episode 20, this show is made up of funny, entertaining, and mostly self-contained stories. There are some elements that carry on from episode to episode, but there isn't much of an overarching plot. That works really well. Unfortunately, from episode 21 to episode 24, they try to shove in a complex plot that is way too underdeveloped to work. If this plot had been established much earlier on, then it would've been fine. The problem is that is way too rushed and ends up being boring. If you watch this show, I'd recommend stopping before you hit episode 21.

Characters - Everyone is well-written and entertaining. I'm not saying that these are people I'd like to spend time with, but they are believable and fun to watch.

Audio - The music for this show is great. When they change the theme song halfway through its ok. Nowhere near as good as the initial music for the opening and closing credits, but still decent. The voice acting is also great. Everyone is clearly into their roles.

Visuals - The opening theme song for the first half is live action, but the rest is animated. The animation and character designs and sets are all great. This show looks really good.

First off, if you buy the DVD's, switch the voices over to Japanese and put the subtitles on as you would with most imports. Occasionally, you stumble across a reasonably good dub, but this one just isn't close enough to be quite as enjoyable as the original, IMHO. The original Japanese voice actors did a remarkable job giving the characters quite a bit of depth, and the English VAs just came across as flat. The title translation to "Desert Punk" is an odd translation of the original title as well (Sunabozu meaning, roughly, "Sand Monk".) Masked by silly, decidedly adult humor is a reasonably original story and plot. The setting has a bit of a Trigun-like feel to it, but probably more of a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic basis.

However, the real strength of the show is the hero, Sunabozu. Mizuna Kanta/Sunabozu is probably one of the most interesting antihero-type characters I've seen in anime. Unlike the typical "powerful hero rising up to fight evil overlord" types that dominate Japanese animation, you have a character that is the quintessential survivor. He is a true rogue. He's egotistical, cunning, virtually amoral, and incredibly selfish. A thoroughly disgusting person. However, he's also incredibly insightful, quick-witted, and a remarkably entertaining character through and through. The comparisons with Lupin The Third are shallow, and mainly based solely on both characters' similar woman preferences. Lupin was mainly motivated by money and large-breasted women, and while on the surface that seems to be the same case with Mizuna Kanta, there's a lot more to it than that, and his character is unraveled throughout the course of the series.

The character designs are very different than your typical Japanese fare...instead of everyone looking very pretty in the typical anime way, you have real diversity here. There are a smattering of highly attractive people mixed in with generally plain to ugly folks everywhere. In a lot of ways, this gives it a greater sense of realism, while defining characters a lot more clearly (you can immediately sense who the suckers are, who the pretty boys are, who the bad guys are, and which women Sunabozu will attempt to bribe into having sex with him right off the bat). For those who are bored with the typical eye candy, the artwork and character designs are very refreshing.

The opening and ending music initially seem like very odd choices, but they fit the series. There's a lot about Sunabozu that just works, if you question it, then you probably just don't get it yet. It's a series that balances humor with a deeper message of individuality and freedom in an incredibly adroit way...unlike the aforementioned Trigun, which just shifted gears halfway through from humor to maudlin mode. You can't go into this one thinking that it's chauvinistic as well...as you will see, the humor applies to men as well.

I've seen this anime several times over in both subbed format and dubbed over the years. Mostly any chance I get to show somebody who's never seen it I take the chance to watch it again. I never get sick of it and love taking the chance to show someone an anime they may have never heard of because it was largely left in the dust in time.

The interesting part to me is the cast who is incredibly entertaining to watch and likeable despite upon further inspection most of the characters are objectively not the typical kind of people you would root for. They are portrayed as terrible people yet you can't help but root for them, especially the main character with all his many flaws and poor characteristics.

As well as being an interesting blend of post apocalypse and comedy it also has its moments that still to this day leave me in tears as well as some others I've shown it to. The soundtrack specifically hits really hard during these moments but overall is very jazzy and high energy, most notably the opening, which is one of my favorites in general.

My only gripe with the show as a whole is the ending, I will not say or even elude to what happens but it suffers from the situation of "We made an anime before the manga finished." dilemma. Which is fair as the manga did not finish until a whopping 15 years after the anime finished airing. (October of 2020)