Popotan

Original Title: ぽぽたん
Romanized: Popotan
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Three sisters--the maternal Ai, the teenage tomboy Mai, and the bubbly kid Mii--have an unusual lifestyle: They live in a mansion that doubles as a Christmas shop with their maid, Mea. This mansion, in turn, periodically vanishes, taking the family to another place years later in time. As they travel seemingly at random, Ai uses her ability to speak with plants to ask dandelions if they've seen the mysterious person who they are seeking. While their search continues they do their best to live normal lives and help the people they meet, though they may never see them again.

Quick Review

Rating: 0.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2009-03-28

There's bad anime, and then there's Popotan: intelligence-sapping, toned-down hentai made up of a laundry list of every fanservice category and fetish you can think of. Technically it has a plot--Quantum Leap with no backstory, exposition, logic, or point and a whole lot of stupid--but other than a couple of episodes that might be dramatically effective if the characters weren't naked half the time it's basically about as sugar-coated and inane as anime gets. It's also got a lot of borderline pedophilia just in case the concept of a show with near-hentai-grade content and stories targeted at six-year-old girls wasn't disturbing enough. And no, though it knows how depraved it is and on rare occasions is mildly amusing, it's not a parody. If you do manage to sit through the whole thing, you'll discover there's absolutely no explanation or point waiting at the end, though that's not much of a surprise.

About fanservice first, creepy pedophile-service second, and absolutely nothing third, Popotan's most memorable quality is that it's a TV series with wall-to-wall nudity and some sort of leering upskirt shot for most of what's left. How this got made, I don't really want to know, but please don't encourage whoever did it by watching it.

US DVD Review

The DVDs are standard Geneon productions with bright, clean anamorphic widescreen video, though the video is marred a bit by some odd mottling in rich red areas (Mea's hair, in particular). The sound comes in English or Japanese stereo, and the subtitles are largely accurate, though there are a few minor nuance issues when they're discussing when and where they are that stop me from calling it spot-on. There's also a subtitle track of just the sign translations. Extras consist of creditless openings and endings, plus some art galleries. The boxes go with the theme of the game Popotan is based on; each has a "regular" character picture on the front, then a matching image with the same pose but some adjustment to make it dirtier on the booklet. The covers are also two-sided; the back has a similar pair of regular/dirty images for a different character that you can see through the clear case (or reverse it if you prefer).

Content Guide

Gratuitous nudity at every turn, some additional mature themes on occasion, and enough blithe borderline-pedophilia to offend nearly anyone. Geneon calls it 16-up, though I probably would have gone with 18-up (I love that the box actually says "Excessive Nudity" by the rating).

Violence: 1 - There are a couple of rather surprisingly brutal fights.

Nudity: 4 - Undetailed but in spectacular volume.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Mostly limited to shallow breast jokes, but there is some strongly implied sex in one episode.

Language: 1 - Little of note in the subtitles.

Notes and Trivia

Popotan is very loosely based on a much more explicitly adults-only PC and PS2 game that's essentially a visual novel-style dating sim. In terms of plot and setting the game and its world have almost nothing to do with the anime other than a shared set of characters (except for the game's protagonist, Chris, who doesn't exist in the largely romance-free anime). There was also a pair of novels and, much later, a manga adaptation.

Incidentally, if you're trying to convince yourself that Mii isn't supposed to be seen sexually, she's the dirtiest of the characters in the game. Nice try, though.

The game does explain where the big abstract pointy thing that appears over the mansion before it vanishes comes from. The game is set in the distant future near a city with a giant dandelion-thing stuck in it. That object is the silhouette in the anime, though due to the totally unrelated plots that doesn't actually help it make any sense.

Popotan takes its name from the Japanese word for dandelion, "tanpopo," said mostly-backwards (presumably to increase the cuteness).

A short clip of the characters dancing from the game's opening paired with the Euro-technopop song Caramelldansen was apparently something of a YouTube phenomenon for a while.

Availability

Available in North America from Geneon on three bilingual DVDs.

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