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"Wandaba Style A Go!"
A 12-episode Comedy Anime about a group of singers shooting for the moon, literally. Michael Hanagata, manager of Mix Juice, an Idol group trying to make it big, strikes a deal with Teen Genius Susumu Tsukumo, who believes that man has never actually landed on the moon. He plans to change all that with his eco-friendly experiments, using Mix Juice as his pilots. Once on the moon, Mix Juice will give a concert, a publicity stunt that will rocket the girls to stardom! Or that's the plan, anyway. More often than not, Susumu's experiments (dubbed "Wandabas") end up being derailed by a minor detail, when the girls don't cause them to fail with their squabbling.
Things get messy in the second half, when Susumu's mother arrives on the scene and challenges her son to see which of them can get to the moon first.
Mix Juice consists of:
Himawari Natsuwa: An Enka singer.
Yuri Fuyude: A Rock singer.
Ayame Akimo: A Folk singer.
Sakura Haruno: A Nursery singer.
Tropes used in Wandaba Style include:
- Anime Hair
- Anime Theme Song
- Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Episode 11
- Big Red Button: Susumu launches his experiments by pushing a large button labeled "Wandaba."
- Battle Cry: "Wandaba Style A Go!" ("Wandaba Style is go!" in the dub.)
- Bratty Half-Pint: Sakura
- Canada, Eh?: Susumu's father lives in Canada.
- The Chew Toy: Michael Hanagata
- Cool Garage: Many deliberate shout-outs to Thunderbirds here. Susumu's lab is Tracy Island only even sillier.
- Clothing Damage: In episode seven.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Ayame
- Combat Tentacles: Sachiko in Episode eleven.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Teen Genius Susumu adamantly believes that the 1969 moon landing was fake, and is thus trying to get a rocket there himself (using environmentally safe methods).
- Cool Big Sis: Yuri
- Disappeared Dad: Susumu's dad
- Dreadful Musician: Ayame in her first appearance doesn't sing very well. This is the only time, though.
- Evil Matriarch: Furoku
- Eyecatch: With voiceover that is different every time and often a joke. ("Wandaba Style is go!" "Go where?")
- Fan Service
- For Science!: Susumu's mother's rationale.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Furoku
- Four-Girl Ensemble
- Funny Afro: Michael Hanagata. And his entire family.
- Girl Group
- Gonk: The "Mr. Fairies" that only Ayame can see are shown as small-ish, green, bald, musclebound men with wings.
- Guinea Pig Family: When the girls traveled to the past, they learned that Susumu's mother sent her husband on a rocket to space when Susumu was just a boy.
- Hairy Hammerspace: Michael Hanagata keeps his cellphone in his afro.
- Helium Speech: The girls (and Kiku) get this in episode three, and it doesn't wear off until halfway through the next episode.
- Heavy Voice: In episode six, when the girls gain weight, their voices get deeper, too.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Ayame is voiced by Chiwa Saito (Becky from Pani Poni Dash!), Michael Hanagata is voiced by Susumu Chiba (Hiroki on Ultra Maniac, Yuri from Kaleido Star), Furoku is voiced by Akemi Okamura (Nami on One Piece, Risa on Lovely Complex).
- Idol Singer
- Imaginary Friend: The "Mr. Fairies" that only Ayame can see.
- Informed Ability: The girls of Mix Juice each sing in a different genre, yet when they sing together, they sound like every other Idol Group out there.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Kiku#8
- The Jeeves: Ichirin, despite being a modified bike.
- Limited Wardrobe: The girls spend the first half of the series wearing sweatsuits, and are given new outfits when those finally wear out, which they wear for the rest of the series.
- Little Miss Snarker: Sakura
- Meganekko: Ayame
- Medium Awareness: In Episode 7, the title flies out of Michael's hair, and he says "No way! It was in there?"
- Miracle-Gro Monster: Sachiko
- My Beloved Smother: Susumu's mother's motivation for her actions toward her son in the second half of the series.
- Name's the Same: Sakura Haruno?
- Nerd Glasses: Susumu wore a pair at a party, while everyone else wore Groucho Marx Glasses.
- No Longer with Us: The girls observe Susumu's dad go on an ill-fated mission to the moon, and assume he didn't survive the trip. Turns out he just spent five years in space before coming back to earth.
- Numerical Theme Naming: Susumu's last name is spelled with the kanji for ninety-nine, hence why his labcoat has 99 on the back. Kiku is usually referred to as Kiku No. 8, since she is the eighth satellite Susumu created.
- Older Than They Look: Despite looking like a little kid, Sakura is actually the oldest of the girls.
- Our Fairies Are Different
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: Too much power turned a warp engine into a Time Machine.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: In the second episode.
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: The reason why Susumu's experiments fail, usually.
- The Professor: Susumu
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Mix Juice, both as a singing group and as Wandaba pilots.
- Satellite Girl: Kiku#8
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Susumu's mom wears these.
- Scenery Censor
- Strong Family Resemblance: Susumu and his mom have nearly the same hairstyle, and they both wear glasses, though not the same type (Susumu's glasses were more similar to his mom's when he was younger, though.)
- The Short Guy with Glasses: Susumu
- So Proud of You: Susumu's father tells his wife to tell their son this.
- Sorry I Left the BGM On: Susumu never tells the girls they are about to fly, but they figure it out when they hear a gong, music, and chanting. ("Wan-daba daba, wandabadabaaa...")
- Team Shot: The page image.
- Teen Genius: 13-year-old Susumu.
- Temporary Bulk Change: In episode six, the girls are shown to have gained a substantial amount of weight, due to not having anything to do while Susumu is in a slump. They lose most of it by the next scene.
- Theme Naming: All the girls are named after flowers.
- They Don't Make Them Like They Used To: Susumu does his calculations on a slide rule and uses ancient measurements (shoku and kan, for example).
- True Companions: The girls and Susumu by the end of the series.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: Happens to Hanagata Once an Episode.
- Wayback Trip: In episode 6, the girls accidently travel back in time and interact with young Susumu, which has no effect on the present whatsoever.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sakura, Himawari, and Yuri all have phobias that make traveling in space difficult: Yuri is afraid of heights, Sakura can't stand being in the dark, and Himawari worries about running out of air. These were only touched on in a couple of episodes, though.