Anime: Panda-Z The Robonimation

This would be a strong case for conveying air guitar over HTTP.

Panda Z is beyond nifty. It has something for nearly everyone(who matters) and manages to excel itself in a baffling number of ways.

So long as you overlook the fact it is for short people.
and it's a "silent" animation
and a few other shortcomings, as I shall now elaborate.

This is a vector graphic animation. One person could possibly animate one episode per week with access to and experience of Macromedia® Flash (which I have been reliably informed is exactly what happened). This is essentially a nice way of saying that the animation is done with digital cardboard cutouts. But despite that, it actually works quite well. The simplicity keeps everything fresh.

Sound I am unfortunately biased on, so as is fitting, I'll say everything thats wrong with it first.

There are no voice actors
ergo
there is no spoken dialog.

The music regularly has bass out the backside, so if your speakers are prone to be suddenly turned up without your prior knowledge, you WILL disturb your neighbors.

that's it.

THE MUSIC ROCKS.

This alone convinced the cross section of 4-10 year olds I showed it to that rock is a good thing. This is especially demonstrated by episode 2's backing, as no small amount of skill went into pulling that sort of guitar work.

Going back to the kiddy cross section, that's what this is for, sadly. It is designed front and centre to be amusement for small bodies and proportionate minds. There is a story, and for who it's for, it's alright, but it is nothing revolutionary.

A bit more is accomplished with character development/interaction, but not much. Admittedly, the fact they managed to actually convey personality through animation alone is worthy of great praise.

I have re"watched" episode 2 easily 400 times over the three(?) years i've had the rip. Indeed, it was Ep 2 that suckered in the kiddy cross section in the first place. Thats what this is really. If you have some small and important-to-you people you want to gently introduce to Animoo (without going mainstream) this is for you. You might even agree with me on the music, who knows.

As for enjoyment, its 30 episodes, each spanning 5 minutes, with an average of 3 minutes intro/ending overhead. So you can watch the whole thing in about an hour.

and that hour will be well spent. It is discounted storage space amusement, with a few technical triumphs.

Even the DVD boxset is nifty, but the single articulated giant panda robot is not worth 50 DVD-Rs.

so in summation:
do not bother paying money for it
get several pairs of headphones
find some cute relatives who could use some enlightenment
shake
enjoy.