There's been a lot of hype surrounding Space Dandy . Not only is the brand new show from both Bones (the studio behind Eureka Seven , Fullmetal Alchemist  and more) and Shinichirō Watanabe (director of Cowboy Bebop , amongst others), it's also storming new ground by being simultaneously released in Japan and dubbed in the US on Adult Swim's Toonami block. It's not the first show to have ever received a dub the same time as its Japanese airing, but this sort of creative talent behind it its certainly the one to get the most attention. But all this effort isn't going to go very far if the show falls flat on its face on the first hurdle, so was the first episode any good?

Based on the manga series by Jinsei Kataoka, Deadman Wonderland  is a science-fiction/horror drama with a particularly interesting premise. Taking content from the first 21 chapters of the manga, it ran for 12 episode (with one side OVA) between April and July 2011. Ganta Igarashi is the sole survivor of a mass murder by the "red man", who burst into his school one day and violently murdered all of his classmates. Instead of killing Ganta, the red man thrusts a red crystal into his chest, knocking him unconscious in the process. When he awakens in hospital, Ganta finds he is the sole suspect of the murder. Set up by his own defence lawyer, he is sentenced to death and incarcerated at Deadman Wonderland, a massive prison set up like a theme park. Ganta Igarashi is blamed for a crime he didn't commit Inmates of Deadman Wonderland are fitted with a special collar, which monitors their life signs and kills them in three days unless they eat a special piece of cand...